The Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA) oversaw the design and construction of one of the country’s largest infrastructure projects, including the first consolidated railroad link expressway of its kind, the Alameda Corridor.
The 20-mile-long, $2.4B corridor consolidates 90 miles of track and four branch lines into a single line and links the two San Pedro Bay ports to key rail yards near downtown Los Angeles. The corridor crosses or borders ten cities, and its construction eliminated more than 200 rail and street intersections, eased traffic congestion and reduced air and noise pollution. During construction, contractors dealt with contaminated sites, significant archaeological findings, multiple rail and utility districts, and differing site conditions. Hundreds of subcontractors and thousands of employees participated in the construction of this project, which included one of the largest design-build contracts ever awarded to a single contractor, $760 million for construction of the 10-mile Mid-Corridor.
Trauner was selected by ACTA to provide REALTIME Claims Management services, which included: contract document review, including development of “claims resistant” bid and contract documents; project monitoring and oversight; consultant performance audits; master schedule review and updates; evaluation of contractors’ baseline schedules, updates, and requests for time extensions; evaluation of proposed change orders; development and presentation of project-specific training courses to construction administration personnel on understanding and implementing contract provisions, change order management, claims avoidance, and dispute resolution; and the development and implementation of claims avoidance and mitigation strategies.
Trauner regularly verified each contactor’s schedule updates, resulting in no disputed time-extension issues. This schedule review and verification process allowed the project to avoid disputed time-extension issues.
Also, this project was completed on time, within budget and, most importantly from the perspective of Trauner’s contribution, without significant claims. It was Trauner’s REALTIME Claims Management services that allowed the project team to focus their resources on problems before the issues led to disputes and claims. Early detection and monitoring also allowed, for example, the contemporaneous documentation of productivity data, keeping claims at a minimum, and settling changes for actual costs based on real-time data.