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The Washington State Department of Transportation's work to build public confidence and improve project management by using a new method to validate and communicate the probable cost and schedule of its projects.

This paper presents an example of how the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), with a small group of specialized consultants, developed a new way to 1) review and validate cost estimates for large, complex infrastructure projects and 2) to include risk and opportunity events in order to better predict their probable costs. The lack of objective validation of cost estimates, and the omission of risk and opportunity events, are fundamental reasons which explain the inadequate cost estimates for some high- profile infrastructure projects that have been the subject of recent publicity. Examples of chronic problems in developing realistic cost estimates for complex infrastructure and tunneling projects are given and a description of WSDOT's probalistic cost estimate validation process (CEVP ® ) is also provided, with project examples. The CEVP ® process includes validation of the base cost of a project, along with explicit identification of high-cost and schedule risk drivers, leading to an ability to develop explicit risk management plans early in the project's development. The downstream risk management process is linked directly to the explicit output of the CEVP ® process. Initial results are favorable, with the first public, competitive tender falling within the Department's published "range of probable cost". The procedure was initially applied to a set of large projects in Washington State (USA), estimated to cost about US $25 billion, and to many smaller projects. After one year, the CEVP ® process is now accepted as a standard business practice by in Washington State and others outside Washington State have begun to explore and implement this model and process. Recently, the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) evaluated the CEVP ® process by applying it to a transit project in Pittsburgh, the North-Shore Connector light rail project. It is anticipated that FTA (and the Federal Highway Administration, FHWA) will require such a schedule-integrated, risk-based process to be used, as a matter of policy, for all future cost estimates for the large, complex transportation projects under their jurisdiction. FTA Circular 22 is currently being updated to include risk and probability requirements.