ISSUE 7 2013OUR GLOBAL VIEW OF A VIBRANT WORLD

ThE ISSUERESIlIEncE coST EffIcIEncIES ThRoUgh bIMhEAlThcARE ASSESSMEnTShUb-id — ModEllIng SolUTIonScoMMUnITY RESIlIEncE 3d TERRESTRIAl lASER ScAnnIng PRoTEcTIng YoUR ASSETS

conTEnTS INTRODUCTION 04 Agile response delivers resilient solutions

SHAPING AN ExCITING NEW WORLD 06 Building Information Modelling

FACE TO FACE 08 A robust safety culture builds resilient businesses

HEALTHCARE 12 Delivering taliored healthcare facilities

HUB-id 14 New tools to translate new ideas

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE 20 Sustainable mining development

WEATHER AND ITS IMPACT 24 Engineering meteorology

SUPPLY CHAIN 26 Collaboration drives optimised supply chains

URBAN RESILIENCE 30 Resilience in an era of rapid urbanisation

3D TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING 38 Scanning new horizons for resilient solutions

DELIVERING INNOVATION IN FIELD-BASED INSPECTIONS 42 Asset inspection tool

WElcoME

“ The power of resilience is in all of our hands.”

RESIlIEncEResilience is as important to corporations and government as it is to individuals. Being able to not only survive but grow, despite economic and broader market challenges, depends on building resilience into operations, infrastructure, planning and culture.

In today’s turbulent global economy, there is a search for value, as well as cost and operational efficiencies that support the bottom line. We support our clients daily in building this resilience.

In this issue of 360º, we look at ways that clever thinking can support operational and infrastructure design across a range of industries to boost financial resilience.

We also work with communities to build resilience in a broader sense. We support business and governments in building resilience to weather events and natural disasters. And we support communities in creating resilient urban environments and developing socio-economic resilience — building the tools for communities to develop and grow wealth sustainably.

One of our core values is that, ‘We work to build a vibrant and brighter future for all’. Our people are dedicated to building resilience in the communities in which we live and work around the globe as part of our ‘contributing to communities’ initiative.

I hope you enjoy this magazine.

Regards,

Paul hardyChief Executive Officer Aurecon

Aurecon Resilience

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Agile response delivers resilient solutions Aurecon understands that resilient economies are the sum of many parts. The capability to deliver efficient tailored solutions and processes is key to underpinning economic resilience and fostering agility in times of challenge.

In the current global economic climate, liquidity, funding and capital raising, social licence to operate, response to climate change and natural disasters are all impacting economies and setting the agenda for delivering future proof solutions.

Within the public sector, Aurecon’s business advisors focus on exploring innovative ways to tailor Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to local environments and create sustainable PPP regimes. Global urbanisation is putting pressure on availability of suitable land and infrastructure spending. Aurecon’s HUB-id offering is integrating the work of economists, transport modellers, engineers, urban designers, and property professionals to put people at the centre of design considerations within the rapidly urbanising environment.

Globally, the resources sector is under immense pressure to provide sustainable economic and social benefits to the communities in which it operates. Through the adoption of the SUSOP® (SUStainable OPerations) methodology and the

use of SAVE (South African Value Education) services and products, Aurecon is providing tools for sustainable community development around mining operations.

Our sophisticated transport logistics expertise allows Aurecon to advise stakeholders on collaboration in the development of resilient supply chains. Our focus is to foster information sharing; coordination of long-term planning across mine, rail, bulk material handling and port maintenance by all supply chain members; opportunistic operations to make best use of changes in capacity anywhere in the system; and maintenance when the system is down.

Our own cultural resilience sees Aurecon embedding diversification and growth, across geographies, industries and services, to remain focused on working with all our stakeholders to deliver solutions in an ever changing and dynamic global economy.

Aurecon Resilience

Shaping an exciting new world

“BIM is a powerful tool with which to undertake simulation tasks, interact and retrieve real time results and will positively contribute to cost-efficiencies over the life of a project.”

Already considered one of the most important trends to emerge in construction industry for decades, Building Information Modelling (BIM) impacts many aspects our work across the built environment.

Powerful, technology-based tools such as BIM present evolutionary changes across the projects and the communities for whom they are delivered. Evolving technologies continue to change the way drawings look and how we can collate, sort, manipulate and act on the data behind them. As these technologies continue to develop, so too will the potential of this important tool across various sectors—the way that we create, present and interact with BIM outputs is significantly different today compared with even last year.

Full virtual prototyping of buildings is no longer a dream for the distant future and many clients already expect 3D-based design. Today, it is possible to simulate aspects of the performance of a building before it is constructed.

There is no single definition of Building Information Modelling (BIM). BIM, as it is understood today, can be defined as a cross-disciplinary, coordinated 3D model in which 3D objects can be displayed across synchronised 2D drawings. BIM software is database driven, so objects can be counted and ordered, and they act as place holders for relationships and any amount of data that we might attach to them. The manipulation of this data is also termed BIM.

Shaping an exciting new world

John hainsworth

John is one of Australia’s leading BIM experts. A pragmatic engineer with more than 25 years of experience, he has spent the last 13 years specialising in 3D and BIM delivery. John recently joined Aurecon to lead our BIM team within the Buildings service group.

You can contact John at: john.hainsworth@aurecongroup.com

As technology develops, the potential exists for the creation of a complete virtual building in which all of its aspects and internal relationships can be tested and better understood.

“The potential insights from using BIM data are endless,” says John Hainsworth, Aurecon’s BIM Leader.

“Imagine planning and sequencing opportunities in 4D, preordering materials to reduce waste, calculating whole-of-life costs for streamlining operations, inhabiting the model with agents programmed to have human behavioural patterns, simulating airflows or acoustic performance and rehearsing clash-free, right-first-time construction schedules,” adds John.

The evolution continuesWhile BIM has been around for a little over a decade, a significant change has been its recent uptake by infrastructure projects. The lessons that we learned going up vertically in buildings are now being applied

horizontally on infrastructure across Aurecon’s Transport and Land Development service groups.

General technological developments are enhance our BIM capabilities. Consider the rapid advancements in cloud computing. Currently, design is a time-consuming process. Design teams meet, conceive options and then go away to investigate and test those options. The team meets again and the process repeats, while in the background simulations are run that often take days or weeks.

“Imagine being able to harness the power of multiple computers to undertake the simulation tasks, interacting and retrieving real time results. The ability to run these routines and collaborate on the spot will help designers work through options far more rapidly,” says John.

At Aurecon, we are already exploring how we can design in a way that allows us to work closely with our clients

to react to simulations, be that in terms of rationalisation, optimisation or standardisation. The emerging processes will become fundamental to design innovation, producing results that could not have been predicted before the advent of BIM and other technologies. Very soon we may see BIM-savvy clients watching the design process through cloud computing and having instant access to what we produce. These clients will be able to manipulate the data themselves, view the simulation and make informed decisions.

It’s opportunities such as these that make the future of BIM so exciting.

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Aurecon Resilience

9from left to right: graham landon, Transnet Capital Projects Manager; Jabu Tlou, Transnet Capital Projects Safety Manager; Mark Perkins, Aurecon Safety Supervisor; Koos louw, Aurecon Office Manager, eThekwini.

A robust safety culture builds resilient businesses

This interview was conducted by Phil hendricks, Aurecon’s Industry Director for Transport.

A robust safety culture is key to ensuring the active protection of people, while proactive prevention of incidents and injuries reduces the impact of lost time and reputational damage.

A priority for Aurecon is the continual development of a health and safety culture that is market-leading, cares about our people, our clients’ people and the community.

Showcasing safety achievement against all oddsFollowing the Bayhead Road Upgrade project winning the 2012 Transnet Capital Projects (TCP) Group Executive award for Safety, Aurecon and Transnet personnel reviewed the lessons learned from the outstanding safety achievement.

The Bayhead Road, a key feeder road to the port of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is the most heavily trafficked road in the Southern Hemisphere. A R270 million-upgrade commenced in September 2010 and was completed two years later. Construction on this route was faced with myriad project and road safety challenges, a situation which was compounded by the close proximity of railway lines, the associated overhead high voltage traction equipment and active fuel gas pipelines.

The project team managed to achieve an incredible zero lost-time injuries (LTIs) on completion of the project, and over 1 000 000 LTI-free manhours. Fittingly, the project won the 2012 TCP Group Executive award for Safety, on top of being named the ‘Runner up for Project of the Year’. Aurecon fulfilled the roles of construction manager and client agent, and also provided full-time safety representation on site. Key members of the TCP project team recently discussed with Aurecon the key success factors that delivered the impressive safety outcomes on a project of this complexity and scale.

Phil How significant are the TCP Group Executive awards and what does a project have to achieve to be selected for an award amongst hundreds of others?

graham

The TCP Group Executive awards are TCP’s most prestigious accolades, awarded to absolute best-of-best examples of all of the national and regional projects undertaken annually. Award-winning projects have to demonstrate exceptional achievement in their particular category, such as achieving an industry or company first.

fAcE To fAcE

Aurecon Resilience

JabuSafety is paramount to TCP. It is a non-negotiable. Our annual performance reviews include scoring employees on safety and, what’s more, safety has been incorporated in our company values. In terms of the Bayhead Road Upgrade specifically, safety was one of the key criteria used to evaluate prospective partners. We require all of our partners to satisfy our safety criteria.

grahamTCP’s target disability injury rate is 0.25, which is considerably more demanding than the 0.40 used in our civil engineering construction industry. This is proof we are doing things differently!

