Terms of Reference
Bus Rapid Transit Working Group
Development of the BRT Indicative Business Case
Greater Wellington Regional Council, Wellington City Council and the New Zealand
Transport Agency are working collaboratively to deliver an Indicative Business Case for a
Bus Rapid Transit solution for Wellington transport users.
The Bus Rapid Transit Project has engaged PwC to lead the development of an Indicative
Business Case for a BRT solution.
To support PwC and to ensure equal input from partner organisations there is a need to
establish a Indicative Business Case Working Group to support the development of the BRT
Indicative Business Case.
Purpose
1. The BRT Working Group will:
a. Support the development of the BRT Indicative Business Case
b. Convene approximately 8 times through the months of April and May 2015.
c. Be decommissioned once the BRT Indicative Business Case is complete.
Role
2. The role of the Working Group and its members is to:
d. Set the critical success factors for the BRT options work
e. Set, prioritise and weight the evaluation criteria by which BRT options will be
evaluated.
f. Work with PwC to develop BRT options.
g. Carry out the assessment of the BRT options, select a preferred recommended
option.
a. Represent their respective organisations views on the constraints and
opportunities for BRT as well as taking a partnership perspective at the same
time. Consider ideas and issues raised and contribute constructively to the
discussion.
h. Have the trust and confidence of their respective organisations to make
decisions relating to the development of the IBC and the BRT options. Brief
respective Senior Managers and/or Chief Executives as necessary within their
organisations with regards to matters discussed in the Working Group forum
relating to the development of the IBC product.
i. Take a user-centric perspective by incorporating stakeholder feedback into the
expert comment.
j. Act as a BRT champion, promote understanding and build support for the BRT
recommended preferred option once identified.
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Membership
3. Members of the working group will be required to attend workshops, provide both
strategic and technical insight and input into setting the critical success factors for
initiative, set the evaluation criteria, define a range of BRT options, read, review and
feedback on the draft business case sections as they are completed.
4. Members will not be required to write-up outputs from the workshop. This will be the
responsibility of PwC and their support staff.
5. Members need to have an understanding of the Wellington public transport environment
(and it interaction across modes) from one of the following perspectives:
a. Transport planning (strategic and tactical)
b. Engineering
c. Cost estimation
d. Economics/finance
e. Operations or management
f. Funding
g. Policy
h. Urban planning
6. Working group members are required from each partner organisation (GWRC, WCC and
NZTA. At least two representatives from each organisation is desirable, there is not limit
to the number of representatives.
7. Members must be empowered and have the mandate to speak on behalf of their
respective organisations.
8. The workshops will also be attended by PwC support staff and the BRT Project Manager
and other members of the project team as necessary.
Workshop/s approach
9. PwC will design and facilitate the all workshops. The BRT Project will assist with the
coordination of the workshops.
10. PwC will be responsible for all write up of inputs and outputs from the workshops.
Members will not be required to do any writing up of workshop outputs.
11. The following table outlines the workshop schedule:
Work-
Proposed
Workshop
Workshop purpose / outputs
shop
week
duration
#
1
Week starting
5 hours
Set the critical success factors
13th April
Evaluation criteria, weighted and prioritised set
PwC strategic questions answered
2
Week starting
3 hours
BRT options defined
20th April
2
3
Week starting
3 hours
BRT options defined
28th April
4
Week starting
3 hours
Evaluated BRT options – using the economic and
4th May
financial elements of the evaluation criteria
5
Week starting
3 hours
Evaluated BRT options – using the commercial,
11th May
staging / programming elements of the evaluation
criteria
6
Week starting
2 hours
Review draft IBC strategic case and economic
18th May
case
7
Week starting
2 hours
Review draft IBC financial case, commercial case
25th May
and management case
Working group will be decommissioned end of May 2015
Additional IBC background information from PwC
The Indicative Business Case (IBC) further develops specific activities identified in the Public
Transport Spine Study (PTSS). An IBC receives official NZTA support, including
assessment of strategic fit and effectiveness, with anticipated efficiency assessment.
An initial appraisal of options is conducted with specific consideration given to these types of
questions:
Is the option going to alleviate the perceived transport problems and/or maximise
potential opportunities identified in the PTSS?
Is the option consistent with established policy directives?
Is the option likely to meet the transport planning outcomes identified in the PTSS
What are the likely scale and significance of any impacts of the activity?
Is the option likely to be: acceptable to the public, affordable and feasible to construct
and operate?
Is there a clear rationale for the rejection of options on completion of the IBC?
The results of the PTSS identified and explored three preferred solutions:
Bus Priority
Bus Rapid Transit
Light Rail Transit.
This Study effectively addressed the components of a PBC by identifying an optimal mix of
alternatives and options, but not looking at detailed solutions.
On this basis, this IBC focuses on the development of BRT as the preferred solution and
explores a range of options for how it might be delivered. The purpose of the IBC is to:
To confirm the strategic rationale for a bus rapid transit system
To identify and evaluate between one and three options that will be meet the project
partners objectives
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To provide an evaluation of the financial, commercial and programming options
available to the partners to deliver on the identified options.
The two key components of developing the IBC for BRT Project focus on:
The Strategic Case – Making the Case for Change
The Economic Case – Exploring the Preferred Way Forward
The Strategic Case looks to confirm the strategic context for investing in BRT and define a
robust case for change. Key aspects of this include:
Reviewing the strategic context from the PTSS
Confirming investment objectives, existing arrangements and the needs of the
transport network
Confirming key service requirements and project scope
Identifying benefits, risks, constraints and dependences.
The Economic Case looks to develop a preferred way forward as a basis for seeking
approval from all three partner organisations to proceed with a more detailed assessment of
the recommended preferred option. For BRT, a considerable amount of work has already
been done on option development and the IBC simply needs to refine this to narrow down
the best options. Key aspects of the Economic Case include:
Identifying the projects critical success factors
Confirming the long-list of BRT options and initial options assessment
Recommending a preferred way forward.
Based on the work done to date on the PTSS it is likely that the preferred way forward can
be identified without significant additional engineering work. The PTSS identifies some of
the limitations identified with the BRT option1l; however, when combined with the Network
Operating Plan, initial qualitative assessments on options should be able to be made without
the need for additional transport modelling. Additional quantitative assessment will be
required for refining the preferred option in the Detailed Business Case (DBC), and/or if the
short-list is unable to be determined from the qualitative assessment. Specialist engineering
opinion can be sought on an as-required basis to assist with confirming the BRT long-list
options and the initial options assessment. Based on the assessment done to date in PTSS,
it is unlikely that more detailed engineering work is required until the project progresses to a
DBC.
One of the key reasons behind NZTAs adopting a Business Case approach was to develop
a business case process that was scalable, so that the level of effort and deliverables
required to develop the investment case for the Project was appropriate to the size and risk
of the problem and the proposed investment.
The next steps, following the development of the IBC will be to:
Develop a funding application for DBC
1 http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/Transport/Regional-transport/PT-Spine-Study/PTSS-Final-Reports-
2013/FINAL-PTSS-Option-Evaluation-Report-for-web.pdf
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Confirm the Strategic Fit rating with NZTA and seek indicative ratings on Effectiveness
and Economic Efficiency
Proceed to DBC where more detailed analysis of the costs, risks and benefits is
undertaken on the preferred option, including preliminary design.
Proceed to Pre-Implementation where final requirements are developed in order to
implement detailed design/planning, property acquisition (if required), consenting (if
required) and implementation/construction.
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