Regional Rail Fleet Project: Risk Management Plan And Implementation

Need for the Regional Rail Fleet Project

Background

The case study of the Regional Rail Fleet is analyzed in this project that replaces the trains that are 36 years old. The project describes the maintenance of the training facility that is to be built in Dubbo (Transport.nsw.gov.au., 2019). This will help to stimulate the economy of a region as well as help to create job opportunities as well as skills involved in the project. The report of the rail fleet will help to improve the safety, accessibility, reliability as well as comfort of the trains (Cases & Viewer, 2019). The main aim of the project is to design more comfortable trains as well as functions in terms of reversible seating, spacious buffet cars and many more. The government of NSW has given the contract to Momentum Trains for delivering the Rail Fleet project. The contract that is given includes financing of the project, designing of the project, building as well as maintaining the rail fleet. The main purpose of the rail fleet is providing safety, accessibility as well as comfort to the passengers of NSW.

Purpose of the research

The need for the project is to involve a new fleet of trains running within the cities is needed to come into service in the last 2019. The project will help the customer to travel from Sydney to the Central Coast, the Blue Mountains, Newcastle and South Coast (Cases & Viewer, 2019). The replacement needed for the Regional Rail fleet project mainly includes designing, building maintenance, as well as financing the new fleet of trains and new facility maintenance is to be constructed in Dubbo.

The project of the new rail fleet is required for the government to replace the aged regional rail fleet in NSW. The new trains will provide safety, accessibility, reliability, and comfort for the customers to travel to regional centres in NSW from Sydney. There is a need for the project as new trains will provide more comfort and will have a more functional design such as buffet cars, luggage storage, as well as reversible seating (Blayney et al., 2017). The proposed project will have accessible toilets in the trains having wide doors and automatic door opening for the stations. The project states sustainable outcomes that are important for considering the project of the Regional Rail Fleet. The government of NSW has to commit to boosting the economic development of the region that mainly focuses on the skills, as well as job creation. 

Benefits of the Regional Rail Fleet Project

Scope of the project

The scope of the project is to determine the risk assessment framework that is considered for project management as well as identifying the risk that are associated with the project. This report also describes the need for Rail Fleet project and the risk that is associated with the project.

The research that will be undertaken for this particular project is secondary qualitative research containing the risk management strategy of rail fleet project of NSW. With the secondary analysis of data collection, the official articles published by government of NSW have been considered along with the journals, blogs and the published paper of Dubbo railway Fleet project.

Secondary research will be carried out that will involve other research papers related to the chosen topic. 11 such articles were considered for carrying out this research paper. For carrying out the risk management strategies, articles related to project management were also taken for this research paper.

The rationale behind carrying out the secondary methodology of data collection method is as this paper includes the risks management plan for the rail fleet project, the articles related to rail fleet project is needed for carrying out this research.

11 published article were mainly considered for carrying out the research of Railway Fleet project and all those articles are listed in the reference section below. Only secondary qualitative research was carried out for this research study and thus no participants were included in this research paper. 

The limitations that are included in this research paper were finding out proper and appropriate journal articles related to the research topic. As only qualitative data was taken for this research, all research paper was not possible to take in to consideration.

Possible Risk Treatments

The risks that are identified in the project are categorized as positive risks as well as negative risks. The positive risks and the negative risks. The type of risks and their mitigation process are stated in the table below.

Risks	Type of risks	Severity	Probability	Mitigation Process
Increasing time for completing the project	Positive Risk	Medium	High	The project of the railway fleet is to be divided in several parts so that risk of increasing the time of the project is reduced.
Increasing the budget of the project	Negative Risk	High	High	If the project time is not increased, the project budget will also not increase.
Maintenance Management	Positive Risk	Medium	Medium	Maintenance log is to be made at the starting of the project so that problem does not arise after the project start.
Threat related Risks	Negative Risk	High	Medium	All the threats are to be assumed at the starting of the project and training should be provided to all the team members so that they can mitigate the threat.
Natural Disaster	Positive Risk	Medium	High	Proper fund should be present with the project manager in case of natural disaster.
Technical Risks	Negative Risk	High	Low	The technical risks can be reduced by organizing meetings between project manager and the technicians so that there is no technical risk while working with the project.

                                                                                                 Figure 1: Risk Analysis Matrix

(Source: Created by Author)

Risk Management Plan of Project Management 

Risk management plan: The risks management plan is basically a summarization of all the risks that are included while carrying out the railway fleet project of NSW. The risks associated and their management and mitigation processes are included in this risks management plan.

The tool that is used for identifying the risks of the railway fleet project is prioritizing the possible risks as well as scoring the risks according to their impact. The main process to link the identified risks with management is understanding the reason to mitigate the risk. Qualitative assessment is mainly used in this railway fleet project for prioritizing the risks that have already being identified.