Phil What gave the Bayhead Road Upgrade an edge in the ‘Safety Champion of the year’ category?

grahamIn terms of distinguishing factors, the Bayhead Road Upgrade was identified as an extremely high-risk project right from the outset. During the FEL1 and 2 stages, a risk workshop was held and no less than 30 significant risks were identified. The most serious of these included the need for deep excavations in sandy, waterlogged reclamation material; working adjacent to and over active railway lines; working adjacent to and amidst heavy traffic; the site being large and in the public domain; and the sensitive services (fuel, gas, fibre

optic and electrical) from the adjacent National Key Point interfacing with the construction plant and activities.

On any project, including measures to achieve the general mitigation of risk is absolutely key but in this case, each of the many risks identified required a detailed, proven risk mitigation strategy because of the serious consequences of not addressing each risk. Despite significant risks, the project team still managed to achieve an incredible Zero LTIs on completion of the project.This is almost unheard of on projects of this scale and complexity.

JabuAurecon’s close involvement in terms of providing full-time safety representation on site was key to our success. One of this project’s distinguishing factors included finding solutions to challenges on site immediately, as they arose.

This on-the-ground input allowed us to solve issues quickly and ensured behaviours or practices that didn’t comply with safety expectations were immediately quelled.

Phil Is there anything unique about the approach which the project team took to safety on site?

grahamI think ‘on-site experience’ is an absolutely critical point, Phil. Aurecon recognised this need, and ensured that experienced safety personnel

formed part of their team. Aurecon’s Assistant Project Manager, a seasoned safety practitioner, had very unique ways in which he reinforced safety on site. At times, we had up to 250 general workers on site, yet every single worker knew exactly who the construction manager was.

TCP has a safety mascot—a Meerkat called ’Zero’. Meerkat means ‘my brother’s keeper’, and Aurecon was determined to enforce this philosophy on site and promoted ’Zero’ through active campaigns, including those which targeted our workers. It’s significant that whenever the workers saw the Assistant Project Manager on site, they would assume a Meerkat pose in jest and even took to calling him ’The Meerkat’. This is symbolic of the proactive presence a safety-conscious individual can have on site.

Mark Part of Aurecon’s pro-active, as opposed to reactive, approach to safety included recognising workers and staff who espoused good safety practices. This included handing out personally made informal safety award ‘trophies’ using everyday site items—such as a red paint-bloodied boot with a nail through it.

This light-hearted recognition went a long way to motivating people on site and reinforcing positive behaviour and safety culture.

Phil Describe how some of the main safety challenges on site were addressed?

Above Bayhead Road Upgrade, eThekwini, South Africa

fAcE To fAcE

MarkBayhead Road is frequented by a massive numbers of 22 m-long superlink trucks. At any given time, these trucks carry 6 m and/or 12 m boxes, or bulk commodity products, or even hazardous cargo such as petrochemicals. Mitigating the possible risks this implied took careful planning. It involved detailed construction signage, traffic calming measures, such as temporary deviations and speed humps, close cooperation with the eThekwini Metro Police and stakeholders, and ensuring a heavy-duty tow truck was on hand at all hours for possible breakdowns.

Another serious safety challenge was the deep excavations in sandy, waterlogged material in order to install pipe protection culverts around live fuel and gas pipelines. To combat the potentially dangerous collapse of sand, we undertook extensive dewatering for excavations deeper than 1.5 m (below the water table), as well as made use of sheet piling.

Regular inspections and monitoring during this process were key to identifying and mitigating risk. In terms of working over and adjacent to active railway lines, we enforced strict compliance with the E(7) specification which details best-practice methods of undertaking work near railway lines. In addition, enforcing round-the-clock trained supervision for overhead track equipment work, which was undertaken by TCP RME (Transnet’s in-house specialist construction division), was critical. The site was

in the public domain, and therefore vigilant barricading and demarcating of the works, as well as open communication with stakeholders was enforced.

Phil How important is the forming of partnerships within a project team when it comes to safety?

graham

A partnership between TCP, Aurecon, the designer (Jeffares and Green) and the contractor (Steffanuti Stocks) was absolutely key to maintaining high safety standards. In this regard, it is crucial that the conditions of contract of any project stipulate partnerships.

KoosThe New Engineering Contract, which was developed by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers, to guide the drafting of documents for obtaining tenders, starts with Clause 10.1: “The Employer, the Contractor, the Project Manager and the Supervisor shall act as stated in this contract and in a spirit of mutual trust and cooperation.”

grahamTCP has on previous occasions worked with members of the same project team on other challenging projects, and so we were able to leverage our existing strong relationships. The ‘people’ factor was important to our success on this project.

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Above Bayhead Road Upgrade, eThekwini, South Africa

Top safety lessons learnt from the bayhead Road Upgrade

Make safety a visible priority

graham

It’s important to implement visible points of contact for safety. These points of contact should provide coaching on site, talk to employees about safety and ask employees questions around safety. On this project, full use was made of TCP’s ‘Safety Observations and Conversations System’ which encourages team focus on and communication around safety. Importantly, this enables a learning environment.

Understand the implications of appointing a safety supervisor

Jabu

It’s critical to choose a capable safety supervisor. Aurecon went one step further and enforced safety audits of their own safety management system by Aspirata, a specialised business unit of Aurecon that provides health and safety services. This was very valuable as the outside perspective was helpful in ensuring continuous improvement of safety practices on site.

commit to diligence, dedication, discipline and thorough planning

Mark

This project proves that large projects can be successful and safe! Productivity and schedule don’t have to compromise safety. Zero harm was achieved on the project through uncompromised diligence, dedication, discipline and through carefully planning safety interventions for each and every identified risk.

Aurecon Resilience

Well-managed assets make for resilient operating models. In areas with rapidly growing populations, the management of existing healthcare assets is often impacted by changing asset management drivers and the need to deliver responsive life-cycle assessments to maximise ageing healthcare asset performance.

Gauteng is the hub of urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa. With enormous growth potential, statistics put the Gauteng population at about 10.4 million people, which represents 20 per cent of the total South African population. In addition, emerging population growth in informal settlements on the fringes of Gauteng’s boundaries, as well as the approximately three million illegal immigrants in the province, contributes to the burgeoning population and the impact this has on provincial government.

An increasing need for quality healthcare facilities in gautengDevelopment brings with it challenges and opportunities for improvement. The Gauteng Department of Health (GDoH) identified the need to undertake comprehensive risk and asset management studies and to deliver quality asset management plans and infrastructure programmes.

Over a period of 24 months, Aurecon undertook a series of studies that enabled the department to make informed financial and strategic decisions in planning a multi-year framework that aims to deliver better outcomes for all

stakeholders. The GDoH plays a significant role in building Gauteng into a globally-competitive city. Through its various arrays of services, including emergency medical services, forensic pathology and primary health care, the department is focused on increasing access to health services across the province. Gauteng itself is regarded as the health hub of Southern Africa and, to this end, three major hospitals—Chris Hani Baragwanath (Johannesburg), Charlotte Maxeke (Johannesburg) and Steve Biko (Pretoria) facilities are high-quality hospitals that serve patients throughout the Southern Africa region.

The GDoH embraced a model focusing on primary health care, encouraging people to shift away from hospital-centric care to clinic-centric care. This model assists in identifying potential disorders earlier, rather than later, and in diminishing the incidence and impact of chronic disorders across the community. To deliver on the model, the GDoH realised it needed to focus on keeping existing facilities well-maintained. This approach translates into ensuring that the premature failure of facilities should be avoided by following a life-cycle approach to infrastructure management.

careful asset and risk management crucial to the prioritisation of funding“Owing to the pressure of the population on health facilities, and the ongoing operation of these ageing facilities without proper asset management plans, Aurecon was tasked to perform various asset

delivering robust healthcare facilities “We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us. The spaces in which we live, work, play and heal can be enabling and life-supporting or stress-producing and destructive.”

Jan Vermaak, Aurecon Project Leader

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management functions in determining full life-cycle assessments, with the emphasis on maintenance requirements for all health facilities within the Gauteng Province,” says Jan Vermaak, Project Leader.

“To achieve this, we undertook risk management studies relating to occupational health and safety, and the remaining useful life of the various facilities and their components,” adds Vermaak.

Quality deliverables and tailored tools pave the way in prioritising interventionsA key deliverable included the condition profile of the health facilities in Gauteng. This enabled the prioritisation and allocation of funding for the provision of facilities in accordance with the most urgent needs in terms of demographics and/or the structural integrity.

As part of the deliverables, Aurecon provided the GDoH with a short, medium and long term budget implication technique, enabling financial decision-making and planning over a multi-year framework.

