Business Risk Assessment For Assessed Risk Management

Project Context

Describe about the Business Risk Assessment for Assesed Risk Management.

This paper explores various types of risks that can occur on a tunnel project after the tunnel has already been constructed and is then being operated. Various types of risks are identified in the four categories including technical, organizational, and external and project management risks. The report identifies processes of risk identification for chosen four types of risks, assess impacts, establishing monitoring processes, come up with mitigation or risk resolution plan and identify various types of documentation that may be required in the process of risk management for the given case. The report assumes that the construction has successfully been completed as a result of partnership between the government and the private contractor who is made completely responsible for the operations of the project. Thus, the risks that are identified in the paper are done considering the operations run by the private contractor organization and government is seen as only an entity that can support the project organization through funds.

Introduction: Waterview Connection is a tunnel that connected State Highway 20 in the south of New Zealand at Mt Roskill to state Highway 16 in the west at Point Chevalier. The tunnel was the part of Western Ring Route.

Preparation: The Company has given the project to Well-Connected Alliance which includes a Transport Agency and contractors responsible for designing and tunneling (Ribeiro & Kobayashi, 2006).

Inclusions: The project involved construction of two tunnels 40m below the ground, each having three traffic lanes. The project included planning of tunnel construction, designing of tunnel infrastructure, provision of safety management equipments and tools, acquisition of equipments, materials and construction, quality management and risk management (Banaitiene & Banaitis, 2012).

Client Description: The project was constructed and operated for a Transport Agency called New Zealand transportation agency that provides various kinds of transport services including tools, roads, rail, commercial driving, safety, walking, cycling, planning, investments, and public transport. Client is NZ Transport Agency which is a public limited organization sponsored by the New Zealand government. The project has employed 1000 people to work in different levels and areas of project (Associates, 1995).

Site Information: The tunnel is required to have an interchange of 1.7kms in length connecting between Southwestern and Northwestern motorways in addition to twin tunnels of 2.4km length for carrying three lane traffic.

Technical requirements: The construction should be able to comfortably carry 83,000 vehicles per day which an expected traffic to be faced by the tunnels by 2026.

Risk Identification

Component requirements: The tunnels are required to have certain community related services like special lanes for walkers and cyclists, sports amenities, parks and playgrounds in the area.

Other issues: Waterview Primary School that was located nearby the construction area complained about the air quality issues. Another complaint was received from building developer located 19meters away on unfiltered fumes. Further, post 2010, some changes have to be made in the motorway proposal due to changes in Resource Management Act and fast-track inquiry board was formed to complete these tasks (Litman, 2016).

Costs: The costs incurred in the construction of the tunnel were $1.4 billion. For its operations, NZ Transport Agency is spends $108 million an once financial year for operating and maintaining the entire network of the state highway (L, 2016).

Employees: The Tunnel involved 800 of the staff for construction, operations and maintenance of tunnel.

Risk Category	Risk	Risk response
Technical	Operational and maintenance issues in the tunnel	Avoid: Regular maintenance procedures must be identified and determined in the project plan which should be executed timely such that the tunnel is properly maintained. Mitigate: In case of such issues, the causes have to be immediately determined and resolved before it affects the operations or cause risks for travellers (Goodall & Dixon, 2015).
Rock stress and ground water problems causing instability in the tunnel structure (Rosin, 2005)	Avoid: Measure tectonic stresses and in-situ rock stress to identify possible stress that can cause longitudinal stress and take steps to increase horizontal stress to create balance such that damage is avoided (MingLu & Nguyen, 2015).
External	Natural disasters can damage the tunnel thereby affecting its operations	Mitigate: Have safety equipments and emergency control operations in place such that when such risks occur then immediate calls can be placed to emergency response teams and protective measures can be taken for commuters affected by danger.
Loss of appropriate communication systems in the tunnel making it difficult to manage in emergencies.	Mitigate: Resume communications by repairing or acquiring new systems for communication with control systems
Organizational	Non-achievement of the commercial goals of the project as were required	Mitigate: If the initial planning has not been efficiently and the company is unable to earn enough revenues as expected because of lack of people using tunnel then the toll rate of tunnel may be reduced or additional funds may be taken from government
Inability to receive funds from the government to fill the revenue gap of the tunnel after it is operated.	Mitigate: Submit report to government officials to demand relief fund for making up for the losses in revenues from operations. Get additional funds to make up for the losses made by the private contractor organization.
Project management	Degradation in the air quality of the tunnel is affected during its operations causing air pollution inside tunnel making it difficult to use for commuters (LIKHITRUANGSILP & IOANNOU, 2012)	Mitigate: If the natural ventilation systems are not sufficient for the tunnel then artificial ventilation systems may be constructed (Federal Highway Administration, 2015).
Fire inside tunnel causing damage to the tunnel as well as causalities to regular commuters	Avoid: Deploy risk containment by using fire safety solutions that can be used for detecting potential issues such that they are solved even before a fire is caused. Mitigation: Smoke detectors can be used for identifying possibilities of fire and at the same time, such systems can be integrated with back end systems that trigger alarms for fire fighters and other security personal to arrive at site to extinguish fire and provide support to commuters (Seimens, 2010).