Risks Occurred	Risk Implications	Type of Risk	Level of Risk	Impact of Risk	Contingency/Mitigation
Political Interest Risks	The political risks associated with the project might be delayed in many business scenario.	Negative	Medium	High	The manager of the project and management team should have meeting with the government to mitigate any political risks. There should be proper contract with the government officials.
Technical Risks	Improper technical design might help in technical complication of the project. Many changes in the technical design also might change the project schedule and budget of the project.	Positive	Medium	Medium	The project manager and the technicians related with the project should have meeting before designing and should also have meeting before starting the project.
Manpower related Risks	While working with the project, there might be less manpower and that would increase the project completion time.	Positive	Low	Medium	In the project schedule, there should be proper estimation of the project human resources and extra fund should be kept to allocate extra man powers in the project.
Financial Risks	Increasing in time and manpower might lead to increase is budget of the project.	Negative	High	High	The sponsor of the project should have meeting with the project team members so that to avoid project financial risks.
Construction Period Risks	Less power supply might risks to period risks in the construction procedure. Shortage of technical resource might also be a reason of period risks.	Negative	Medium	High	The electric department in NSW is responsible for construction project. Meeting should be held with the project manager and the electric depart to avoid any risks.

Scope of the Regional Rail Fleet Project

Table 1: Risk Register for Railway Fleet Project

(Source: Cases & Viewer, 2018)

Reason to develop a Risk Management Plan: According to NSW Government (2018), the main reason for delivering a project successfully is implementing risk management in a project. The risk management framework helps to deliver a project on time and within the budget that is planned for the project. The Risk Management Framework is implemented at the beginning of the project and also includes the process included in risk management for inception for implementation. There is risk management log that is established in most of the projects, and those artefacts that are included are to be checked regularly for the list in their action items.

Time to develop a Risk Management Plan: When the project is being processed, with the project processes the risks are to be identified. For identifying the risk Cases & Viewer (2019) has stated the framework of risk management consists of the following:

• Planning risk management: Developing a plan with the team for discussing how the project risks are captured.
• Identifying the risks: The risks are identified in this phase, and the risks are identified in the log of the risk register.
• Performing analysis of qualitative risks: The risk that is identified is prioritized.
• Performing risk analysis in a quantitative way: Performing some computation for the risks included in a project.
• Planning risk response: Developing a response if the risk occurs in the project.
• Controlling the risk: To keep a track on the risks as well as monitor the risk log that are involved in the project.

 

                                                                    Figure 2: Factors of Risk associated in Regional Rail Fleet Project

(Source: Created by Author)

Risk Mitigation Strategies: The project of the railway fleet is to be divided in several parts so that risk of increasing the time of the project is reduced. If the project time is not increased, the project budget will also not increase. Maintenance log is to be made at the starting of the project so that problem does not arise after the project start. All the threats are to be assumed at the starting of the project and training should be provided to all the team members so that they can mitigate the threat. Proper fund should be present with the project manager in case of natural disaster.

According to NSW Government (2018), the inputs that are to be included in the process of the risk management plan are explained below:

• Project Management Plan: There are seven subsidiary plans as well as a minor plan that are to be included in the project.
• Project Charter: There are high level descriptions as well as requirements that are to be included in the project charter.
• Environmental factors: The risk of the organization is to be communicated at the tolerance level.
• Process assets of the organization: The categories of risks, decision-makers as well as the lessons that are learned are included in the project asset.

Transport.nsw.gov.au. (2018) stated that the risk framework of project management includes project kick-off and includes buy-in option from the stakeholder. This is because to identify the risks as well as manage the risk proactively as a team effort. The project team should be educated so that they can manage the risks while planning for the project (Australia Southern Railroad, 2019). With any of the activity in project management, the efforts that are spent determining the risk management strategy for commensuration of the risks that are involved in the project, the cost that is included in managing the risk and how the risk affects the objectives of the project management. 

Research Methodology

Reviewing the Regional Rail Fleet Report and Identify Possible Risks

According to Collins (2018), the Government of NSW wants to replace the ageing rail fleet of the XPT, XPLORER as well as the Endeavour trains. The government is building a maintenance facility that service fleet in Dubbo. The total budget that is included for the regional fleet project is $2.8 billion that includes the capital cost of about $1.26 billion for planning the new fleet for a maintenance facility in the area (Heagney, 2016). The cost for the project includes some minor network that enables the cost of the project and the recurrent cost associated with the maintenance service.

Collins (2018) also stated that for giving the tenders for the rail fleet project, an Expression of the Interest process was held in the year 2017 having momentum trains, Bombardier Consortium and the Regional Futures. The main focus was on the outcomes-focused by the customer, train solution, the maintenance facility as well as the solution for asset management. Other criteria of the project were to maintain the job, industry participation, financial structure and the commercial solution for the project.