The project team devised the Remaining Useful Life Data Analysis (RULDAN) tool for interpreting and translating condition assessment data, coupled with remaining useful life of different building components (including mechanical, electrical, structural, civil and wet services), in order to provide a rough order of magnitude cash flow on maintenance of all facilities. Aurecon compiled the first

user asset management plan linked to a custodian asset management plan on a provincial level, paving the way for a comprehensive asset management plan informed by demographic requirements as well as condition assessment of building components of health facilities. In addition, risk assessment tools in terms of a colour-coded classification were implemented to prioritise interventions reported in an infrastructure programme management plan.

Aurecon’s strategic analysis results in vastly improved efficiencyAn unexpected value add to the process was a discovery made during the strategic analysis. The project team was privileged to be working with processes run by both the Government-wide Immovable Asset Management Act (GIAMA), which is driven by the National Public Works Programme, and the Infrastructure Delivery Improvement Programme (IDIP), which is driven by the National Treasury.In working with these two entities simultaneously, the team discovered areas in which aligning separate processes between the entities would serve overall infrastructure planning well. The team then drew the potential of this idea to the attention of the National Treasury, who recognised its value and subsequently approved the necessary adjustments. Consequently, processes were efficiently streamlined due to the fact that Aurecon was assigned to deliver on both of the processes and, in this way, was ideally placed to identify and address such an issue.

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Aurecon Resilience

new tools to translate new ideas

new tools to translate new ideas

Using HUB-Trips, land use and transport options can be developed in real-time, in a workshop setting, or existing scenarios can be imported into the tool.

HUB-Trips is Aurecon’s new and revolutionary HUB-id tool to rapidly assess transport and land-use options. It cuts months from the duration of conventional option identification and assessment processes, and achieves a more integrated solution and more effective stakeholder engagement.

density? Everything is possible with a few clicks of a mouse.

HUB-Trips’ engine-room models transport and land use interaction and will quickly identify potential travel demands, patronage, mode split and cost recovery outcomes for the transport elements of scenarios. Here, the great strength of HUB-Trips is its ability to rapidly provide meaningful

comparisons of the performance of different scenarios. While conventional transport models may take hours to run, HUB-Trips provides answers in seconds, meaning clients and stakeholders can see results almost immediately, and more clearly understand the inter-relationship of transport and land use options.

The scalability of HUB-Trips means it can be used for small projects (from precinct masterplans to individual developments) to large regional and sub-regional development and transport infrastructure.

Aurecon’s HUB-Trips operators are transport and land-use planners, rather than modellers or mathematicians, so we are better able to translate clients’ ideas and interpret the outputs as integrated outcomes.

We think the potential of HUB-Trips for improving transport and land-use planning for large to small projects is enormous. While traditional approaches to developing and assessing integrated transport and land-use options can be time-consuming and complex, taking months or years to get to a shortlist, Aurecon’s HUB-Trips tool can shorten that process to weeks, while still ensuring stakeholder involvement and delivering a customised, technically-based evaluation.

HUB-Trips is a visual assessment tool which can graphically illustrate the relationships and interaction between transport and land use and compare alternative scenarios, while incorporating a multi-modal transport model to ensure robust outputs. In addition, HUB-Trips provides customisable on-screen results and reports to meet a range of needs, including Multi-Criteria Assessment and Economic evaluations.

Using HUB-Trips, land use and transport options can be developed in real-time, in a workshop setting, or existing scenarios can be imported into the tool. The operator simply ‘draws’ the scenarios on-screen and, using a library of data, HUB-Trips calculates areas, distances, and other parameters such as populations, households, travel times, station locations, capital and operating costs, mode splits and sustainability measures. HUB-Trips can easily be customised to input and output data in local or specialised formats.

This enables project stakeholders to be closely involved in the development of options, providing effective consultation and involvement—what if a rail line went this way instead of that? What if we added or deleted a station, or changed a heavy rail line to light rail or bus? All these options can be immediately developed and tested, and the same approach is adopted for land use. What would be the effect if we had residential instead of commercial development here, or if we increased

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Aurecon Resilience

FILM ANIMATION BRINGS LIFE TO ENGINEERING SIMULATION

In response to demand for highly integrated places for people and business, Aurecon’s HUB-id is bringing real-life behaviours into agents to create accurate simulations.

Through a partnership with Massive Insight™, who first amazed audiences with unprecedented battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Aurecon can apply evidence based engineering to help design precincts and urban spaces that focus on people, not only vehicles.

Fruin Level of Service for pedestrian’s model

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Massive Insight’s software experts, Stephen Regelous and Kevin Mannion explain how movie making is shaping a new level of visualisation in the infrastructure design and build process.

Stephen Regelous | founder and cEo

In 2004, Stephen received an Academy Award for Scientific and Engineering Achievement for the design and development of Massive, an industry-first system utilising artificial life-driven autonomous agents to generate animation. Stephen conceived the basic concepts for the software in the early ‘90s after studying Artificial Life agent-based systems, and developed Massive years later for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where Massive transformed audience expectations for epic crowd and battle scenes in feature film and television.

Kevin Mannion | VP business development

Kevin has held positions ranging from sales and marketing manager to chief executive with a range of high-tech companies, both small and large. His industry exposure includes enterprise, infrastructure, database, web services and networking technologies. Most recently, he was CEO of Legion, now one of the leading companies providing pedestrian simulation software to the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) market.

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Aurecon Resilience

within the crowd that emerges from these individuals is highly realistic.

how does this differ from traditional methods?

Traditional crowd simulation tools often provided robot-like simulation, where all the agents had the same basic behaviours with very little deviation. This used to be acceptable in simple models, such as a straightforward simulation of commuters walking together to board a train but anything more sophisticated was difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Massive Insight enables the engineer to model a much wider range of agents, actions and reactions than previously possible. For example, people moving together in family groups, people with luggage or some other mobility impairment, people who have previous knowledge of their environment and those who are more dependent on signage and/or audio announcements. By pushing the boundaries of what can be simulated, Massive Insight helps the engineer to produce highly accurate simulations of complex behaviours.

What attracted the Massive team to work with Aurecon?From the very beginning it was clear that Aurecon and Massive shared a vision, where simulation of complex human behaviours is used to drive the design of public spaces and transport. The HUB-id initiative demanded new capabilities, not available from traditional simulation solutions, therefore it was the perfect opportunity for us to work together.

how does the world of entertainment relate to engineering demands?Not surprisingly, the makers of multi-million dollar movies expect the very best and accept nothing less than superb results, and over the years we’ve worked hard to meet their demands.

As a consequence, our products are now well-known and widely respected and considered by many to be the best for accurately simulating complex, real-life movement and behaviour.

Engineers share the same demands for realism and accuracy in simulations but

they also have many additional needs, such as the ability to analyse data outputs, so we created Massive Insight using the same field-proven technology, but with an engineering-specific set of features and user interface. This means that engineers can take advantage of the many years of investment in our simulation technology but in a package that is more suited to their needs.

Please explain the platform and how it works.

Using Massive Insight, an engineer designs agents (people, for example) with a set of actions and reactions to what is going on around them.

Massive agents act on their own behalf using the simulated natural senses of sight, hearing and touch. The reactions of the agents determine what they do and how they do it. Their reactions can even simulate emotive qualities such as happiness or weariness.

Massive Insight is a system for designing and running such agents. When scaled up into the hundreds—or hundreds of thousands—the interaction

Q&A

how does it help facilitate design decisions in real-life situations?With Massive Insight, designers of public spaces and transport can now accurately simulate a huge range of motion and behaviour.

This means that designs can be tested to a considerably greater degree of accuracy than ever before, which greatly helps in getting the design right at the ‘drawing board’ stage. Designing, for example, an airport terminal becomes a much more informed process when there is a model simulating every nuance of human behaviour.

What is the most exciting aspect of this simulation software?Without a doubt the most exciting aspect of Massive Insight is its virtually limitless scope. With its capacity for simulating any and all types of human behaviour, we expect to see it being used in an ever increasing number of innovative ways.

About Massive Insight™

Massive Insight has a flexible artificial life (Al) authoring environment for modelling the idiosyncrasies of complex, real-life behaviours into agents who use visual and auditory cues, as we do in real life.

When it comes to simulation, engineers are experiencing a new level of expectation from their clients and other stakeholders in the design and build process. It used to be enough to have a two-dimensional model of robot-like agents moving through a space but today, engineers need to model a wide range of complex human behaviours in increasingly sophisticated environments and produce high quality 3D results. And of course, all stakeholders need to know that simulations are accurate, so that they can rely on them to prove that a given space will perform as intended.

Massive Insight meets these goals by bringing movie quality animation within easy reach of every architect, while satisfying the demands of engineers for a very high degree of behaviour and motion fidelity. It is being achieved through the combination of unique artificial intelligence based agent technology and the Massive team’s unrivalled pedigree in the world of entertainment and media.

One key differentiating characteristic of Massive Insight is that it employs an artificial life approach. The AI technology draws from the processes of nature rather than traditional simulation methodologies, and Massive Insight agents act on their own behalf using the simulated natural senses of sight, hearing and touch. This provides for more inherently natural behaviour than those seen in existing engineering solutions.

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left Intermodal simulation of rail, bus, and pedestrians, integrated with traffic movements in a single interoperability simulation environment.

