AECOM is the program manager for the Purple Line Light Rail public-private partnership (P3), one of the largest transportation schemes in the U.S and the second ever P3 design-build-finance-operate-maintain transit project in the country. At $5.6 billion it is the largest project in Maryland’s history and is expected to complete in 2022. Furthermore, the procurement approach used for the Purple Line is unique among major transit projects in the country.
The Purple Line extends from Bethesda in Montgomery County to New Carrollton in Prince George’s County and will provide a direct connection to the Metrorail Red, Green and Orange Lines as well as MARC, Amtrak, and local bus services. The 16.2-mile transit line — electrified using an Overhead Catenary System (OCS) — runs through an urban area and has a short tunnel, several elevated sections and 21 stations.
AECOM is the lead firm of a tri-venture program management team providing program management services for the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) to advance the project from the NEPA process, through design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and ultimately operation and maintenance. These services include but are not limited to: project support; financial planning/operations; proactive risk management; public and stakeholder engagement; and configuration management.
As an extension of MTA’s staff, AECOM prepared the FTA-compliant Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), and Preliminary Design. At the end of Preliminary Design, we developed and issued the procurement documents for design, construction, and operation of the project under a P3 procurement.
The procurement approach was highly innovative. A P3 in conjunction with design-build was the formula that provided a path to using available public funds alongside private funds. The P3 approach resulted in several advantages over traditional procurement methods, including squeezing out project risk in a more explicit and complete fashion, a better balancing of risks than ordinarily obtained in standard procurement approaches, lower price for the same project objectives, and a better understanding of who owns risks. We obtained these results through many one-on-one discussions that better informed all parties as to project choices. We considered Alternative Technical Concepts (ATCs) and many were accepted, which resulted in further savings over traditional contracting methods.
We also held workshops specifically aimed at considering how integrated design reviews could and should be conducted within a P3/DB contract format. The key was requiring the discipline leads to be the gatekeepers and seeing that their team’s efforts were fully coordinated with the other discipline efforts. AECOM has met all the milestones set for Purple Line contract on schedule and within budget.