High Speed Rail (HSR) Project Sustainability Planning

The High Speed Rail (HSR) project has not yet received funding but there have been announcements by political parties that the project will be prioritised after the next election.

In this first week you are to undertake the role of the advisor to ‘The Minister’ for National Government. The Minister will be responsible for issuing a set of ‘Minister’s Sustainability Requirements’ as part of the approvals process.

The Minister would like to you (The Advisor) to provide advice regarding stakeholder groups, particularly to identify stakeholder groups, their interests, sustainability perspectives and potential conflicts.

1. Download the Exec Summary of the Phase 1 Report.Become familiar with the context of this report.  Key elements of the government position in Week 1 are as outlined in this Stage 1 Report. Available here (https://infrastructure.gov.au/rail/publications/high-speed-rail-study-reports/phase1.aspx)
2. Identify who are the stakeholders involved or affected, using a salience model.
3. Discuss what their interests and sustainability perspectives might be;
4. Identify the related conflicts that may need to be resolved.
5. Place your thoughts as a post in the discussion board below

The HSR project has now been approved by the relevant state governments and has national government backing.

The project proponents have now applied to The Minister to receive the ‘Minister’s Sustainability Requirements’ as part of the approvals process to enable them to commence detailed planning and consultation. Your role is to undertake the role of the advisor to The Minister and provide a briefing note to The Minister with your recommended ‘Minister’s Sustainability Requirements’. This is to include detail on how these Requirements relate to the previous stakeholder identification and assessment task. Note that only the Requirements need to be listed in your weekly post and the Briefing Note is part of your final submission.

• Download the Full Report of the Phase 1 Report.   Available here
• Consider each of the frameworks discussed in Topic 2 and how they apply to the ECHSR.
• Review how these provide for stakeholders and strengths & shortcomings.
• Develop a list of 'Minister's Sustainability Requirements' that the project will be required to address in the subsequent stages (Topics 3 - 6). This will be developed into the Minister's Briefing Note - submitted with your final report.

The ‘Minister’s Sustainability Requirements’ have been published and now the HSR proponents will need to incorporate them into the project design from concept through the delivery.In Topic 3 the focus now changes and you are to carry out the role of Strategic Planning Manager for the HSR proponents.

Utilising a framework of your choice (however you must justify your choice by comparing frameworks) develop a concept development process that enables the ‘Minster’s Sustainability Requirements’ to be incorporated into the concept design.

Particularly consider what key design elements of the HSR may need to be compromised to address the Requirements.

1. Develop a concept development process that enables the ‘Minster’s Sustainability Requirements’ to be incorporated into the concept design
2. Use the framework/s of your choice.
3. Consider the types of compromises you might be asked to make and how you might deal with these conflicts.
4. Reflect on the Scenario Change for this week
5. Reflect on the impact of the decisions you made in the Advisors role on this week’s task

In your role as Strategic Planning Manager for the HSR proponents; working from your concept development process, develop a clear ‘Project level top level specification’ that enables the downstream Delivery Teams to clearly understand the sustainability outcomes expected from the project so they can engage fully with taking these into the project delivery life cycle.The ‘Project level top level specification’ is to be included in your Final Submission with an outline provided in your Decisions & Reflections Log

1. Working from your concept development process, develop a clear Project level top level specification that enables the downstream Delivery Teams to clearly understand the sustainability outcomes expected from the project so they can engage fully with taking these into the project delivery life cycle.The 'Project level top level specification' is to be included in your final submission with an outline provided in your weekly Decisions & Reflections Log
2. Reflect on the Scenario Change for this week
3. Reflect on the impact of the decisions you made in the Advisor's role on this week's task.
4. Remember to discuss some aspect of the Scenario in the discussion board below

The focus has again changed and now you are to undertake the role of Engineering Delivery Manager during the detailed design phase of the HSR project.

1. Develop a delivery process that enables the sustainability outcomes and the concept design to be developed into detailed designs that realises the sustainability expectations.
2. Think about what issues you might come across in your engineering teams compared to business as usual.
3. How would you deal with shaping the culture in your teams to embrace the concepts of engineering for a sustainable future?
4. What engineering initiatives could be being applied to reduce the environmental and social impacts of the ECHSR systems?
5. Reflect on the Scenario Change for this topic
6. Reflect on the impact of the decisions you made in the Advisors role on this topic's task
7. Reflect on the impact of the decisions you made in the Strategic Planning role on this topic's task
8. Place your thoughts as a post in the discussion board below

The project is moving beyond detail design and you are shifting your focus to overseeing construction, commissioning and operational readiness.