Above Light rail simulation including pedestrian interaction, together with full integration of BIM driven models and environmental simulation.

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Aurecon Resilience

Sustainable mining development delivers community resilienceBy Andrew Keith, Aurecon's Mining Infrastructure Leader and linsey dyer, Client Relationship Executive for the Resources industry in Africa, Middle East and the Americas

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A rising challenge is obtaining a social licence to operate by ensuring communities are, at the least, not motivated to disrupt the mine operations.

Historically, the approach has been to achieve regulatory compliance, especially for environmental and social impact. The new South African Mining Charter is indicative of a rising global trend to make such compliance more stringent, particularly regarding community development.

Mass resistance to mining practices can quickly escalate and have major consequences.

Take for example the tragic outcome during the August 2012 strike at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in South Africa, which led to the loss of 44 lives in what has become known as the Marikana massacre. While this is an extreme example, even minor disagreements with any involved parties can create tension in the community and lead to disruption.

As mine logistics chains lengthen, the definition of a mine’s ‘community’ extends well beyond the mine boundary to a wide variety of stakeholders involved in these chains. As a result, community relations and a social licence to operate become paramount in keeping the transport chain open and operating. The impracticality of ore chain redundancy and alternative routes over long distances sees more engagement of mining companies with communities near the mine and those between the mine and market.

There are considerable benefits, beyond pure compliance, to early community engagement and developing community attitudes that go beyond tolerance of the project to support or even ‘psychological identification’ (as per Thomson and Boutilier 2011) or ‘co-ownership’ where the government and community defend the project against detractors. Initiatives that provide forums in which the mining company and the community can discuss matters of common interest have gone a long way to creating mutually beneficial relationships.

Outcomes are particularly successful where the selection of members representing the community has the full backing of community leaders.

Through the adoption of SUSOP® (SUStainable OPerations) methodology and the use of SAVE (South African Value Education) services and products, Aurecon is providing tools for sustainable community development around mining operations.

SUSoPSUSOP is the newest tool in Aurecon’s sustainability, social licence and corporate social responsibility (CSR) toolkit. This workshop based methodology focuses on generating new and innovative ideas to produce better overall project outcomes. Using ‘The Five Capitals’ approach (developed by Forum for the Future and similar to a triple bottom line) SUSOP prepares a Sustainability RegisterTM for use through all stages of project development and operation, and a SD Balance SheetTM demonstrating the benefits generated from the methodology’s improved project outcomes.

Aurecon is leading the resource industry in adoption of the SUSOP methodology, which was developed by the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing—a collaboration of some of Australia's leading research organisations and major resource companies coordinated through the Sustainable Minerals Institute.

The methodology was created in response to a number of needs perceived in the industry requiring the development of a whole systems approach to sustainable design of industrial processing plants and mining operations. The intention was to develop an industry standard for sustainable development.

For that reason the name, SUSOP, and risk based approach reflect the recognised safety standard, HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Study). The process won the Sustainable Technology Award at the IChemE Awards in November 2012.

coMMUnITY RESIlIEncE

Aurecon Resilience

Impact: improved outcomes from application of SD principles

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Aurecon adopted this methodology through the JK Aurecon alliance—our mining infrastructure and metallurgical processing alliance for mine project development with JK Tech.

Figure 1A and 1B shows how the use of a wetland to naturally improve discharge water quality from a mine site reduces the Manufactured capital (by not installing a water treatment process plant) but positively impacts three of the five capitals including, critically, the financial capital of project NPV return.

This methodology provides a holistic approach to project development. It engages across potential silos in the project team to realise and use all benefits, spanning the full range of the five capitals, through the implementation of a combination of individual opportunities in a complementary way.

Figure 1A

Figure 1B

Although designed with a specific focus on the mining industry, the resulting SUSOP framework has a sufficiently generalised approach applicable to a wide range of industries and projects. Businesses allied to, but not directly engaged in, the mining industry have already applied the methodology—an Orica chemical facility in Peru and the verification review of a consultant’s internal sustainability tools.

Of particular benefit to project teams is the Sustainability Register. As with risk and safe design registers, it provides an ongoing tool to manage the implementation of sustainable development opportunities.

We foresee Aurecon’s range of target markets, and multidisciplinary competency and services offering, leading to the discovery of many new applications of the SUSOP methodology.

SAVE The emphasis of sustainable mining development is on engaging communities and supporting self-sustained growth to break the cycle of poverty, particularly in developing countries.

Community involvement in mine and infrastructure development can occur through labour-intensive projects for low-tech infrastructure construction and maintenance, such as roads and mine housing, providing Socio- Economic Development (SED).

This method is proving an effective means of positive community engagement, CSR and developing community skills, as well as income generation beyond corporate, government or aid handouts. Aurecon leads this field in Africa through South African Value Education (SAVE).

SAVE is part of Aurecon’s training group. Founded in 1998, and owned by Aurecon since 2009, SAVE is a recognised leader in construction and community development training.

SAVE, which remains a separate company operating as a business unit of Aurecon, takes a holistic approach to every project it undertakes and strives to provide services and

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23coMMUnITY RESIlIEncE

products of the highest quality. SAVE is a leader in 'real-world empowerment programmes', which entail entrepreneurial, technical and life-skills training. Examples include use of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) models on projects such as the Kruger National Park Contractor Development Programme in South Africa.

The Park’s aim was to establish a pool of small building and civil construction companies from the rural communities surrounding the Park. The success of Phase One, started as a pilot phase south of the Olifants River, saw the programme extended to other areas of the Park.

delivering community resilience Truly successful projects are those that not only achieve their delivery objectives but also add value by integrating their activities with local and regional efforts to achieve self-sustaining social and economic development. Through the use of SUSOP and SAVE, which focus on understanding local realities and concerns and building social and economic capital, Aurecon supports the delivery of community resilience through investing in the well-being of present and future generations.

Andrew Keith is Aurecon’s Mining Infrastructure Leader. He is a civil engineer, with expertise in major industrial and mining infrastructure projects and was Aurecon’s Indonesian operations manager for 12 years.

You can contact Andrew at andrew.keith@aurecongroup.com

linsey dyer is the Client Relationship Executive for the resources industry in Africa, Middle East and the Americas. She is a civil engineer with 25 years of multi-sectoral, multi-party engineering related marketing, business development, tendering, risk management and execution experience in 41 countries (34 of which are in Africa) on three continents.

You can contact Linsey at linsey.dyer@aurecongroup.com

Aurecon Resilience

By Michael green Engineering Meteorologist, Aurecon

Engineering meteorology

Global climate model results are downscaled to provide much more detail of regional climate variability using a regional climate.

An example of urban comfort modelling which incorporates various meteorological parameters. The most desirable locations are coloured green, yellow is comfortably warm, light blue is comfortably cool, red is uncomfortably hot, and dark blue is uncomfortably cold.

Spatial modelling using mesoscale modelling for wind resource combined with GIS.

25

By Michael green Engineering Meteorologist, Aurecon

We are seeing extreme weather events around the globe with increasing frequency in news broadcasts. In Australia during January 2013 widespread flooding, destructive winds, and bushfires were experienced. In other parts of the world super-storm Sandy devastated parts of coastal northeast USA, snow fell in unlikely parts of the Middle East, severe flooding occurred in Mozambique, and continental USA had its warmest year on record in 2012.

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere from human activity continues to increase, and there is no sign that emission rates will reduce in the near future. The responsibility for mitigating the effects of resulting climate change looks likely to fall on consultancies such as Aurecon to provide solutions for adaption and resilience, especially in already vulnerable environments that exist in Africa, Asia and Australia.

Through applied atmospheric science, Engineering Meteorology can help provide solutions to engineering challenges. Engineers and scientists can work together to responsibly plan and design for ways of dealing with current and future weather and climate conditions.

developing renewable energy projects Engineering Meteorology has been used successfully in the renewable energy sector to find and assess potential project sites. Four European offshore wind farms have now been financed using Aurecon’s sophisticated mesoscale modelling as the basis of the bankable energy yield prediction. Wind assessments using mesoscale modelling have enabled our clients around the world to make well-informed commercial decisions at a very early stage of their projects’ development lifecycle.

Evolving into other marketsHaving evolved from its roots in the renewable energy sector, Engineering Meteorology has recently been used in a number of water resources applications, including heavy rainfall

[1] IPCC AR4 WG1 (2007), Solomon, S.; Qin, D.; Manning, M.; Chen, Z.; Marquis, M.; Averyt, K.B.; Tignor, M.; and Miller, H.L., ed., Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-88009-1.

forecasting for use in flood prediction models and rainfall modelling for assistance in dam inflow analysis, and spatial variation of rainfall in catchments.

Aurecon’s Engineering Meteorology team has developed an urban comfort tool that can be used in urban precinct design considerations. The index incorporates wind using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling, sun/shade analysis, sun angle, solar radiation and temperature to provide an overall measure of comfort in urban settings. Other Engineering Meteorology application examples include analysis of the wind climate in a remote part of Africa to assess the risk of dust from mining activity on a solar farm, and key input for risk assessment of volcanic ash affecting air travel to a major world sporting event.

