Network Meeting Tampere (Spring 2019)
Sunday 12 May 2019 - Monday 13 May 2019
NETLIPSE Network Meeting Tampere (Spring 2010)
The 26th NETLIPSE Network Meeting took place in Tampere, Finland on the 13th and 14th of May2018. First of all we would like to thank our host the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (Väylä) for making these very successful days possible!
We hope to see you all at the next Network Meeting on 28th - 28th of October 2019!
NETLIPSE Management Team
info@netlipse.eu
>> Please, scroll down for the summary, presentations and photos!
Day 1: Monday, May 13th
NETLIPSE chairman Hans Ruijter (Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands) opens the 26th Network Meeting in Tampere with special thanks to our host of the event: the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency (FTIA, Väyla). We have a very interactive programme planned, including group discussions, parallel sessions, a short site visit and a walking tour. In total there are 55 delegates from 12 countries present, resulting in interesting discussions.
After a video of current Finnish infrastructure projects, General Director Kari Wihlman (Väyla) welcomes all NETLIPSE delegates in Tampere. He elaborates on important trends in infrastructure projects, such as digitalisation and technological development. Furthermore, Väyla has an important role in stimulating sustainable transport and reducing climate impact and emissions.
Mauri Mäkiaho (Väyla) presents the 2018 IPMA Global Project Excellence Award winning tunnel project in the middle of Tampere city, the Rantatunneli Road tunnel. The key success factors of the project are, among others: the type of leadership, transparency, innovative risk management, ideas and innovations, systematic processes and early integration. The project not only completed 6 months ahead of schedule, the safety was excellent and the quality and public image were also very good. After the presentation there is an interesting discussion on contract incentives, bonuses, alliances and good leadership.
During this “Finnish morning”, Terhi Honkarinta (Väyla) present the Hailuoto Causeway PPP-project in the North of Finland. She provides an overview of all elements of the project: the technical and environmental challenges, the contracting and procurement strategy and the financial and organisational structure. After a snowy movie, there is a discussion on the choice for PPP, on maintenance contracts, the opinion of the public, outsourcing and knowledge management.
After the coffee break, Aivar Jaeski (RB Rail AS, Estonia) explains the EU funded cross-border Rail Baltica project: a missing link between the Baltic states and the rest of Europe. The € 5.8 billion project leads not only to travel time improvements, but also has many environmental benefits. An important part of the Rail Baltica is the Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel (Finest Link). The main challenges of Rail Baltica are the complexity of the organisation (there are many different stake- and shareholders involved) and the opposition from Estonian inhabitants and politics. We continue with another cross border tunnel project: the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link. Jens Ole Kaslund (Femern A/S, Denmark) elaborates on this missing link on another one of the TEN-T corridors. Apart from the technical, planning, tendering and contractual characteristics, Jens Ole explains several differences between Denmark and Germany: e.g. regarding procedures, requirements, the approval process and politics. After both presentations, there is an interesting discussion on cultural differences in cross-border projects, political issues, the tolling system and coping with a different pace for approval procedures in different countries.
After lunch we have a short walk to the project location of the Tampere City Tramway Alliance Project to have a look at their “Big Room”. Antti Haukka (City of Tampere, Finland) presents the project characteristics and explains the alliance organisation. Afterwards there is an interesting discussion on collaboration, working in the so-called Big Room and the applied working methods, such as the planning system, the different roles agreed on during meetings and the working principles (‘help each other’, ‘open book’).
After this interesting visit, Per-Olov Karlsson (NETLIPSE ambassador, Sweden) opens the group discussion on Early Warning Signals. He presents an overview of cost overruns in projects and poses the question: why do LIPs so often exceed their budgets? After this introduction three perspectives are presented. First, Prof. Konrad Spang (University of Kassel, Germany) presents a research perspective on Early Warning Signals (EWS) and asks the audience several questions: why are tools for EWS not used and why do people not act on EWS? He noticed that we should connect our ‘gut feelings’ to tools: there are many tools, but they are often not used. Alexander Molnár (Ministry of Transport, Construction and Regional Development, Slovakia) is next and provides a practical perspective based on three Slovakian road projects. He describes nine EWS in the tender and construction phase, based on an evaluation of these three projects. And finally, Mauri Mäkiaho provides a Finnish perspective on EWS based on the Letke project, where a so-called Market Entry Contract was used. Afterwards we have an interesting panel discussion on dealing with EWS: do you evaluate afterwards to learn for future projects or to you adapt your organisation to react directly on signals? Furthermore, we discuss the fact that the client and contractor often blame each other. We conclude that ‘soft’, personal and cultural, aspects are of great importance dealing with EWS. (Link to TU Delft research on EWS).
