Denver Regional Transportation District's FasTracks Program involves 12 projects worth a total of $6.7 billion, including 122 miles of new commuter rail and light rail.

Most large-scale, multi-party construction projects are inundated by too much information flowing among too many participants and individual users. This frequently results in errors, rework, disputes, cost overruns, and compliance failures. One organization, however, has figured out how to meet these challenges by using an online collaboration solution that centralizes all project-related documentation, including files and email. The solution ensures all participants have immediate access to the latest information no matter where they are, and creates a complete audit trail of communication.

The problem
Spread across eight counties, Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD) runs a comprehensive system of trains, buses, and transit facilities that currently are expanding to provide better mobility and additional transportation options. RTD currently has the only public-private partnership (P3) transit construction program in the country. The RTD FasTracks Program involves 12 projects worth a total of $6.7 billion, including 122 miles of new commuter rail and light rail, plus 18 miles of bus rapid transit service, a new commuter rail maintenance facility, and 31 new Park-n-Ride stations with 21,000 new parking spaces at rail and bus stations. Denver's historic Union Station is also undergoing complete renovation to become a multimodal transportation hub serving commuter rail, light rail, buses, taxis, shuttles, bicycles, Amtrak, and pedestrians.

RTD's Capital Programs include 25 smaller projects, including $1 million in maintenance and repairs to station and bridge infrastructure, driver relief stations, Park-n-Ride stations, and lighting systems.

The RTD FasTracks and Capital Programs faced several challenges that are common in organizations managing dozens of projects simultaneously. Contract management, compliance requirements, data ownership, and workflow guidelines vary depending on the particular project relationships and funding sources. File retention requirements vary by department as well as file type, and files must be retained separately for each project lifecycle plus an additional seven years.

In the past, RTD's limited engineering and construction system required project document control teams to collect data from each project contractor's internal document management system, and then manually re-process and re-publish data in separate RTD systems for archiving and viewing by the appropriate RTD parties. This caused a significant logjam in the flow of data. In addition, different document-control practices and repositories across the different project teams forced document controllers to adopt separate processes for each project, creating rigid information silos and significant redundancy. Attempting to integrate information across these silos was very labor intensive.

Denver Regional Transportation District currently has the only public-private partnership (P3) transit construction program in the country.

After reviewing possible solutions, RTD implemented Aconex as the data-capture engine for all internal and external project data across each of its programs and projects.

The platform
The Aconex online project collaboration solution creates a neutral platform where all of RTD's project documents and communications are centralized, managed, audited, and protected. The platform offers the following features and benefits to project participants across the project – from engineers who need designs collaborated upon, reviewed, and approved, to owners who require fast access to RFIs, change orders, and reports :

• Access – Approved users from any project stakeholder in any location can access all appropriate information at any time. The centralized location provides RTD immediate access to the latest documents – including data, RFIs, approvals, drawings, and tenders – and tracks in real-time the status of document reviews and approvals.
• Audit trail and archive – The system tracks all email among the participants, creating a complete audit trail of communication, and all documents are stored in a permanent archive, enabling RTD to satisfy today's complex and evolving regulatory requirements.
• Neutrality – Aconex is a neutral platform, so all project information is stored outside each participating organization's firewall. This ensures that each organization retains full ownership of its own data, and Aconex protects the rights and privacy of every participant.
• Security – Aconex offers the highest levels of network and physical security in professionally managed data centers that provide advanced networking tools and environmental protection, including around-the-clock monitoring, controlled access, closed circuit video surveillance inside and out, fire control systems, and more. Just as important, the data is continuously backed up to remote disaster-recovery sites. Aconex also provides each organization with complete control over access rights to its own data.
• SaaS – Aconex is offered via the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model with flat, predictable pricing. The fee includes unlimited access by an unlimited number of users, data hosting, training, and ongoing support for all project participants. The SaaS model also makes it easy for each participating organization to integrate the solution with its own document and project management systems. This facilitates collaboration without forcing participants to change their systems or processes.
• Ease of use and ongoing training – Aconex is easy to deploy and use, but the platform is also supported by ongoing training for all participants, no matter when they join a project.
• Fast – Aconex is deployed across a high-performance infrastructure, so it is fast enough to support the speedy transfer of today's large graphics files to remote workers and geographically dispersed teams. For RTD, this ensures maximum productivity and broader adoption.

After implementation of Aconex on the Eagle P3 railway project, 8,328 documents were registered in the first three weeks. As of late summer 2011, Aconex held 403 gigabytes of data, 116,510 documents, and 146,657 project emails for 683 users in 59 different organizations.

The benefits
With centralized, real-time access to the latest document versions, a complete audit trail, and accelerated workflows, the Aconex online project collaboration platform directly addressed Denver RTD's key risk factors related to too much information for too many stakeholders.

"FasTracks is a mega-project that turns everyday tasks into major challenges," said Greg Straight, design manager for the Eagle P3 Project. "Aconex has helped us in many ways to meet these challenges."

Aconex's SaaS-based platform eliminated the need for IT staff to build a separate infrastructure for each project. The single, centralized solution allowed RTD to establish best practices and reduce technology training requirements. It also made it easy for staff to capture, organize, and access information by project, eliminating the data-flow logjam and increasing the productivity of project participants. Seven document controllers are managing 20 live projects, a task that would require a head count of at least 60 without Aconex.

Aconex also has accelerated project workflows by providing access to documents anytime, anywhere. "By centralizing documents, Aconex has dramatically improved information transfer," Straight said. "For example, I'm frequently at a project site, but if I have access to the Internet, I have access to all the same information I would have at my desk. Everyone at RTD is now always up to date."

In addition, RTD management benefits from a predictable cost structure for the solution, which places no limits on the amount of data stored, while executives will be able to access reports through a SharePoint interface without having to learn a new system for each project. Aconex has also reduced risk by ensuring that RTD retains the information it needs to satisfy regulatory requirements and that it always has access to documentation to defend itself against claims.

Like many organizations, Denver RTD recognized that the amount and complexity of information involved in construction projects will only continue to grow, and that the only way to avoid a corresponding increase in errors, rework, disputes, cost overruns, and compliance penalties was to get control of that information and improve project workflows. Thanks to its online collaboration platform, the RTD's FasTracks program and other construction projects are truly on the fast track.

Leigh Jasper is CEO and co-founder of Aconex (www.aconex.com). Established in Australia in 2000, Aconex is now a global online collaboration solutions provider to the construction and engineering industries with 400 staff in 41 offices worldwide servicing $260 billion worth of projects across 65 countries. Its clients include AECOM, The Panama Canal Authority, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Las Vegas Sands, IKEA, and McDonald's Restaurants.