Informed decision makingWeather and climate processes are complicated and often subtle. Aurecon’s Engineering Meteorology expertise can assist in providing advice and input into Aurecon’s projects in diverse locations.

Mesoscale modelling utilises the sophisticated weather model WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) to simulate past weather at high resolution for anywhere in the world. WRF can be used to assess situations from individual extreme weather events to obtaining long term meteorological datasets.

A key feature of mesoscale modelling is the ability to generate reliable data in remote areas or in emerging economies where existing weather and climate information is sparse or non-existent. Provision of data can be at a specific location or over a wider area. Any weather parameter can be obtained from the model output including temperature, rainfall, snow depth and solar radiation. Using long-term spatial rainfall analysis of extreme rainfall events causing severe flooding in Mozambique, Aurecon identified areas prone to high rainfall. Such information could be used to

optimise flood forecasting systems in vulnerable areas.

future climate change modelling for adaption and resilienceAnthropogenic increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels is a significant contributor to temperature increases that are being observed around the world and this will have an effect on rainfall and wind. Climate change will affect long-term trends, as well as the frequency and magnitude of short-term extreme weather events.1

Longer-term climate change and extreme weather events are likely to require different adaption and resilience measures. A complicating factor is that the changes in rainfall, temperature and wind are not expected to be homogeneous and may even vary at a regional level.

Regional Climate Modelling (RCM) is a tool which Aurecon uses, in conjunction with Environmental Research and Innovation Consultancy (EnRICo), to assess the impacts of climate change to 2050 and beyond. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) CO2 emission scenarios are used with sophisticated modelling tools for downscaling climate change predictions to a regional level so that localised impacts can be understood.

RCM can be applied to assist communities in planning for resilience and also in assessing potential impacts on future water supply and crop adaption possibilities. For large and long-life projects such as hydro-electric plants, levees and dams, irrigation schemes, and transport infrastructure, RCM can be considered in the design process so that the infrastructure is built to withstand future climate conditions.

You can contact Michael Green at mike.green@aurecongroup.com

WEAThER And ITS IMPAcT

Aurecon Resilience

Trends in the mining industry mean the viability of resource projects requires robust export infrastructure and reduced operational costs. Mining companies need to undertake significant upfront capital investment before they can build or expand their mines and transport their products.

Changes over the last decade have had a significant impact on the expansion of existing, and development of new, export supply chains for the coal industry in Australia. A review of the change impacts offers some valuable lessons for the resources industry.

commodity super cyclesThe Colorado School of Mines studied the long-term trends in coal prices. In particular, they were searching for the existence of super cycles for these energy commodity prices.

Although the researchers found evidence of super cycles in metals prices, it is unclear whether one would expect to find them for coal, due to differences in market structure and relative importance in the industrialisation process during different periods.

The report concludes that long-term trends have varied over time, with real coal prices trending downward

post-World War II, with different implications for the depletion-technology battle.

There appears to be four super cycles in coal prices over the period 1800-2009 (with two uncertain periods). These coal super cycles roughly match the timing of those for oil and metals prices after WWII, but not in the pre-WWII period—and their timing suggests episodes of industrialisation and urbanisation in various countries or regions in the global economy were the cause. Thus, the post-WWII evidence is consistent with the super cycle hypothesis.1

As this research takes a global view, the Australian coal industry in recent years may not have noticed too much of a super cycle presence in coal, due to the dampening impact of the currency exchange rate.

In addition, the speed of future capacity adjustment may impact on the presence or absence of any future super cycle.

Recent Australian perspectiveAs mentioned, the Australian coal industry may not have noticed the presence of a super cycle. Thermal coal prices, expressed in Australian Dollars, have been fairly stable (low) for two

Collaboration drives optimised supply chains

Alex Pey, Aurecon’s Heavy Haul Rail Services Leader, shares insights on how bulk material handling, bulk ports, and heavy haul rail expertise are collectively providing innovative and cost-effective solutions for export supply chains in the mining industry.

decades prior to 2005, after which demand for this product significantly increased prices to more than AUD 100 per tonne in 2008.

During this latter period, demand for rail and port capacity in Australia was high, evidenced by the long queues of ships off the coast.

A significant number of coal mining and logistics infrastructure projects were studied, evidenced by the steep rise in coal projects expenditure shown in Figure 1, which included:

• New mines in undeveloped coal basins (Surat, Galilee)

• Rail lines to service these new basins• New mines in existing basins

(Bowen Basin)• Expansions of existing mines• New export terminals along the east

coast of Queensland• Expansions of existing export

terminals

Expenditure on projects significantly increased over that period. The race was on to develop mines, rail and ports to satisfy the demand from China and India.

The opening up of the Galilee Basin provided an excellent example of this race to meet the market demand.

27

The galilee basinThe Galilee Basin is one of the last remaining, undeveloped coal resources in Queensland, Australia. The expectation is that it will become the largest coal producing region in Queensland, if not Australia. More than 20 companies are exploring in the area, which holds approximately 14 billion tonnes of coal (predominately thermal). Five proponents have outlined schemes for sizeable coal mines, with a combined capacity of more than 200 million tonnes per annum. All these proposed mines need access to an export terminal.

Until recently, the five major proponents were pursuing their own rail corridor development from the Galilee Basin to Abbot Point, a distance of approximately 400 to 600 kilometres. This was despite the significant economies of scale of a dedicated heavy-haul rail line of such length.

Proponent 1 Alpha coal ProjectThe Hancock Coal/GVK proponent proposes to develop a 30 Mtpa open-cut coal mine in the Galilee Basin, with potential for future development expansions. An adjacent sister mine, Kevin’s Corner, has a similar planned

output. The combined potential is in the order of 50 to 60 Mtpa.

This proposal was to develop a 495 km standard gauge railway to a planned port development at Abbot Point. They plan to operate dedicated heavy haul, 25 000 tonne payload trains on predominately single track with passing loops to a new export market.

Proponent 2 china first coal Project

Waratah Coal is leading this project, which involves the development of a 40 Mtpa coal mine not far from Hancock Coal/GVK’s Alpha and Kevin’s Corner mines. Their proposed rail line, also single line standard gauge with passing loops, is estimated to be approximately 471 km long, also going to Abbot Point. Payloads of 24 000 tonnes are being considered for this operation.

Proponent 3 carmichael coal Project

Adani Coal is leading this project, which involves a potential 60 Mtpa coal mine north of the proposed Alpha, Kevin’s Corner and China First coal mines. Their proposal involves a narrow gauge connection to the Aurizon network to facilitate export through the planned Dudgeon Point export terminal, as well as a standard gauge rail line to Abbot Point.

Figure 1 Coal Project Expenditure

40coal projects expenditure from 2005-2012

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Aurecon Resilience

The case for cooperationRail infrastructure, by its very nature, displays a high degree of economies of scale. Increased capacity can quite readily be accommodated by increases in train sizes, axle loads, speed, and the number of paths available for revenue services. A single line track for example can be expanded by increasing the number of passing loops, and/or duplicating critical sections. The planned volume of product from the Galilee Basin supports a dedicated rail network to Abbot Point, and would certainly benefit from combining the effort, especially in the early ramp up phases of many of these new developments.

It is acknowledged that standard gauge rail infrastructure involves marginally higher construction cost due to longer sleepers, wider formation, additional ballast requirements and potentially more land use (due to requirements for less tight curves). However, the advantages in other areas make this gauge choice compelling.

A summary of the construction costs follows: Each individual proponent, if developing their own stand-alone rail infrastructure to Abbot Point, can expect to pay between AUD 2.3 and 3.6 billion for this privilege. The expectation is that a jointly developed system will

cost around AUD 6.3 billion, more in total but less than the sum of the parts.

Even if the proponents do not directly fund the construction of the rail infrastructure upfront, ongoing capital charges (depreciation and return) will flow back to them for their use of the infrastructure. By translating estimated capital costs into ongoing capital charges it was possible to approximate the potential impact of collaboration. To simplify the comparison the assumption used was a 30 year project life and a 10 per cent annuity.

On that basis, and combined with the expected volumes on each segment, capital charge per tonne was calculated. Each individual proponent, if developing their own stand-alone rail to Abbot Point, can expect to pay between AUD 5.76 and 25.37 per tonne for the infrastructure capital charge, as shown in Table 2.

Collaboration in the Galilee Basin can yield significant savings. The combined benefit is roughly AUD 600 million per annum capital charge, or an average of AUD 4.43 per tonne.

Individual miners can expect to save between AUD 1.53 and 16.24 per tonne, ie savings between AUD 92 and 244 million per annum in capital charges. Economies of scale in rail infrastructure are driving this reduction in cost per tonne.

how to prepare for cooperationA Special Purpose Infrastructure Vehicle (SPIV) can facilitate collaboration to organise/arrange ownership structure and cost/revenue sharing. It requires a clear understanding of the roles, contributions and ownership shares within the SPIV. The benefits of a SPIV include:

• Enabling foundation members to attract other coal producing partners, thus further reducing the unit cost of the rail infrastructure

• Providing an easier means of facilitating additional users at a later stage (post Bankable Feasibility Study and construction)

• Facilitating the organisational arrangement, ie role definition and responsibilities of the parties. This will result in improved and speedier project development, where owners (parties to the SPIV) have already developed principles and consensus views on a majority of issues and documented these in the SPIV agreement. It will also enable the easier development of ongoing access charges for the use of the rail infrastructure

• Assisting in debt funding from banks (the banks only have to deal with the SPIV consortium and not individual companies)

• Facilitating equity funding from other, silent investors

concluding comments

The benefits of jointly developing greenfield export supply chain infrastructure, such as the rail infrastructure from the Galilee Basin to the port of Abbot Point, are compelling.

