Article
Samferdselsdepartementet / The Ministry of Transport and Implement Consulting Group
Published
1 August 2023
Implement helped reviewing Norway’s largest transport project – Follobanen - to provide valuable insights for future infrastructure projects, reducing risk and securing value for money in future large public projects in Norway.
Follobanen is the longest Nordic railway tunnel to date, and Norway’s largest transport project. The railway goes a total of 22 km and is designed for speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour, with a capacity of 50 trains per hour. It is expected to reduce travel time between the Oslo and the town of Ski from 22 to 11 minutes. Follobanen represents a significant improvement for commuters and travellers using the route regularly, while also contributing to a reduction in car traffic between Oslo and Ski.
Follobanen – Ensuring future learning
11 December 2022, Follobanen was inaugurated. However, only two weeks after the inauguration, Follobanen faced an unforeseen challenge - an operational shutdown. The series of events leading to this included overheating and fires in the cable joints at the Ski station technical building, culminating in a complete halt of services.
In light of the incident, the Ministry of Transportation decided to conduct an external "thorough and independent review of the case, where all relevant aspects of the incident were examined to identify learning points and areas for improvement". This review was aimed not only at understanding what went wrong but also at extracting valuable lessons for the future. The process involved meticulous data collection, interviews, and a deep dive into the project's complexities.
A report to provide insights for future infrastructure projects on reducing risk and securing value for money in large public projects
The Ministry of Transportation assigned the task of conducting the review of the incidents surrounding Follobanen to Implement Consulting Group and the law firm Schjødt. The extensive work was completed on June 22, 2023.
Keywords for the work included data collection and interviews, analysis and documentation, and final report compilation. The complexity of large infrastructure projects such as Follobanen requires good insight and illumination of all areas. In the work, good cooperation with involved parties including the Ministry of Transport, Bane NOR, and the Norwegian Railway Directorate was important – where, among other things, mapping topics like cause explanation, procurement, quality assurance, uncertainty management, and other relevant areas were done.
There is not one cause. It is a complex set of events that led us to the situation we found ourselves in.
Dag Fredrik Bjørnland, Senior Partner, Implement Consulting Group.
Comprehensive Review of Work Done
The detailed review process encompassed multiple facets:
- Project Design Review: We scrutinized the methodologies employed, which revealed significant findings about the project's planning and execution stages.
- Management Strategies: Particularly, we analysed the crisis management tactics during the shutdown, shedding light on the decision-making processes and response efficiency.
- Bane NOR’s Systems and Routines: This included an evaluation of both technological and administrative aspects, assessing their effectiveness and adaptability.
- Contractual and Procurement Strategies: We examined their efficacy and potential areas of concern to understand their impact on the project's overall success.
- Stakeholder Interviews: These provided invaluable insights, emphasizing key themes and perceptions of the project from different perspectives.
The result of the review work is compiled in a final report, which you can find at the bottom of this page.
For us, the purpose of this report was not to find scapegoats. Instead, we wanted to identify valuable learnings for future large-scale public investment projects.
Dag Fredrik Bjørnland, Senior Partner, Implement Consulting Group.
The report "Ekstern gjennomgang av driftsstans på Follobanen" (External review of operational stoppage of Follobanen railway line) provides comprehensive information and points to a complex cause of the events.
The intention behind the report is, as mentioned, to understand and learn for the future – and the final report provides insight into the project's complexity and identifies areas for improvement.
If you want a more detailed review, you can see chapters 3-11 of the report. Below here, we highlight the following recommendations:
- Reporting to the Ministry of Transport should be simplified.
- For megaprojects, it should be considered to have a separate reporting mechanism for the corporate management and board to ensure learning so that significant risks are reported more clearly, and the board can more easily implement measures.
- The project was under high pressure to meet deadlines, yet official guidance stressed the importance of safety, quality, and cost. There was a notable lack of alignment in goals and priorities, indicating a mismatch between formal policies and actual management.
- A separate risk assessment specifically aimed at the operational situation should be established.
Get the full report
Do you want the full insights from our review of the Follobanen infrastructure project?
Download the report
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