Leveraging Technology to Reduce Costs and Improve Safety Collaborative Hydraulics: Advancing the Next Generation of Engineering

By:

May 11, 2021

CDOT projects delivered at the Region and Headquarters level can be value-engineered to improve safety, enhance efficiency, and reduce material costs using 2-dimensional (2D) hydraulic analysis Quick Checks during the pre-scoping phase of the CDOT Project delivery process. The technology behind this effort was developed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation over the past twenty years, and revolutionizing CDOT’s understanding of how infrastructure interacts with the natural environment. It utilizes a 3-dimensional rendering of ground topography from survey resources and calculates the hydraulic impacts of waterways on roadway assets, bridges, culverts, traffic control devices, and embankment protection.  

The benefits of 2D Quick Checks were initially identified at Region 4 Hydraulics in 2016, and after collecting 3-years of information, a total savings of $14 million was realized on projects designed with this technology by a blended team of in-house experts and private sector partners.  These successes and savings were shared with the CDOT Office of Process Improvement (OPI) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) partners in 2019, and now in 2021 a new process is being developed to optimize CDOT construction resources at the design scoping phase anywhere in the state. 

Image of 3-dimensional ground topography with three bridge crossings on US 350 in Otero County, Colorado (CDOT Region 2)

The 2D Quick Checks initiative was developed under the FHWA’s Everyday Counts 5 (EDC-5) framework financed with $425,000 of CDOT Research Branch resources, FHWA STIC Grant funds, and state matching funds.  The initiative identified 71 individual projects statewide in the project design scoping or pre-scoping phase that can benefit from a 2D Quick Check.  In-house CDOT design efforts are supplemented with the assistance of six private firms working from non-project specific (NPS) contracts for 15 months, including AECOM, Ayres, Jacobs, Muller, RS&H and RESPEC.  

The blended team of statewide experts is committed to delivering 54 Quick Checks by the end of 2021, and is documenting conclusions and recommended actions for project managers and project engineers to improve safety, enhance efficiency, and reduce costs.  The team is tracking metrics for aggregating information, developing boundary condition hydrology, developing the 2D hydraulic analysis, and reporting results to determine the total resources needed to complete a 2D Quick Check.  The results at the halfway point of this journey indicate the timeliness of work product delivery, effectiveness of conclusions and recommendations, and ability to adapt a new process to existing project delivery protocols are exceeding all team expectations!

Image of CDOT statewide inventory of quick check projects

Short reports from each individual project are being compiled into a Final Rollup Summary Report with conclusions and recommendations for project managers and project engineers at Region level. The opportunities and enhancements discovered from 2D Quick Checks are advisory, and will not disrupt design-phase schedules or budgets unless the project management team deems the benefits worthy of further investigation or implementation. Discoveries already found from 2D Quick Checks include safety enhancements, reduction of construction materials, bioengineering improvements, and optimization of structure sizes. The team is expecting several more innovations by the conclusion of this initiative.  

The team leading this work on behalf of CDOT is creating a 1-day training curriculum to develop in-house expertise, compiling a GIS library of hydrology and hydraulics resources to be used by future design projects, and creating a process to make 2D Quick Checks a statewide process in 2022.  As the process is refined in 2021, every Region at CDOT will be able to obtain Quick Checks with in-house resources or NPS support with only 30 to 60 hours of effort.  

For information about using 2D hydraulic analysis to leverage savings and improve safety, please contact any of our CDOT team members or private sector partners, and we look forward to making your projects more efficient and effective!