Technical Risk

Risk Identification: Such risks can be identified during the operational plans of the tunnel project such that possible risks can be avoided or the corrective actions can be taken immediately after they are faced.  Tunnels are like cavities build in a three dimensional geometry in the earth and they contain both equipments and traffic inside them. In order to ensure that the tunnel operations are properly executed and it remains safe for public, regular maintenance procedures are to be followed involving various types of inspections that can be useful in identifying possible problems that can be solved through the use of maintenance procedures. These inspections can involve examination of grounding, load capacity, corrosion, lines, sign posts, structural elements, and so on. Inspections may be made to identify irregularities to assess if there could be a probability of disaster. Even after accidents or mishaps happen, the maintenance procedures are required to be continued after proper inspection of the spot is done (Aurecon, 2011).

Impact Analysis: If regular maintenance processes are not followed then it can cause severe damages to the constructed tunnel which can affect the operations as well as can cause causalities or other human health damages. The possible impacts of the irregularities in tunnel can be severe demanding immediate attention, not urgent requiring repairing in medium term or causing minimal impacts that have to be watched to identify if problems are likely to increase in future. Points of damages can be identified and a comparison may be made for cases of different situations that can be caused based on elements like position, appearance, consequences and causes (KEHNE, 2000).

Risk Analyses and Evaluation

Review and Monitor: The operations must be monitored to understand if the maintenance procedures are being followed appropriately and in case any maintenance process is lagging behind, appropriate measures should be taken to complete the same on priority. Various activities happening inside the tunnel including the passenger commutation and impacts of tunnel irregularities have been watched, monitored and reviewed to take safety measures on time avoiding damages in future.

Risk Identification: Natural disasters cannot be predicted directly by the tunnel management team but weather forecasting or environmental department’s warning signals can be used to assess a possibility of a disaster such that a pre-preparation for managing conditions in the case of event can be made.

Impact Analysis: The possible impact of the disaster can be assessed to understand to what extend it would cause the damage to the tunnel, to the commuters, and nearby areas as well as people such that a plan can be made to minimize damage. In the cases of natural disasters, the risk assessment can be done using mature occurrence models or using actuarial loss data such that decisions can be made about trade-offs and the mitigation alternatives (FHWA, 2003).

Review and Monitor: The forecasts related to environment may be reviewed and impacts can be assessed so as to understand the extent of the damage that can be caused by any natural disaster on the tunnel, commuters and people. Management can watch for nature anomalies and events that increase vulnerability of the site to a natural disaster such as heavy rainfall, typhoon, or draught as these can affect the tunnel and thus, in case of their occurrence appropriate mitigation measures may be taken. Geological information systems can be used for identifying potential hazards that may be caused by various risks such that effective response measures could be taken to mitigate impacts (Sang­Soo, 2014).

Risk Identification: When the project is unable to perform as per the planned revenue generation measures then it suggests that the project is likely to face financial losses. Factors like human resource changes, changes in usage patterns of tunnels and so on can be measured to identify if any of the factors can cause severe impacts on the financial performance of the tunnel project.

