Integrating the Priorities of Transportation Agencies and Utility Companies (2009)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

1Traditionally, state departments of transportation (DOTs) construct, maintain, and operate highways for the benefit of the public; however, their role as right-of-way (ROW) managers has not been in the forefront of their responsibilities. In today’s changing priorities and increased public expectations, state DOTs are rethinking priorities. Since the advent of the highway sys- tem, DOT ROWs now serve more than people and vehicular traffic; states have extended the use of highway ROWs to utility companies (UCs) to save public resources and serve the public inter- est. The number of utilities and the complexity of the coordination required to serve both DOT and UC interests and needs has grown exponentially. This report summarizes the Strategic High- way Research Program (SHRP 2) Project R15 concerning the issues, opportunities, and barriers that DOTs and UCs face in coordinating and achieving their goals and priorities. State DOTs are facing pressure to accelerate and substantially increase the efficiency of the design and construction process. Time is a crucial yardstick for measuring the performance of construction contractors on highway projects. Costs for both highway users and highway agen- cies resulting from delayed completion are substantial, and the public unwillingly bears most of these costs. The price of new ROWs continues to rise and current ROWs are crowded; at the same time, DOTs and UCs are striving to make maximum use of available capacity in existing facilities and ROWs. The need for careful coordination between state DOTs and UCs in setting priorities and planning is obvious. The challenges posed by DOT–UC coordination are significant. Half of all highway and bridge projects eligible for federal funding involve the relocation of utility facilities, and con- struction generally takes longer and costs more when utilities need to be relocated. The primary causes of delay on highway renewal projects are locating and protecting, or relocating, under- ground utilities. The SHRP 2 Project R15 investigated the issues, opportunities, and barriers that DOTs and UCs face in coordinating and achieving their respective goals and priorities and identified four primary areas of focus: • Strategies that utilities and highway agencies can use to work cooperatively and reduce delays; • Institutional barriers that impede implementation of strategies; • Evaluation of strategies; and • Framework for effective utility management in the project development process, a generically applicable process using the identified strategies. The research team used a literature survey and interviews with representatives from 28 state DOTs and UCs to reveal the scope of coordination challenges between DOTs and UCs and strategies that have been used. The findings show the key problems listed on the following pages and opportunities for change and improvement. Executive Summary

2Coordination—Recognizing Each Other’s Needs Overall, DOTs and utilities agree that inadequate coordination is a frequent problem. Both DOTs and utilities report insufficient communication, scheduling, and coordination in plan- ning, ROW acquisition, design, and construction phases of road construction projects. These difficulties, in turn, affect timely relocation of utilities. The following brief list summarizes the issues that DOTs and UCs encounter: • Lack of understanding of the roles, responsibilities, and priorities of the transportation agency, utility companies, and contractors; • Lack of agreed-upon policies, procedures, practices, and responsibilities for state or local gov- ernment units, utility companies, One Call utility locators, and contractors concerning util- ity location; • Inaccurate or missing information on the locations of existing facilities owned by utility com- panies, communication companies, and local governments; and • Misunderstood or improperly used procedures for design and utility location requests, result- ing in inadequate space for utility relocations (on the roadway or private ROW) and insuffi- cient time to buy supplies, obtain additional ROW, and meet existing customer contracts that stipulate sufficient lead time. Issues Utility industry input to the investigation focused primarily on delay issues. Analysis from inter- views with utility engineers and coordinators suggests that the following top issues contribute to coordination problems and resulting relocation delays: • Utilities have limited resources. Although most utilities have dedicated resources for relocation activities, these resources are not unlimited. Abrupt changes in DOT work program volumes and changes in individual project schedules may cause demands in excess of UC resources. Extreme weather events take precedence over normal business, and resources may be pulled away to fulfill disaster resource-sharing commitments. • Utility relocation is not the primary focus of DOT designers. DOT designers are focused on designing transportation facilities; utilities are a secondary consideration. Generally, DOTs recognize the need to identify conflicts and required relocations; however, changes to their designs to minimize relocation costs typically must originate with the UC, and UCs are not members of the design team. • Coordination among UCs occupying the same facility or characterizing the same space is sub- optimal. In many locations, UCs have inadequate coordination processes to handle large-scale coordination of different utilities supported on or in a common structure or a One Call loca- tor system to deliver sufficiently reliable and comprehensive markings of existing utilities, including in difficult areas such as old facilities with no current owner. • DOTs have short time frames to deliver projects, and must be responsive to changing program priorities and budgets, political initiatives, and transportation commission preferences. • Delayed coordination between the DOT and UCs results in ROW problems if initial design estimates were based largely on the DOT roadway project requirements without consultation with the UCs. • UCs have inaccurate information on existing utilities because One Call locators have failed to provide sufficient timely information. • UCs or construction contractors fail to meet schedule commitments, frequently because roadway construction and utility relocation are not synchronized. When one party changes the sequence of work or fails to meet schedule commitments, the entire work process is delayed.

3Utility Company Challenges That Affect DOT Design and Construction Investigators on the SHRP 2 R15 project found the following top issues faced by UCs that affect DOT design and construction: • Limited financial and personnel resources, • Difficulty coordinating with other utility agencies and government entities, and • Utility companies’ internal maintenance issues and needs for service upgrades and the prior- ity demand on resources. UCs’ relocation resources are also strained by severe in-state or out-of-state weather events; UCs pledge to share resources to help each other respond to these emergencies. DOTs’ increas- ing work programs and acceleration of critical projects also strain UC relocation resources. Because DOT projects do not usually include utility relocation as an integral part of transporta- tion design, UCs typically bear the responsibility for coordinating with DOTs after project plans are already 30% complete, planning and executing relocations, and coordinating with contractors. DOT Utility Engineering Challenges That Affect Relocation Delays Investigators on the SHRP 2 R15 project found the following top issues faced by state DOT util- ity engineers that affect relocation design: • Short plan and design time frames; • Project design changes requiring changes to utility relocation; • Delays in obtaining utility ROWs; • Inaccurate locating, marking, and mapping of existing utility facilities; and • Limited UC resources for maintenance, service upgrades, and relocation that may not be ade- quate to meet the demands of DOT designs. Conclusions and Recommendations The R15 team of investigators believes the listed delay issues are systemic and indicate funda- mental problems in DOT–UC coordination. Although the research team found individual exam- ples of success, it also found nearly universal core deficiencies. To improve performance, DOTs and utilities need to resolve the fundamental issues. The research team identified strategies for management techniques, process structure, and application of technology. Successful imple- mentation of the strategies will require the following initiatives: 1. Operate as a team. DOTs and UCs need to operate as a team, interacting and cooperating in a partnership with a commitment to common goals, continuous communication, and orga- nizational leadership. All other coordination improvement initiatives depend on this key improvement. 2. View utilities in highway ROWs as a DOT responsibility. DOTs need to redefine their role to include being custodians of corridors that transport vehicles, people, power, communi- cations, and other essential service to the public. As a unit of government, DOTs have a greater obligation than UCs to protect and provide for the interests of all citizens. 3. Understand and learn the technology and business processes of the other half of the DOT and UC team. Utility systems are complex; the highway design and construction process is multilayered. DOTs and UCs need to be able to speak the other’s language and know how they do business. 4. Improve location methods and mapping technologies. The current utilities location process is inaccurate and insufficient. Improvements in location precision and comprehensiveness,

4plus cost-efficient improvements, would significantly improve utility coordination. Complete and timely information is essential.