According to Australia Southern Railroad (2019), the project that is been proposed by the government of Sydney indicate that the project will generate about more than 200 words new jobs while the peak construction will be in process, for the final train fit out there will be 60 new jobs, testing as well as commissioning the work will appoint 50 new job that includes the apprenticeships and the traineeships (Heagney, 2016). The Momentum trains mainly create employment, opportunities and apprenticeships for the aboriginal businesses.

                                                                                               Figure 3: Impact of Risks on the project

(Source: Created by author)

The risks that are included in the project report is the level of defects and the severity of defects that might increase. This provides risk to the safety as well as the reliability included in the network.

Positive Risks associated with the project

The positive risks that are associated with the railway project are discussed below:

• Exploiting the opportunities as well as making sure that the value of the railway project is realized (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).
• It is enhancing all risks associated by increasing the impact of likelihood in the project. The likelihood associated with the regional rail fleet project is the risk the probability of occurrence in a project and the impact of risks that are associated with the project. The impact of the likelihood is to be increased in the project (Larson & Gray, 2017).
• Sharing is considered as the positive risks that allocate responsibility to the third party by increasing the capturing opportunity in the project.
• Accepting opportunity should be increased in the project. 

Negative Risks associated with the project:

The negative risks that are associated with the regional rail fleet project are:

• Avoiding as well as trying to decrease the threat as well as protect the rail fleet project from all the impacts that are associated with it (Cases & Viewer, 2019).
• Transferring all impacts in the thread to the third party as well as own response at the same time.
• They are mitigating all occurrence of likelihood in the project. The impact of the likelihood is also to be mentioned in the project (Harrison and Lock, 2019).
• Accepting all the risks as well as taking no action unless the risk occurs.

The contract of the project is given to the Momentum Trains, which is an international consortium consisting of CAF, Pacific Partnerships, UGL Rail Services, and CAF Investment. The contract given to the Momentum Trains consists of project financing, building, designing as well as maintaining the building of fleet.

Risk Management Plan

                                                                                                  Figure 4: Showing Feasibility Study of the Project

(Source: Created by Author)

According to Australia Southern Railroad (2019), the contract given to the Momentum Trains, the work will start in 2019. They expect that the new trains will start running by the year 2023 and after that, the full fleet will come accordingly into service (Transport.nsw.gov.au., 2019). The feasibility of the project is that the work is expected to get complete by 2021. But the time for a full fleet of the service is not mentioned in the project. That might take a long time to make the full fleet in the service. The testing process of the New Intercity Fleet will begin the testing process in 2019 and commissioning them in 2019 (NSW Government, 2018).

The recommendations that can be provided is improving the risk mitigation strategies related with the project. All the risks should be maintained properly that are related to the project. The project should be done within the scheduled time that is done for the project. For completing the project on time, the project is divided in different sub tasks so that the project is submitted on time. All the technical risks can be mitigated by periodically assessment. The senior technician should have meeting with all the workers and sub workers so that there is not requirement changes in the project. 

Conclusion

The railway fleet project of NSW is to be established in the year 2019. All the risks that are associated with the railway fleet project is established in this project stating the risk management plan in the project. The project should maintain all the risks that can occur and adopt all the risks strategies that are needed for the project. All positive risks as well as negative risks are to be taken in to consideration for the establishing risk management plan for the project. The methodology that is used for carrying out this railway fleet project is secondary qualitative analysis of data collection and all the related articles were analyzed for this project. 

References

Australia Southern Railroad. (2019). RAIL SAFETY MANAGEMENT PLAN [Ebook]. Retrieved from https://www.gwrr.com/pdfs/rs-pln-001_3_asr_rsmp.pdf

Blayney, B., Bourke, C., Coonamble, C., Gilgandra, L., Narromine, O., & Orange, W. (2017). Regional State of the enviRonment RepoRt.

Cases, S., & Viewer, I. T. Annual Energy Outlook 2019 Release date: January 24, 2019| Next release date: January 2020| full report 

Collins, H. (2018). Annual Report Sydney Trains [Ebook] (1st ed.). Retrieved from https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2018/Sydney%20Trains%20Annual%20Report%202017-18.pdf

Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach. Routledge.

Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2017). Project management: The managerial process. McGraw-Hill Education.

NSW Government. (2018). Regional Rail Fleet Project Dubbo Maintenance Facility [Ebook] (1st ed.). Retrieved from https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/…/Dubbo-Maintenance-Facility-REF.pdf

Transport.nsw.gov.au. (2019). Regional Rail | Transport for NSW. [online] Available at: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/regional-rail [Accessed 12 Mar. 2019].

Transport.nsw.gov.au. (2019). Regional Rail | Transport for NSW. [online] Available at: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/new-intercity-flee