Road Tunnels In Australia And New Zealand – Getting The Best Value For Money

A brief comparison of the cost of recent road tunnels will be presented to bring focus on the various procurement models that have been used in recent years to deliver road tunnels in Australia and New Zealand. The delivery mechanisms have included Public, Private, Partnerships (PPPs) for the provisions of road infrastructure involving concession holders and design and construct contracts and alliances between builders and government agencies. Most of the PPP tunnel projects went into receivership soon after opening, demonstrating that the cost of tunnel construction vastly exceeded the investment value as serviced by toll income. These projects will be compared with the Waterview Connection road tunnel in Auckland which was undertaken under a competitive alliance model under government finance to complete a missing link on a non-tolled motorway. Comments will be provided on the consequences on design /construction and operations and maintenance arising from the different procurement models based on the authors experience to deliver such projects as undertaken on Lane Cove, CLEM7, Airport Link Brisbane, the cancelled East West tunnel in Melbourne and Waterview Connection in New Zealand. The role of site investigation, geotechnical base line reports, the amount of detail in reference design and scope of works and technical criteria will be commented upon. Other tunnels under construction and potential forthcoming projects and their completion dates will be reviewed to outline the current tunnel construction pipeline.