Management of Major Road Projects
Overview
This audit examined how effectively VicRoads and the Linking Melbourne Authority (LMA) managed a sample of major road projects:
- six of VicRoads major road projects, with capital costs that varied between $41 million for the Goulburn Valley Highway duplication, to $1.2 billion for the Western Ring Road upgrade
- the Peninsula Link project, included in the Victorian Transport Plan with an expected cost of $750 million and subsequently developed and procured by LMA as a public private partnership.
VicRoads and LMA have not been fully effective in developing the major road projects examined. Both agencies fell short of the standards required to reliably forecast traffic and estimate projects’ economic benefits when informing the decision to proceed. LMA also had weaknesses in the way it had informed procurement decisions.
Addressing these weaknesses is critical because decisions have been made without a complete understanding of the consequences.
Based on the projects reviewed, neither organisation has effectively measured all of the intended project outcomes, but both are working to do this for current and future projects.
Once decisions had been reached on projects and their procurement, VicRoads and LMA effectively monitored and managed their delivery. This was evident from their performance in delivering projects close to their planned time lines and costs.