Road works speed limits

[Express]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

In Victoria, they also put up signs telling us what the project will cost.
Some obscene amounts..

In my experience if you give a contractor a value to work to, they make sure it reaches that value, and not less

Originally Posted by b0son

This will make your blood boil ....

https://www.facebook.com/Channel4New...54249963541939

There's an intersection upgrade near my place, and its been going for months with not much obvious progress. And when you see the five guys on the site, with only one of them actually doing anything while the other four stand and watch, its not surprising.

If the authority isn’t doing the work themselves then a contractor will usually be employed on a Tender basis and if they had any sense they’d try to get the costs down to maximise their profit.

A big part of budget blow outs for large roadwork projects will often be caused by stand down times due to weather and the fact the initial cost estimates are often calculated a couple of years prior to work commencing and even though cost increases are factored in, the accuracy of on-costs is not always the best.

Jobs that run to or under cost are usually those that also don’t suffer from lost work hours.

I won’t go into the politics of governments who like to hoodwink their electorates with the lowest estimated costs then shrug their shoulders at the completion of work when the real figure becomes known.

Anyone who works the roads as full time employed Council day labour knows if you are employed to do a job the Unions won’t allow you to do anything but that job and therefore some employees stand around watching and waiting.

For example a truck driver will stand around the job chatting while waiting for a load but can’t pick up a shovel to help speed things along.

I know when I was a Council Engineer we could have greatly reduced the time cost of jobs if we could have gotten around that one factor alone.

So don’t blame the workers, the contractors and the government authorities for staff standing around, but feel free to point the finger at the work to rules mentality.

I've worked for 2 Japanese multinationals and let me tell you as bad as our workers may be perceived by some, you wouldn't want to replace it with the employer is God mentality that is rife in the Japanese workforce as that is just the other extreme.