Sum of parts not equal to total

The following calculations illustrate the potential savings in capital cost attainable through cooperation in the Galilee Basin development. This diagram illustrates a notional rail corridor spine with connections to the various proponents’ mines.

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the volumes over each segment. For example,

segments A and B are likely to involve fully duplicated

track in a combined system. However, if only servicing one

mine, it would involve a single line with a number of passing loops

Generally, it is expected that volumes will drive the extent of track required

(ie the number of passing loops)

This formed the basis of calculation of a high level estimate of the rail infrastructure

for the individual proponents (ie if they only developed their parts) and the combined system required to facilitate the export of their targeted coal volumes from the Galilee Basin. For example, Mine 2 would only require segments A, B and D

The cost-benefit analysis is shown in Tables 1, 2 and 3

By translating estimated capital costs into ongoing capital charges it was possible to approximate the potential impact of collaboration.

The effort to work together is well worth it. The Galilee Basin is an excellent, but by no means the only example, where collaboration and effective coordination can reduce the costs for individual users.

Collaboration of users in the development of the supply chain needs to be complemented by the integration of the supply chain. Users can achieve maximum benefits if they collaborate in the design of the supply chain and cooperate and integrate their operations on an ongoing basis. Such integration would involve information sharing; coordination of long-term planning across mine, rail, bulk material handling and port; maintenance by all supply chain members and problem solving; opportunistic operations to make best use of changes in capacity anywhere in the system and maintenance when the system is down.

About Alex Pey Alex has a long history in railway accounting and railway economics. He has an expert understanding of coal rail development in Queensland and the coal logistics chain. He was the author of QR’s Coal Rail Infrastructure Master Plan which contemplates development and growth of the QR coal rail network. Alex has considerable experience in planning, designing and costing rail logistics supply chains.

[1] Zellou, Abdel M., Cuddington, John T. 2012. Trends and Super Cycles in Crude Oil and Coal Prices [online]. Available at: http://inside.mines.edu/~jcudding/papers/Super_Cycles/Zellou-Cuddington-2012-09-14-Trends_supercycles_energy_w_AppC_D(WP201210).pdf

A B C D E F Total Investment ($m)

Mine 1 1,788 1,176 294 3,258

Mine 2 1,716 1,152 120 2,988

Mine 3 1,692 648 2,340

Mine 4 1,692 1,128 768 3,588

combined 2,700 1,800 294 120 648 768 6,330

Table 1 High level capital cost estimates for the Galilee Basin rail network

Individual developed galilee basin rail

Jointly developed galilee basin rail

systemSavings

Mine 1 5.76 4.23 1.53

Mine 2 7.92 4.02 3.90

Mine 3 9.93 4.80 5.13

Mine 4 25.37 9.14 16.24

Average 9.22 4.80 4.43

Table 2 High level capital charge (per tonne) for the use of the rail infrastructure

A B C D E F Total

Mine 1 3.16 2.08 0.52 5.76

Mine 2 4.55 3.06 0.32 7.92

Mine 3 7.18 2.75 9.93

Mine 4 11.97 7.98 5.43 25.37

Table 3 Potential savings (AUD per tonne) for different proponents

29SUPPlY chAInS

Above Abbot Point, Australia

Aurecon Resilience

delivering resilience in an era of rapid urban developmentUrbanisation brings with it complex challenges economic, social, logistical and philosophical.

In late 2012, Matt Coetzee, Competency Leader Urbanisation at Aurecon, attended the World Bank organised Urban Research and Knowledge Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

“A major theme at the conference was the importance of understanding the social and economic needs as a necessary precursor to investing in infrastructure and reaping the consequent in terms of quality of life improvements, job creation and social stability,” says Matt.

“Designing innovative, effective and enduring infrastructure is important but, increasingly, ensuring that it is designed with a specific link to improved economic growth and greater social well-being, is seen as critical. This is a clear pointer to us of the types of solutions the public and private sector is seeking.”

Around 60 million people move into the world’s cities every year. That’s over one million additional people arriving in a city every week – each with an expectation of better access to jobs, better education for their children, better health care and a better quality of life.

Creating resilient urban environments is critical if we are to deliver workable and efficient cities and communities. True resilience within a future urban environment will deliver practical solutions and better communities based on social wellbeing and economic strength.

Being able to provide hard and soft infrastructure which is well planned, designed, constructed, maintained, operated, governed and funded, is the most critical factor in allowing us to meet the expectations of that growing group of city-dwellers. Solving the urban challenge is particularly complex and the solutions required to provide innovative, effective and enduring infrastructure must be holistic, integrated, satisfy the needs of multiple stakeholders and address short and long-term needs. The United Nations forecasts that 93% of all urban growth over the next 40 years will occur in the developing countries of Africa and South Asia. As a consequence, the greatest urban challenges are likely, although not exclusively, to be in these emerging economies and regions.

31

Natural disasters, cause widespread damage and destruction to communities and infrastructure. However, the challenge is made much more complex as a result of the increasing effect of disasters.

The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) estimates that over the last 30 years, global economic losses as a result of natural disasters amounted to USD 3.5 trillion. Significantly, the GFDRR concludes that the poor and vulnerable, primarily city-dwellers, are impacted most.

A detailed analysis by the World Bank shows that the most important driver of disaster risk in recent years has been the substantial growth of population and assets in the at-risk areas of cities, combined with increased climate change-driven events.

According to Matt, the recognition of the need for economic growth highlights the importance of working with public sector and donor clients to improve the understanding of the drivers, and then use that understanding to apply our world-class expertise in developing the subsequent planning, design and programme/project management solutions.

Put simply, the solutions we develop will be that much more valuable if they address the challenge holistically, by integrating the entire range of social, economic, financial and planning design services.

“We are focusing on combining our skills in all of the individual areas described above, as well as building the tools required to integrate these to provide solutions to the complex challenges facing modern cities,” adds Matt.

“At the Barcelona conference, and in the many other conversations I have had with people working in this area, there is a clear recognition of the linkages between climate change, disaster risk, and the nature and quality of the urban environment,” says Matt.

The prevailing view is that these linkages are not well understood and the World Bank (through the GFDRR) and the United Nations (through its UN Office for Disaster Reduction), have major programmes looking at this issue. There is little doubt, that it is the cities of the emerging regions, many of them poorly resourced and funded, which are most vulnerable to disasters.

Aurecon has an extensive capability in disaster forecasting and recovery across our business. We have the ability to consolidate the experience and apply it to extremely vulnerable and highly urbanised cities.

URbAn RESIlIEncE

Aurecon Resilience

“Our focus extends to supporting governments, as well as various local authorities, by being able to comprehensively forecast the likely scale and nature of natural disaster damage, get involved in ’make safe’ activities directly post a disaster event, undertake comprehensive damage assessments, design remediation solutions, provide the cost estimates for these solutions and even supervise their implementation,” says Matt.

This process involves extensive use of geographic information systems, to map and model vulnerability but also to map damage areas and prioritise remediation activities. It is important to appreciate that although the most obvious demonstration of effective disaster reconstruction effort is rebuilt infrastructure and buildings, the aim of all post-disaster reconstruction effort is restoring a functioning social

and economic system. Stability is largely about restoring a functioning community, as well as the restoration of the built environment, allowing for the creation of places and infrastructure that foster the ongoing resilience of the community. Our first-hand experience is that the creation of a stable social and economic environment is a critical precursor to re-establishing the physical environment.

An urban future—how might it look?The increased concentration of people in cities can cause negative impacts such as congestion, pollution and social issues. However, this requires the integration of deliverables such as infrastructure design, funding mechanisms, economic and social development, spatial planning and governance. In our Urbanisation Competency, we have a delivery

vehicle through which to draw our various skills together to form the basis of our differentiator to clients.

“Aurecon’s focus is on developing differentiating products which integrate our extensive technical, advisory and project management expertise to leverage the benefits of living in the city. Those include services such as analysing the link between infrastructure provision and social well-being, seeking alternative infrastructure funding solutions, designing effective and stable governance structures, using major transport infrastructure hubs to maximise economic and social benefits,” concludes Matt.

You can contact Matt Coetzee at matt.coetzee@aurecongroup.com

Urban challenges in emerging economies

What are the linkages between public private partnerships (PPPs) and the institutional capacity of the host government in developing countries?

In general terms, host government capacity remains a serious challenge for the implementation of PPPs.

At the most basic level, there is an apparent disjoint between the perception of African governments on the role that the private sector can play, and the actual appetite of private investors to invest in infrastructure.

Moreover, the lack of technical and implementing capacity of African bureaucracies means that project development is often drawn out and PPP procurement becomes costly.

