RTG outscored competitors to win Stage 1 LRT contract, but evaluators noted downfalls
While the city released the Stage 2 O-Train procurement scores earlier this year, it has never released the Stage 1 procurement scores.
Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: December 5, 2019
The Rideau Transit Group received the best technical and financial scores in the Stage 1 LRT contract competition, but newly released records show bid evaluators recorded flaws in the proposal on several fronts, including on construction, design and communications.
The Stage 1 procurement scoring documents, obtained by this newspaper through access to information, show RTG beat the two other shortlisted bidders for the $2.1-billion construction contract and long-term maintenance deal, with evaluators in 2012 ranking RTG the top bidder based on the consortium’s final procurement score. RTG met the minimum technical scoring thresholds for the massive project and the strength of its financial bid secured a win.
While the city released the Stage 2 O-Train procurement scores earlier this year, it has never released the Stage 1 procurement scores.
The Stage 1 contract scoring offered comments on each of the 19 technical categories, and RTG largely received positive comments from evaluators. “Strong team,” “strong approach with the use of sophisticated tools,” “very good overall strategies” and “solid understanding” of risks were some of the comments recorded by evaluators.
However, the five-member evaluation team noted several negative attributes of all the bids, including RTG’s bid.
On RTG’s risk management plan, evaluators observed that the bid “did not adequately describe the tunnel risks” and “did not describe management responsibilities.” Evaluators saw a “weak” environmental management plan and a tracking system for environmental incidents that was “lacking detail.”
When it came to RTG’s approach on utilities, evaluators noticed a “lack of detail on drawings,” and on geotechnical information, they noticed RTG’s plan was “lacking detail on impacts to adjacent structures.”
The design evaluation prompted evaluators to observe no discussion by RTG on public art and an urban design proposal that had a “narrative focused almost solely on NCC approvals.” Evaluators didn’t find good descriptions of station integrations not subject to approvals by the National Capital Commission.
While evaluators agreed RTG demonstrated a “good understanding” of specifications on the LRT guideway, they noted a “weak description of design considerations for snow clearing and storage.”
A review of RTG’s tunnel design prompted evaluators to write, “addresses understanding of project requirements however, results of analysis and proposed solutions represent project risks.” Evaluators, for example, saw that RTG didn’t believe mitigation measures for adjacent structures were required for anticipated ground settlement.
RTG received a higher score on its communications plan compared to the other two bidders, but evaluators saw a “poor approach to government relations” and that RTG had “little demonstrated experience for government and media relations.”
The city on Thursday was unable to respond by deadline on how it made sure to mitigate the negatives in RTG’s bid after the consortium won the contract.
RTG’s main partners are SNC-Lavalin, ACS Infrastructure Canada Inc. and EllisDon.
The other two shortlisted bidders were Ottawa Transit Partners (Vinci, Acciona, Aecon, Bombardier) and Rideau Transit Partners (Bouygues Travaux Publics, Brookfield Financial, Fiera Axium Infrastructure, Parsons, Colas Rail, Johnson Controls).
The request for proposals required minimum technical, design, construction and maintenance scores of 70 per cent. The financial plan required a minimum score of 60 per cent.
The consensus technical scores for the bidders were close. RTG did best at 79.83 per cent, followed by Ottawa Transit Partners at 78.98 per cent and Rideau Transit Partners at 78.28 per cent.
RTG easily walked away with the top-ranked spot with its financial score of 98.5 per cent.
As it turns out, the Stage 1 procurement wasn’t like the controversial Stage 2 procurement of the Trillium Line expansion where the winning bidder, SNC-Lavalin, won the contract by having a below-threshold technical score but a strong financial score, which carried the company to victory.
For the Stage 1 procurement, all three bidders achieved at least 70 per cent on almost all of the 19 technical sub-categories. The one sub-70 score was Rideau Transit Partners’ 68 for safety management and certification and regulatory matters.
RTG’s technical sub-category scores ranged from 72 per cent on the low end for its utilities submission to 85 per cent in areas of risk management and safety management.
Today, the heat is on RTG when it comes to its maintenance of the LRT system — for which the consortium is receiving more than $2 billion over a 30-year term for Stage 1, a sum that increases substantially when Stage 2 LRT maintenance is included — even though the consortium easily met, and exceeded, the minimum 70-per-cent score during Stage 1 procurement.
RTG scored 80 per cent on its maintenance and rehabilitation plan, and the other shortlisted bidders scored 80 per cent (Rideau Transit Partners) and 86 per cent (Ottawa Transit Partners).
Evaluators noted that they didn’t see a preliminary asset management plan or handover plan in RTG’s bid, and they described RTG’s approach to ensuring compliance with regulatory inspections and testing as “marginal,” but their overall comment was that RTG’s strength was having maintenance staff involved from the beginning of testing and startup activities.
The city announced this week it’s hiring outside experts to make sure RTG is properly maintaining the rail system after more than two months of unreliable LRT service.
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...-bid-documents
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