After a coffee break Pekka Petäjäniemi (Väyla) introduces the last part of the Monday programme: the discussion on renovation and maintenance. Jan Slager (Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands) presents an overview of the Dutch challenge: maintaining and/or renovating 40.000 locks, fly-overs, tunnels and bridges that are at the end of their lifespan. This challenge is about finding a balance between safety, accessibility, costs, innovation, circularity and availability of labour and equipment. The next presenter Ľuboš Ďurič (Ministry of Transport, Construction and Regional Development, Slovakia) explains that Slovakia is coping with the same problems and there is a need to modernise their roads. He presents the road inspection methods and the measures that will be taken. Third speaker on this topic is Gilbert Peiker (Bavarian State Ministry of Housing, Building and Transport, Germany) who presents the Bavarian programme for maintenance of Federal highways and state roads. He explains their process cycle for maintenance management. Afterwards, there is a group discussion on prioritizing the maintenance projects, the inspection and maintenance frequency, stakeholder cinvolvement, attracting labour capacity and the use of artificial intelligence and predictive maintenance.
We end the interesting day with a nice guided city walk through Tampere, a lovely dinner in restaurant Plevna and a visit to the Tampere Arena Sky Bar.
Day 2: Tuesday, May 14th
Pau Lian Staal-Ong (NETLIPSE, The Netherlands) opens the second day of the Network Meeting and introduces the Tuesday programme. After a call for participation by Päivi Aaltonen (Väyla, Finland) in the biannual 2020 Transport Research Arena (TRA), Pau Lian explains the application of Infrastructure Project Assessment Tool (IPAT) by NETLIPSE members and the IPAT assessment process. A good example of how the IPAT assessments can be implemented in public organisations is provided by ekka Petäjäniemi (Väyla) who shares his positive experiences with the implementation of the 3-year IPAT programme in Väyla with us.
The rest of the morning is spent on new contracting approaches. Paulos Wondimu (NTNU, Norway) presents the historical development of contracting approaches and several groups and models for Early Contracting Involvement (ECI). A trend over the years is that the contractor responsibility has increased and client’s responsibility has decreased. The expectation for the future is that the development will continue and perhaps we move to collective multi-party contracts. Before we split-up in three working groups, each session leader provides a short ‘pitch’ about the contents of their interactive session: Eelco Negen (Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands) presents the questions concerning the two phase contracting approach of the A27/A12 Ring Road Utrecht project, Pertti Lahdenperä (Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, Finland) shortly explains the PETOKE project and Helle Lange (Danish Road Directorate, Denmark) presents pitfalls experienced in ECI contracts.
In the Ring Road Utrecht parallel session, the group is split in two smaller groups: one discussed the pricing mechanism (Eelco, Project Manager of the project) and the other group the two-phase contract (Pau Lian, who also works on the project team). Halfway through the session, the group switches and builds on the results of the first group. For the pricing mechanism, the advice is to make a very good (client) design on which you can base the ceiling price and to behave open as a client during the design phase. For the two-phase contract, the advice is to help the contractor to focus and to make a selection of what is necessary, in order to provide the contractor with sufficient time for optimisations. During the parallel session on the PETOKE project, thr group spoke about how the good elements of alliances can be implemented in other projects. An example is the ‘Design & Build contract with a development phase’. Based on a Finnish case, this development was discussed in the workshop and was compared to experiences in other countries. In the third parallel session, which focussed on pitfalls in ECI, the Danish case New Natural History Museum was presented and the group split up in three smaller groups and answered the question: what could have been done differently? The groups discussed e.g. the contracting strategy, incentives, setting the price, the role of the client and changes within the client organisation, competitive dialogue and the importance of experience with ECI. After an hour of interesting discussions in the parallel sessions, the session leaders give a short summary of the results.
The last topic on the programme is introduced after lunch. On the basis of three presentations – from Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands – we discuss sustainability and the effects of the Paris Agreement on infrastructure projects. Sebastian Kussl (Nye Veier, Norway) introduces relevant aspects of the 2015 agreement and shows that ‘the clock is ticking’. For Nye Veier and other Norwegian organisations, this is a motivation to focus on innovations in sustainable transport and building projects. Nye Veier has identified various instruments to stimulate sustainable projects, e.g. by including climate goals in Best Value Procurement (BVP) and the use of CEEQUAL certification. Second presenter, Cecilia Kjellander (Trafikverket, Sweden) presents the Swedish agenda for sustainability and the tool they have developed: the STA Climate Calculation Tool. This tool can be used e.g. to identify the CO2 emissions of various project alternatives, which can help in the selection of an alternative. Furthermore, Trafikverket has formulated requirements for sustainability for each project phase. Last presenter, Willem de Graaf (Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands) presents how Rijkswaterstaat has defined 12 themes for sustainability, divided in the three well-known topics: People, Planet, Profit. For a small and densely populated country as the Netherlands, sustainable spatial planning is of great importance. Together with other Dutch organisations, Rijkswaterstaat developed a systematic approach for opportunities for sustainability. This approach was applied on the A16 Rotterdam road project and resulted in an energy neutral solution. After the three presentations, an interesting discussion takes place on what the countries can learn from each other, on including sustainability criteria in the procurement phase and on regulations.
At the end of the day Hans Ruijter looks back on two successful days and thanks the host Väylä for organising and hosting the Network Meeting. Last point on the agenda is the announcement of the date of the next Network Meeting. The location will be provided in the next weeks.
We hope to meet you on October 28th and 29th 2019 at the next NETLIPSE Network Meeting!
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