Feasibility of Railway Transit System in Western Australia

This report analyzes the feasibility of implementing a railway transit system in Western Australia, including the risks and benefits associated with the project.

Running Head: PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT
Assignment 1, Case Study: Project - Regional Rail Fleet (NSW) –
Recommendations for WA
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
1. Background..................................................................................................................................2
2. Literature Review........................................................................................................................3
2.1 Identifying the PM Risk Framework.....................................................................................3
2.2 Review Industry Report and Identify Risk............................................................................4
3. The Western Australian Government’s Need for the Project......................................................6
4. Feasibility of the Project..............................................................................................................7
5. Negative and Positive Risk Events in Western Australian Scenario...........................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
In order to increase the transport network infrastructure and improve the daily growing
traffic in the business districts, various state governments in Australia have already started taking
initiatives. NSW has already started development of railway network in Sydney CBD and other
commercial areas whereas similar initiatives are taken in other cities like Melbourne, Brisbane,
Canberra and others. Following the NSW model, Western Australia Government has also
commissioned a new project that will see the development of a new railway transit system.
This report analyzes the feasibility of this project and determines any risk that may occur
after the project is initiated.
1. Background
With rapidly increasing population in Australia that is mainly affected by immigration for
jobs or study, the transportation needs have also increased rapidly. In various states of the
country, several business districts have grown up with high concentration of commercial and
business sectors and the number of daily commuters travelling through these districts has
increased exponentially. As a result, the current means of transport are no longer sufficient to
carry these passengers and risks like overcrowding of public transport vehicles, serious traffic
blockage, numerous accidents and others have increased significantly (Tan, 2017). Thus, various
state governments in the country have planned to implement intra and intercity railway transit
system that will not only reduce overcrowding of public transport vehicles but will also provide
high speed transport for the passengers. NSW Government has already adopted the project and
has commissioned the initiation of installation of the railway transit system. Western Australia

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Government wants to follow a similar model to NSW and has requested a risk analysis report to
determine whether similar project will be feasible for Perth CBD and other business districts in
Western Australia.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Identifying the PM Risk Framework
According to Laurino, Ramella and Beria (2015), risk is an integral part of any project
management, irrespective of the field of the project. Although risk of the project cannot be
completely avoided, it should be properly managed so that the risk of the project is minimized
and project goal and objective is achieved. However in order to minimize the risk and manage it
properly, proper framework is required which provided strategy to review and analyse risk and
design solution for risk mitigation in the appropriate way. Hence knowledge of risk management
framework is necessary in any kind of project, especially project where project is large and
complex. Railway fleet project discussed in this context is one such project which is not only
large in terms of time, money and resources required but at the same time complex as well.
Hence the discussion on the project risk management framework is extremely important in this
context.
Mees & Groenhart (2014) said that risk management framework consists of some specific
components all of which needs to be properly reviewed for proper application of the framework
in the project. The first and one of the most important components of any risk management
framework is to create a proper plan for the risk management where project manager needs to
develop a plan and this should be designed along with the project team and it is important to
discuss procedures which defines how to capture project related risks. The next component is to

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identify risks and the identification of risks should be followed by entering risks in a log defined
for the project.
Once risk identification is complete along with the entering of risk in to the risk log,
project team should be encouraged to perform a qualitative risk analysis which is basically done
for Prioritizing risks so that those risks are treated with importance and there is no significant
effect on the project progress (Olaru et al., 2014). Along with the qualitative risk analysis, it is
also effective to perform quantitative risk analysis. This basically includes execution of a
computation of each and every identified risk that is associated with the project.
Another important component, as per Curtis (2016) that is part of the project risk
management framework is to plan risk response which develop a pre-emptive response, if any
risk occurs in the project. This presents an option for efficient risk mitigation in the project. It is
extremely important to have this kind of flexibility in risk mitigation in large and complex
project like railway fleet design and development. The next yet another extremely essential
component is to control risk which involves tracking and monitoring of the prepared risk log
relevant to the project.
2.2 Review Industry Report and Identify Risk
Review of various industry specific report of railway projects in Australia it has been
found that most of the projects seem to present some common risk which is similar to some
extent. Industry specific report has been thoroughly reviewed to identify risk and those risks
have been identified properly and analysed as well to present insight about the railway project
development risk. Those risks are discussed in details in this context (Ghaderi, Cahoon &
Nguyen, 2015).

