Why did we need the Luas?

I don't think most people and most journalists understand the realities of estimating project costs. In simple terms, it is not possible to confirm the ultimate cost of a project until all the detailed investigation has been carried out. This phenomenon has been documented in the software industry as the , which shows the increasing accuracy of estimates as the detailed investigation is carried out. In project management terms, a project does not normally 'baseline' until the detailed planning phase is completed. For a project like the Luas (and any project that involves digging underground), the cost will not be known until a certain amount of the digging has been done, and everyone can see what's down there. There is very poor documentation of underground piping and cabling, so they really need to go digging in order to know what they have to deal with.

I suspect (though I don't have detailed knowledge) that early estimates like €300m are thrown round without any understanding of the likely level of accuracy.

The Govt is moving towards fixed, all-in pricing for major projects. The big developers will tell you that in order to be able to stand over a firm price, they either have to
a) do a whole pile of investigative work before they quote (which is probably not economically viable), or
b) provide a worst-case scenario quote, which includes all reasonable risks, most of which will never happen.

What is needed is an understanding of project phasing, i.e. that it may well be necessary to spend some initial money in order to do enough work work to confirm the final costs. In some cases, the outcome of the investigation will be that the final costs of the project is simply not feasible - but this does not mean that the initial work was wasted or a failure.
 
Complainer said:
I don't think most people and most journalists understand the realities of estimating project costs. In simple terms, it is not possible to confirm the ultimate cost of a project until all the detailed investigation has been carried out.
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The last design I worked on cost €400m. If the company I had worked for had made the same magnitude of mistakes in pricing the work that the luas developers had, they'd be paying it out of their pockets for years.
 
Why did we need the Luas?
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We? As in those of us that live in say, the likes of skibberean for example ? the money spent was from central gov funds right? and don't the rest of us in the rest of the country pay the same tax rate as those who have use of the Luas facility? I think it's a great facility for those who have access to it, just like the DART, those in Galway et al really thought it was great use of central funds alright, God the use they have of it - imagine it was the Tallaght Area Rapid Transit(TART) or the Waterford Area Rapid Transit(WART) or indeed the Finglas Area Rapid Transit(FART) !!!
 
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That’s all very true, but it does not excuse the fact that if you talk to anyone who took any interest in it being built or just watched it out if their office/home window will tell you that they appeared to have taken 3 goes to get it right. For example at Cowper station the ducting went down (using black pipes), the ducting got dug up, the ducting went down again (using colour coded pipes). Still not right, so dig it up again etc etc.

But, they still have not learned. There was a letter to the editor in last week’s Metro about one of the extensions. The author was commenting that a stretch he/she passed on the way to work appeared to be finally finished, then a week or so later they came along and dug it all up again. How many km of track to we need to lay in this country for the engineers to learn how to get the job right first time?
 
I don't care how much project costs over run by, as long as the tax payer doesn't have to pick up the tab.
 
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