Transportation · InfrastructureCompleted 2024

Commuter Rail Line Extension

Twenty-six miles of rail and nine stations, dependent on dozens of parties outside the agency's control.

LocationDallas, TX

ClientConfidential

LocationDallas, TX

SectorTransportation

Value$950M

Size26 miles · 9 stations

DeliveryCM/GC

Duration54 months

StatusCompleted 2024

Why it mattered

Transportation work happens in the middle of people's lives: their commute, their freight, their weekends. The best schedule is the one the public barely notices, and the one that holds up if a dispute ever comes.

The challenge

A transit agency built a commuter rail line linking suburbs, an airport and downtown.

Freight railroad agreements, utility relocations and systems integration created dozens of external dependencies. Any one of them could stop work, and none of them reported to the agency.

Our role

Integrated Master Scheduling (IMS)Program Controls Forecasting Earned Value Management (EVM)

Schedule at a glance

The whole program, on one line.

Start to finish, as the schedule tells it. For work still in progress, the bar moves with today's data date.

StartJan 2020

Duration54 months

HandoverJul 2024

Progress—

Model every phaseHold third parties to datesProtect the recordOpen to service

How we held the date

Our approach, phase by phase.

The same disciplined sequence we bring to every engagement, shaped around what this project needed most.

PHASE 01PHASE 02PHASE 03PHASE 04

PHASE 01Model every phase

Each traffic or track phase modeled with its own critical path and switch date.

PHASE 02Hold third parties to dates

Utilities, railroads and agencies tracked as external milestones with named owners.

PHASE 03Protect the record

Delay events documented as they happen, with time impact analysis while the facts are fresh.

PHASE 04Open to service

Testing, inspections and opening to traffic or revenue service planned in detail.

What changed

The difference we made

Measured the only way that matters: whether the date and the budget held.

Result 01Outside parties on the record

Every railroad and utility dependency was logged as an external milestone with an owner and a need date, and chased weekly.

Result 02Systems tested as one

Signals, communications and vehicle testing followed a single integrated sequence to revenue service.

Result 03Passengers on board as planned

Revenue service began within the window the agency had announced.

Services engaged

What we brought to it

Our work in Transportation

2.01.03Integrated Master Scheduling (IMS)

Integrated Master Schedules that bind design, procurement, construction and commissioning into one traceable program view, from board summary to field activity.

2.02.02Program Controls

Program-level controls that bind multiple projects, contractors and funding sources into a single picture sponsors can steer by.

2.02.08Forecasting

Risk-informed schedule and cost forecasts, expressed as P50 and P80 ranges, that give executives an honest view of the finish date and final cost.

2.02.05Earned Value Management (EVM)

Earned value systems that integrate scope, schedule and budget, measure performance without opinion and forecast completion from evidence.

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