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Risk group Risk description
Social and Political  Regulatory-Licenses and
Permits are some of the most
common issues that re found after
review of the project
 Technology Transfer in
railway seems to affect railway
projects in Australian context
 Project Feasibility is another
significant issues identified in the
review of the industry reports
 Planning such as
development of project scope,
schedule and budget are some
significant issues and these issues
are common in [projects that are
large in nature
Engineering/
Construction
Design, construction procurement and
system procurement are significant issues
which involves safety standard, quality
standard and compatibility standard
Financial Funding and join venture and contract

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procurement are significant issues as well.
Most of the issue are identified in the
contract distribution and finalization of the
vendor for the projects are significant and
hence need to be assessed properly and need
proper planning as well. Conflict with the
contractors often delays the project and cost
of the project is increased as well. Hence
selection of the contractor is a significant
problem for railway projects as thee are lot
of option for vendor selection and those
process has to be completed with the
supervision of the trade union which often
presents legal concern as well. hence
financial constraints are very common in
such projects which are often very large and
complex in terms of development and
execution point of view
3. The Western Australian Government’s Need for the Project
Few decades back, Western Australia was an arid region and very thin in terms of
population. However, since the development of the south western part of the state along with the

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rapid development of Perth, the population has developed at an accelerated rate. Accordingly, a
central business district (CBD) grew up in Perth that involved investments from various national
and multinational business organizations (Lin et al., 2014). This growth of CBD also meant that
the employment rate was increased exponentially as more and more organizations recruited staffs
from the state. In addition to the CBD, various well known universities have also grown up that
consistently attract students from other countries in additional to the native students. As a result
of this situation, the road traffic is Western Australia has increased to such a point that various
issues like overcrowding and traffic blockages are occurring on daily basis. Since the
commutation in WA in entirely based on road transport, it is impossible to solve the errors unless
other transport methods are being introduced (Sokolov et al., 2018). Unlike Canberra, Perth also
does not have a functional light rail system yet and thus the issue has not yet been solved. Hence,
Western Australia needs this project to initiate rail transport so that the traffic load can be
reduced from the road ways and the daily commuters can also have the option for high speed
travel when they have to move long distances at short period of time.
4. Feasibility of the Project
Considering the feasibility aspect of the project, it can be said that the situation in
Western Australia is completely different from that of NSW in terms of geography and other
factors. In Western Australia, the terrain is not exactly suitable for installation of railway tracks.
The installation process will not only require extremely high cost, the maintenance process will
also be significantly expensive compared to NSW Railways (McIntosh, Trubka & Newman,
2014). Again, the possible cost benefit from the railway services can be a cause of concern for
the government as the maintenance costs may exceed the overall profit margin making the

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project not feasible for going ahead. Hence, before proceeding with the project, Western
Australia Government must conduct a detailed survey regarding the route placement,
implementation costs and cost benefit analysis to ensure the railway system comes to good use
rather than an expensive failure.
5. Negative and Positive Risk Events in Western Australian Scenario
For Western Australia scenario, the negative and positive risk events are listed as follows.
Negative Risk Events:
 Terrain is not suitable for railway track installation.
 Construction of railway system on the terrain will be very expensive.
 The arid condition of the state may result in health issues (even fatal) of the
workers.
 Supply of materials for installation works is not easy due to lack of transport other
than supply trucks.
 The changing government in the state may affect the project in a negative way.
Positive Risk Events:
 Increasing demand from the commuters for railway transit system favors the
project.
 Rapid economic development of the state may solve the problem of high cost of
implementation of the project.
 Sufficient land is available for placement of the railway tracks.
 Installation of railway system will also benefit the freight network of the country.

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Conclusion
Based on the analysis, it can be said that while the project has a number of benefits as
identified by Western Australia government, there are also several risks that may lead to failure
of the project. Hence, it is important to identify all the risks and prepare suitable mitigation plan
so that they risks do not have significant impact on the project.

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References
Abbott, M., & Cohen, B. (2014). A Survey of the Privatisation of Government‐Owned
Enterprises in Australia since the 1980s. Australian economic review, 47(4), 432-454.
Curtis, C. (2016). Implementing transit oriented development through regional plans: a case
study of Western Australia. In Transit Oriented Development (pp. 59-68). Routledge.
Ghaderi, H., Cahoon, S., & Nguyen, H. O. (2015). An investigation into the non-bulk rail freight
transport in Australia. The Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics, 31(1), 59-83.
Ghaderi, H., Fei, J., & Cahoon, S. (2015). The impediments to the competitiveness of the rail
industry in Australia: the case of the non-bulk freight market. Asia Pacific Journal of
Marketing and Logistics, 27(1), 127-145.
Kaewunruen, S., Remennikov, A. M., & Murray, M. H. (2014). Introducing a new limit states
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Laurino, A., Ramella, F., & Beria, P. (2015). The economic regulation of railway networks: A
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Lin, T. G., Xia, J. C., Robinson, T. P., Goulias, K. G., Church, R. L., Olaru, D., ... & Han, R.
(2014). Spatial analysis of access to and accessibility surrounding train stations: A case
study of accessibility for the elderly in Perth, Western Australia. Journal of Transport
Geography, 39, 111-120.

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McIntosh, J., Trubka, R., & Newman, P. (2014). Can value capture work in a car dependent city?
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(PnR) and choice of PnR station: Evidence from Perth, Western Australia. Procedia-
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 162, 101-110.
Sokolov, I., Misharin, A., Kupriyanovsky, V., Pokusaev, O., & Larin, O. (2018). The digital
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