What are the challenges and opportunities for emerging economies in Africa in terms of successful PPPs?The answer for this will be different for economic infrastructure (roads, electricity, telecoms, and to a lesser extent, water), and social infrastructure (housing, schools, hospitals, courthouses, prisons, etc.) In terms of the former, the large number of users in close proximity will mean strong opportunities for PPPs. For the latter, a pertinent challenge is the lack of user fees and project revenue to make projects bankable. Innovative approaches to gaining private support for social infrastructure development will be needed. Other challenges include: resettlement of urban residents, political issues that drive up project risk, historic

undercharging trends and a lack of supportive institutional structures (legislation, policies and governmental capacity).

how do you see things evolving, economically/governance wise, as we plan to meet the forecasted growth in urbanisation across Africa?I think we will continue to see a trend towards private involvement in economic infrastructure but suspect the real challenges will be around social infrastructure.

More generally, I think the urbanisation trend will see an increase in the shift of public expenditure towards urban centra and the probable recentralisation of some governmental service delivery. The ever increasing size of cities will make urban transport, as well as water and sanitation, specific issues.

On the transport side, it will probably support the growth of solutions such as bus rapid transit, light rail transport and even cableway transit. The water and wastewater problems will be more challenging to solve.

Stephan JoosteStephan completed his PhD in Civil Engineering in 2010. His research focused on the linkages between PPPs and the institutional capacity of the host government in developing countries.

You can contact Stephan Jooste at stephan.jooste@aurecongroup.com

Aurecon’s Stephan Jooste works at the forefront of capacity development delivered via a range of funding and economic models. We asked Stephan for his thoughts on what the future holds when it comes to delivering infrastructure to match future population growth on the African continent.

33URbAn RESIlIEncE

Aurecon Resilience

Expertise

Airports Airports are multi-faceted transport hubs and retail operations, requiring a range of expertise rarely available within one consultancy. Aurecon is a total infrastructure provider, developing world-class solutions integrating transport hubs and the built environment.

Asset managementOptimising the value of an asset portfolio is critical for our clients’ performance, continuity and profitability. Our management and technical resources assist investors and business operators to optimise returns on new and existing assets.

“Within our business culture, we link our competencies and technical knowledge in an organic and strategic way. Many of our competency leaders are at the cutting edge of knowledge and technical development. Aurecon continues to invest the time and resources needed to create competencies that are the engine-room that powers client success.”

Peter Turner Head of Competencies at Aurecon

building structuresOffering world-class structural design, Aurecon has built a reputation for technical excellence and innovation. We provide a diverse range of analytical and practical skills, delivering sustainable, economical and buildable solutions that meet the needs of our clients.

bulk material facilitiesThe design of a bulk material facility requires specialist knowledge relating to the product being handled. Having designed seven of the largest facilities in the world, Aurecon’s world-leading multidisciplinary service is continually called upon by our key clients.

building sciencesAurecon offers building sciences expertise to complement our core building services and building structures capability. We offer integrated expertise in niche areas of acoustics and vibration, environmental modelling, ESD, façade engineering and fire safety engineering.

bulk water and damsAs experienced designers of dams, reservoirs and bulk conveyance systems, we provide whole-of-life expertise, from network planning to design and construction monitoring, analysis, operational and asset management, and rehabilitation.

building servicesOur team designs engineering systems that bring buildings and structures to life so they function efficiently, economically, safely and sustainably. Our aim is to design and deliver safe, comfortable and environmentally-friendly buildings for both our clients and the end users.

business and infrastructure advisoryOur clients are seeking more than technical solutions. We support their performance with strategic infrastructure planning, business consulting, risk management, procurement advice and training and development.

Environmental and community planningOur experts find the balance between economic growth, social development and protecting the environment. We guide our clients and stakeholders through positioning, planning, approval, design, construction and operation.

ground engineeringOur renowned group of specialists provides comprehensive ground-related infrastructure services including investigation, laboratory testing, design of underground infrastructure and provision of specialist construction supervision.

35

Aurecon Resilience

ManufacturingWith a reputation for innovation across process industries, we deliver cost-efficient plant solutions and production improvements for our clients. All engineering disciplines are part of our service offering including process, mechanical, electrical and automation.

Mining infrastructureOur clients value Aurecon’s understanding of the complexities and disciplines required to deliver major mining infrastructure. We plan, design and manage the construction of world-class materials handling facilities and supporting infrastructure.

Information and communication technologyAurecon supports communication and technology companies, providing total management and design services associated with the rollout of new and expanded networks. We help our clients create information services of the future.

Ports and coastalDelivering seven of the ten largest coal ports in the world, we have an outstanding track record in port and coastal design. Our expertise includes front-end studies, transportation chain EPCM, intermodal hubs and seaboard bulk materials handling facilities.

land infrastructureAs communities grow, the capacity of new and existing infrastructure is of increasing importance. Aurecon’s infrastructure specialists work closely with our clients to identify non-traditional approaches and deliver sustainable solutions.

Power generationAurecon delivers efficient and reliable power generation solutions to its clients. Our technical advisory, asset management and engineering design skills are used to enhance existing assets and develop, design and commission new infrastructure.

Programme and project managementOur comprehensive capabilities in all project delivery models assure our private and public sector clients of project outcomes whether they are business, planning, transactional, delivery or operationally orientated.

Power transmission and distributionRecognised as a market leader, Aurecon has over 40 years’ transmission and distribution experience. Using leading edge technology, we design transmission lines, plan systems, design substations and optimise assets.

RailWith over 30 years’ experience delivering rail infrastructure design, Aurecon offers the complete range of design services across all phases of rail project delivery. Our expertise includes heavy haul rail, freight rail, passenger and urban networks, and light rail.

Transport systems and logisticsAurecon is a leader in the planning, design and delivery of operational infrastructure for roads and rail. Aurecon’s HUB-id program integrates human behaviours to drive outcomes in land use form and transport function.

Renewable energyAs a market leader in renewable energy, our clients benefit from our experience in wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy technologies. Partnering with leading research institutions, we apply innovative solutions to create value for our clients.

Water and waste water treatmentAurecon’s team of water experts deliver tailored treatment solutions for all aspects of the water cycle, from municipal and industrial wastewater to desalination, recycled and potable water treatment, from planning to operation.

RoadsAurecon supports the planning, design and delivery of roads — from rural access to complex freeways, toll roads to system interchanges. We have designed thousands of kilometres of roads worldwide, integrating ‘green roads’ and sustainability into our methodology.

Water resources managementAurecon has been a world-class practitioner for three decades. We have expertise in multi-user trans-boundary river-reservoir systems, complex urban catchments, and state-of-the-art modelling. Our clients value our focus on sustainability, equity and efficiency.

ExpertiseSustainabilityAurecon is committed to sustainable development - meeting today’s needs without compromising future generations. We work with our clients to establish and implement sustainability strategies across their business, advising on the sustainable performance of assets, infrastructure and projects.

UrbanisationIncreasingly, people are moving to cities. Well planned, efficient hard and soft infrastructure solutions are critical parts of the urbanisation jigsaw. Aurecon addresses these complex issues with our in-depth engineering and urban planning knowledge, combining this with our economic, social assessment and financing expertise.

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Aurecon Resilience

Scanning new horizons understanding terrestrial laser scanningby Mike Pinkerton, Associate, Aurecon

Terrestrial laser scanning is changing peoples’ perceptions when it comes to the complexity, accuracy and efficiency in which spatial data can be captured and delivered by the modern surveyor.

Across a range of projects, Aurecon’s surveyors have employed terrestrial laser scanning to solve a variety of project challenges.

In New Zealand, the technology was employed to capture spatial data across nine 120 year-old brick-clad rail tunnels to model clearances required for modern passenger trains being introduced to the network.

Following the devastating earthquake in Christchurch, laser scanning proved to be the perfect tool for collecting, reviewing and monitoring the damage and hazards resulting from this tragic event. In northern Queensland, laser scanning was used to capture structural data that was subsequently used to assess tropical cyclone damage on a bulk sugar loading jetty stretching over 5.5 kilometres out to sea.

The flexibility and power of terrestrial laser scanning is evident when you examine the range of applications where this technology can be employed. The accuracy and abundance of data created, the speed at which data is created and the health and safety benefits this scanning technique delivers, make it a powerful tool across engineering and construction disciplines.

Terrestrial laser scanning captures millions of three dimensional (3D) points across the area or object being scanned. Having this data allows designers to work directly with real-world conditions by viewing and manipulating rich point-clouds in computer-aided design software.

The point-clouds themselves are created in 3D (across the x,Y and Z measurements) and, since all laser scan points are truly 3D, the files can be viewed, navigated, measured and analysed as 3D models in CAD or 3D application software. The potential savings generated by terrestrial laser scanning throughout the project life cycle is substantial. At the construction phase alone, it is not unusual to reduce rework costs by at least 50% where laser scanning has been used to capture the site before the design stage.

With project leaders frequently relating stories of cost/time overruns caused by design solutions being based on poor, as-built information, it makes sense that the base survey data be provided in a compatible format (eg Revit or AutoPlant) that allows design teams to commence the project with detailed information capable of driving design and project management.

As project teams are made aware of the benefits that laser scanning offers, their expectations from spatial data suppliers rise accordingly.