1. Think about the issues you might come cross in your construction and commissioning teams compared with business as usual.
2. How would you deal with shaping the culture in these teams to embrace the concepts of engineering for a sustainable future?
3. What would you do to maximise the likelihood of operations and maintenance managers embracing the sustainability potential incorporated into the ECHSR system and why?
4. Reflect on the Scenario Change for this topic
5. Reflect on the impact of the decisions you made in the Adviser's role on this topic's task
6. Reflect on the impact of the decisions you made in the Strategic Planning role on this topic's task
7. Place your thoughts as a post in the discussion board below

Stakeholder Identification and Assessment

The salience model is a tool to categorize the stakeholders and decide upon which stake holder matter the most. Using the salience model, the stakeholders can be classified on the basis of their power, urgency and legitimacy in the organization.  It has been found that the high speed rail unit has almost 319 stakeholders involved. Classified in terms of power, the HSR (HIGH SPEED RAIL) has 60 local governments including the ACT (Australian Capital Territory). In terms of urgency there are 151 stakeholder organizations and communities /groups including the Regional Development Australia committees and in terms of legitimacy the local people of Australia, the constructors, technology providers and High Speed rail operators are involved in the project. The government will be benefitted if the HSR becomes successful because after that the export and import business will be facilitated earning huge revenues. The organizations will be benefitted as it will improve the logistics services and the common people will be benefitted because the transportation services will be improved. There are some conflicts that need to be resolved such as in finding the highest level of government, the indifference in preserving the corridor will incur higher costs, the retention of the flexibility over route and station, requirement of the public funding and many others. I believe that the government should begin the project as soon as possible as it will facilitate the entire land of Australia and support the development of the country in many ways.

The frameworks are the European scene, the Japanese scene and the Australian scene.  The involvement of the stakeholders is important in the frameworks. The strengths of this framework are thus – the transport, equality, stakeholder involvement, realistic analysis based on targets, and the main focus on the quality of life.  There are also few shortcomings of the European framework-  there are small number of targets. There is minimum mention of the impact of culture. In the Japanese framework, the quality of life is the main focus.  It has strong focus on the natural disaster but it is more relevant in Japanese context rather than in the ECHSR. Thee stakeholder involvement rates are low. The Australian framework has the three pillars of sustainability and another strong point is it does not need increased resources with the increase in wealth.  However, its weak point is there is also low level of stakeholder involvement because the government policies are pushed hard on the project.  Each of the framework are considered to recognize the portions which will be useful for the ECHSR. I was not at first able to compile a large list because I did not have proper information and specifications on the requirements of sustainability.  However, I reconsidered the past projects and reviewed the requirements of the clients’ fir sustainability. It helped me a lot.

Task 3:  In this case I would recommend that the sustainability requirements of the minister must be incorporated in the project as soon as possible.  Since the requirements are of high level in this stage, the industry experts help must be taken to achieve the expected outcomes.  There are high chances that the sustainability requirements are considered vague more by the technical minded people. The concept design for the ECHSR can be regularly scrutinized to evaluate the scores of the projects in terms of sustainability requirements.  In this case I would like to use the European framework in a modified way because it values the interrelations between human, physical and socio –economic levels. It has a strong socio- economic standpoint. I believe that HSR is a smart opportunity to advance and develop the regional areas of Australia.  As far as the scenario change is concerned, no change in approach will be done. The focus will be on the sustainability requirements of the minister.

Development of Concept Development Process

have established the sustainability requirements developed for the minister. According to my opinion the establishment of a project top level spec is highly essential. It is known that the planning phase project team downstream is not to be connected with the requirements of sustainability for the HSR project. he various examples of the Maglev systems will also be provided and compared from the perspective of sustainability. However, I also think that the Maglev option does no match with the integration of existing network depends in the phase 1 report. Since Maglev does not exist in Australia, the reliance would solely be on the international sources. As of now the Phase 1 report is the only trustworthy source information so I would prefer to base my study on it. I personally believe that this project is like a public private partnership alliance. However, the final decisions will be determined by the cost required to fulfill the sustainability requirements. For instance, the entire project cost will rise if Maglev required more energy to operate. The project would ultimately need to construct renewable source more.

The tools such as the SOHO tool will be used by me. I might also use the BREEAM to identify the risks quickly and opportunities which are necessary to be included. The relevant parts of the entire design process will be filtered through these tools.  It is true that the SOHO tool is much useful because it can be tailored accordingly to match the project.  It is a great way to identify the opportunities which can be incorporated into the engineering design process.  A formal design process is important and essential because it provides a kind of governance the project members can follow an adopt. The deliverables should be divided into 1 to 2 paragraphs talking about the contributions of this piece of work to the sustainability objectives of the entire project.   The employees who are consistently performing on the project and making sustainability impacts positively. Since we are looking at the project from the perspective of sustainability, and making certain decisions in order to enhance and improve the sustainability of the project,  it can be expected that the project outcomes will be sustainability oriented.  However, at the same time I wonder how much of these sustainability concerns will be followed by the project sponsors.  Therefore, the project executives must be careful while selecting the contractor.   I also believe that we are privileged having the engineering manager who is truly taking the initiative to drive the project towards sustainability goals. it is quite rare.  Having a really responsible person in the management is like a bonus for the project.

Since the storm and surge information has come late in the project the construction team would push back for the delay in the project.  The renewable energy use might pose issues mentioned in the requirement part of the advising phase. There are chances that the construction team has started mobilizing to site and strongly has started clearing or excavating fill.  The land which needs to cleared should be cleared in order to align with the new storm data.  Public outrage can upsurge if the sensitive sites rest untouched by the project. The funding sources can also get impacted f the storm data is not incorporated. Nobody would want to invest in project which has high chances of being flooded out. By creating frameworks for operations and maintenance managers to use we have made their job slightly easier upfront, and it is then unlikely they will re-create these documents and take any of the sustainability aspects out. This is where overall governance comes in and needs to ensure that doesn't happen. think this is the most crucial phase of the entire project because in this phase the motivation concerns of the employees are to be taken into considerations.  They are taught to embrace and adopt the concepts of sustainable future.