Impact Analysis: The inability to generate sufficient revenues can directly affect the operations of the tunnel project such as maintenance, management of communication facilities and so on. The impact may be understood through experience, judgment, intuition, linked events or regulation (RBI, RESERVE BANK OF INDIA)

Review and Monitor: The revenue generated by the project must be recorded from time to time and must be compared with the plan to identify likely variations.

Risk Identification: If the air quality systems are not managed properly, it can cause negative impacts on the system such as causing health issues in commutes, causes them to suffer from suffocation inside the tunnel and so on. These risks can be caused in the cases where the air quality maintenance procedure are mismanaged or misunderstood (Bills, et al., 2016).

Impact Analysis: If the air quality of the tunnel suffers, it can cause health problems in commuters and even causalities in certain cases like fire breakage.

Review and Monitor: The air quality must be monitored continuously by equipments that can measure the air pressure and assess if they are performing as per requirements. And various possible causes of air pollution may be observed and monitored from time to time such as roadside category, workload, air contaminants, health conditions of workers, and so on (Speeding, Phillips, Bean, Rochford, & Murray, 2011).

Technical Risk

Overview: Regular maintenance procedures may be established in advance such that the same are followed from time to time while operating tunnel as per a schedule.  However, there can be cases when he tunnels is not maintained properly which can cause possibilities of damage to construction due to wear and tear or natural degradation.

Risk Response: National Tunnel Inspection Standards may be used for ensuring that the site is properly inspected for the quality performance including elements of inspection and frequency of inspection.

Documentation: A maintenance process may be recorded containing details of how the quality standards would be followed and managed for each of the project component. This would include the inspection practice guide for the tunnel operations project that involves identification of best practices, maintenance and inspection schedules (Thompson, et al., 2011).

Overview: External risks can be caused due to several factors that are uncontrollable by project team or any of the stakeholders such as natural disaster that can damage the construction as well cause damage to human life.

Risk Response: As per the assessment, the tunnel may be closed down for specific number of days when the event is most likely to occur; operations of the tunnel can be closed for the public in order to avoid the disaster impacting people. However, there can still be cases when the disaster can happen unexpectedly and for such cases, communication systems must be established within the tunnel in advance such that an emergency response team can be connected to by anyone inside the tunnel to seek immediate help in case of emergencies.

Documentation: All emergency response systems and necessary materials must be stored in the tunnel as well as documented along with the standard operating procedures. These emergency response systems would include communication system, first aid boxes, and protective equipments that must be providing at the site.

Overview: Despite proper planning, there can be chances that the project does not perform monetarily such as in the case of discussed tunnel. In such a case, appropriate strategies have to be made to recover losses and make a plan for gaining a position to achieve profitable operations.

Risk Response: If the project fails to receive required revenue then government help can be sought to make up for losses or a possible increase in the toll may be made to gain profits from commuters.

Documentation: All the goals of the project must be recorded in the project charted that should be presented in the beginning of the project to the sponsor. Further, these goals should be revisited to identify objectives and individual actions that can be recorded as deliverables in the milestones plan. The objectives are recorded in the milestones to allow project monitoring and assessment of its progress.

Overview: At times, the natural ventilation may not remain sufficient for the commuters going through tunnels and in such cases, artificial ventilation systems may be installed.

Risk Response: In case natural ventilation is not sufficient to maintain a desired air flow in the tunnel then a decision may be made to make use of artificial ventilation systems to make up for it. Moreover, some specific measures can be taken to control air ventilation problems such as training of workers who are responsible for managing operations of the tunnel and thus, keep check on air quality and importance of its maintenance (AQHI, 2013). 

Documentation: Project documents must record various ventilation systems and procedures that are used in the tunnel operations project as well as information on their quality and maintenance. (Berg, 2010).

Conclusions

This report explored the context of tunneling project from the perspective of risk management highlighting the essentials of project required for stakeholders to understand. Further, it explores the process of identification of risks in the case of the tunneling project in the areas of technical, organizational, external and project management risks. Further, the risks are assessed and then response planning is presented for the four risk categories with one identified risk in each category. Various risks that were identified in the report included technical risk of inability to establish proper maintenance procedures, external risks such as natural disasters causing damage to construction, organizational risks such as lack of achievement of enough revenue from operations and project management risks such as inability to maintain proper ventilation systems inside the tunnel.

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