HDR served as risk manager for the SR 520 Bridge Replacement and HOV Program for the Washington State Department of Transportation. In this role, HDR assisted WSDOT with developing and delivering this $4.65 billion program that involved replacing the existing four-lane SR 520 floating bridge with a new six-lane floating bridge with HOV lanes, bike/pedestrian facilities and the ability to accommodate future light rail. The risk management program involved conducting baseline quantitative cost and schedule risk assessments using the WSDOT Cost Estimate Validation Process (CEVP©) process to develop risk-based estimates of cost and schedule for each of the projects within the program.

Once key risks were identified, the process focused on risk management. This was integrated with value engineering (using HDR’s CRAVE™ process) to develop strategies to minimize, avoid and contain key project risks. This approach reduced the project’s time to completion, increased the likelihood of meeting specific project schedule milestones and lowered the overall expected project cost. The quantitative risk analysis is then updated with these strategies to generate “what-if” scenarios for risk mitigation. Following this, trade-offs were analyzed such that WSDOT could determine if the efforts required to implement the value engineering and other risk management strategies, typically involving additional cost or resources to implement, could be justified based on the overall impact to project costs and schedule.