Concurrent with this change in attitude, is ongoing refinement of technology, both hardware and software. The end result is that laser scanning technology, such as real time GPS did before it, inevitably becomes commonplace within the realms of mainstream engineering and survey projects.

We will continue to see a greater integration of terrestrial laser scanning into projects at an early stage, with the project benefits becoming even more apparent. Across areas such as whole-of-life asset infrastructure management and in the area of re-lifing commercial and public buildings, this technology offers measurable benefits for improved performance.

Scanning new horizons understanding terrestrial laser scanningby Mike Pinkerton, Associate, Aurecon

393d TERRESTRIAl lASER ScAnnIng

Aurecon Resilience

When tropical cyclone Yasi struck the northern coast of Australia in early February 2011, the Lucinda Bulk Sugar Terminal (LBST), located 1500 kilometres north of Brisbane, suffered almost AUD 50 million of damage. Severe damage occurred to structural, mechanical, hydraulic and electrical systems along the jetty, conveyor system, wharf and ship loader. "An engineering challenge was how to accurately define the extent of damage and distortion to structural elements of the facility, particularly where access to those areas was compromised by the damage that

Cyclone damage assessment

had occurred," says Arne Nilsen, Aurecon Technical Director and Project Leader for the LBST project. "The primary purpose of these outputs was to detail the current structural condition of the 16 headstock beams on the wharf facility. The spatial analysis outputs included detailed cross sections, plus analysis of the shape variations between design and survey to assess the current state of the structure, and highlight areas where remedial works might be required." The 5.76 kilometre jetty has been called an engineering masterpiece, with its length actually following the

Wellington Regional Rail ProgrammeOn the Wellington Regional Rail Programme in New Zealand, KiwiRail’s infrastructure and engineering team led the upgrade of the existing infrastructure to accommodate the new trains, and to improve overall reliability.

The programme included the upgrading of the power supply, signals and station infrastructure around the Wellington area.

Aurecon’s team was engaged to undertake detailed 3D scans across nine heritage tunnels that sit within the line’s route.

The scans were used to calculate depths required to lower the line and operational clearances for the new Matangi passenger trains.

The scan above shows 3D detail of a tunnel within the Wellington network which Aurecon captured as part of the upgrade preparations.

Above Lucinda Bulk Sugar Terminal, Australia

Rejuvenation of asset life

Cyclone damage assessmentcurved contour of the earth by dipping two metres from the initial horizon over its total length. In providing a full suite of services to Queensland Sugar Limited (QSL), Aurecon undertook damage inspection and causation advice, early advice on repair feasibility, multidisciplinary detailed design and documentation, contract packaging and expediting, construction supervision and superintendency, and commissioning assistance. “Queensland is a leader in the bulk handling of raw sugar with some of the largest, most advanced bulk storage and handling facilities in the world,” says Mike Pinkerton. “After tropical

cyclone Yasi, it was essential that accurate damage assessment was undertaken on the Terminal facility to enable engineers to compare the ’as-built’ nature of the structure to what we were looking at after Yasi.” “Using terrestrial laser scanning, we surveyed the structure to a high level of accuracy. The outputs we created were used by colleagues to assess the damage and design remediation solutions that ultimately lead to the facility returning to operation in August 2012,” adds Arne. Our terrestrial laser scanning expertise is a prime example of one of the

services Aurecon has pioneered within engineering consulting. With design teams working in different geographic locations across projects, Mike Pinkerton is firmly of the opinion that any redevelopment design project should consider using this type of site survey as a starting point. “On many sites, terrestrial laser scanning has saved time and reduced costs across multiple stages throughout a project’s life cycle,” says Mike.

Mike Pinkerton

Mike’s career has spanned projects as varied as property mapping in India, dam monitoring in Scotland, oil pipelines in Central Asia, and aerial mapping in North Africa. Mike seeks out opportunities where the spatial information requirements of projects can be met by innovative and practically implemented solutions.

You can contact Mike Pinkerton at mike.pinkerton@aurecongroup.com

413d TERRESTRIAl lASER ScAnnIng

Aurecon Resilience

delivering innovation in field-based inspectionsTodd Sheldon, an Aurecon Technical Director, discusses how a mobile computing system is delivering innovative engineering inspection programmes to clients.

While mining, construction and agriculture rank as some of the industries with the highest risk of accidents worldwide, no industry is an accident-free zone. Universal factors contributing to fatal incidents include falls through access covers, falls from walkways and platforms due to grid mesh and handrail failure, and falls into open manholes. Such incidents bring home the vital importance of recognising the risks in the workplace and taking whatever measures possible to prevent them occurring in the first place. One of the many ways Aurecon contributes to a safe working environment for our clients is by assisting them with safety risk assessments of walkway and platform areas, access covers, grates, hatches, points of access and safety railings. Conscious of our clients’ need for greater efficiency in the collection of data and reporting, Aurecon turned to technology. The result is an innovative, in-house developed, mobile computing system for field-based engineering inspections and assessments. The tool provides clients with the knowledge they need to make informed maintenance decisions and contributes positively to the creation

SAFETYFIRST

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of a safe work environment. It provides standardised inspection forms at the front end of a purpose designed database, which are completed in accordance with a reference document for consistency. The database utilises client agreed risk matrices to assess the inputted information and outputs automated rectification recommendations and colour coded work priorities. The tool generates automated detailed output reports with visuals of the asset and its defects, and summary reports prioritising the rectification works per assessed area.

The driving force behind the tool is the client agreed risk matrices, which capture the client’s risk profile and specify the rectification requirement for each defect, as well as the priority for rectification based upon the perceived consequence. The front-end engineering and collaborative agreement with the client enables the programming of the assessment and rectification recommendations into the tool by senior engineers and subsequent undertaking of inspections by more junior team members. This innovative approach takes field-based engineering inspections to a new level through the combination of asset inspection processes with proven sound engineering techniques. The integration of outputs directly into a database allows the sorting of data to identify trends and isolate

types of assets, and allows the client to update their asset management system with appropriate data. It also enables comparison of future inspections of the same assets against earlier inspections. Apart from the positive contribution to safety, the tool provides value to clients through:

• Instant reporting, incorporating photographs and GPS coordinates

• Visual representation of assets via marked up drawings/aerial photographs with links back to asset reports

• Enhanced information gathering via smart data collection

• Linkage to existing asset management systems

• Full connectivity enabling maximisation of inspection team effectiveness on site

• Future re-inspection capability

• Lower costs due to an increased efficiency in inspection times of around forty per cent

• Facilitation of easy adoption by new users through the ‘smarts’ in the tool, eliminating waiting for the ‘A team’

While most of Aurecon’s work with the mobile computing system to date has been in the water industry, the mining, energy and rail industries would equally benefit. The methodology is also easily adaptable to other repetitive engineering inspection works and has already been successfully adapted to shopping centre civil asset inspections.

Todd Sheldon is a structural engineer and an Aurecon Technical Director. He has extensive experience in structural design and construction supervision of industrial and commercial projects in Australia and the United Kingdom. Todd’s experience incorporates multidiscipline design management and project management involving client liaison, feasibility studies, planning and supervision of projects. You can contact Todd at todd.sheldon@aurecongroup.com

In the field South Australia Water The innovative and successful delivery of the initial Melbourne Water project established Aurecon as an industry leader in this type of engineering inspection and assessment service. This led to an engagement by South Australia Water (SA Water) to create a similar tool.

Aurecon has successfully tailored the tool to suit SA Water's risk profile and undertaken a pilot inspection programme at the Glenelg Wastewater Treatment Plant. SA Water now propose to roll out the engineering inspection and assessment process using the Aurecon created tool across all access covers, walkways and handrails in their network.

Client feedback referenced a strong commitment to health and safety with the clear identification of risks as well as proactive identification of additional high risks supported by strong industry knowledge.

SA Water Project Sponsor David Jaensch further emphasised that, “The efficient development of this L#2 condition assessment tool, was vital in the state-wide rollout of this safety improvement programme and the experience of Todd and his team with local support was a key factor for success.”

Aurecon Resilience

Registered office, Singapore

152 Beach Road #22-02Gateway EastSingapore 189721T +65 6256 6188E singapore@aurecongroup.com

Registered office, Australia MelbourneAurecon CentreLevel 8, 850 Collins StreetDocklands VIC 3008 AustraliaT +61 3 9975 3000E melbourne@aurecongroup.com

Registered office, South Africa TshwaneAurecon Centre Lynnwood Bridge Office Park 4 Daventry Street Lynnwood Manor 0081 South Africa T +27 12 427 2000 E tshwane@aurecongroup.com

About Aurecon Aurecon provides engineering, management and specialist technical services for public and private sector clients globally. The group, with an office network extending across 26 countries, has been involved in projects in over 80 countries across Africa, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and employs around 7 500 people throughout 11 industry groups. We seek to foster human achievement in all aspects of our work.

Aurecon offices are located in: Angola, Australia, Botswana, Chile, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam.

For more information please visit www.aurecongroup.com

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The Aurecon Group is made up of a number of separate legal entities operating across diverse jurisdictions. Not all those entities provide services to clients.

©2013 Aurecon

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