The transportation industry has been developing and maturing over time, with clients and owners requiring options in project delivery systems which increase cost certainty and reduce schedule delays. As owners look at the delivery systems, the question of risk must be answered and which party is best suited to control and price the risk. Through two separate experiences, we will examine the transfer of risk allocation decisions at a high level developed by the owner through previous experience of lessons learned. Worldwide aging infrastructure increases the need for improvements on the system, as well as environmental, safety, and quality improvements being demanded by societal change. Owners are looking to alternate project delivery methods to answer the call for guaranteed costs, assured timelines, and compliant quality, environmental, and safety in relation to ISO standards, value for money, and allocation of risks. This paper briefly discusses (at a high level) the allocation of risks to the owner and contractor on four predominant alternate delivery methods versus the Design-Bid-Build. They are Design-Build, Public-Private-Partnership, Construction Management at Risk, and Alliance Contracting. This paper also examines the high level differences between the various delivery models and then compares the risks associated with each during the various stages of the process. The paper will review the analysis performed through the case study on the Edmonton Light Rail Transit project “North LRT Extension – Downtown to NAIT” by the City of Edmonton, a western Canada municipality, and the risk allocation developed from lessons learned on the two initial P3’s in New Brunswick, and the risk matrix developed for the “Route 1 Gateway Project” by the New Brunswick Department of Transportation, an eastern provincial government.
