REGISTER

Assurance is increasingly being mandated for Australian rail projects as the means to satisfy ever-increasing governance requirements. The size and complexity of projects like Sydney Metro, Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel, and Brisbane’s Cross River Rail require consortium-based delivery models, be that Alliances, Public Private Partnerships, or some combination resulting in many interfaces, not only within the project delivery structure but with many stakeholders. Hence the need to assure that project outcomes will be achieved.

Assurance however is not a guarantee of the project objectives. Assurance is about providing a level of confidence that the objectives will be achieved, and hopefully increasing that level of confidence as the project progresses through its development lifecycle.

However, when delivering fixed assets and rolling stock, project sponsors and RTOs need to be assured that they are not just safe but are also fit-for-purpose in terms of functionality, performance (deliver the task and responsiveness), configurability, constructability & testability, reliability and availability, security, and supportability over the service life expected.

The paper elaborates these fit-for-purpose attributes and proposes two key aspects for any Assurance Case; namely compliance and correctness.