The Channel Tunnel:

A Project Management
Perspective

Submitted By:
Jay Oza(20141027)
Parth
Panchal(20141046)
Vivek Mehta(20141073)
Yash Maurya(20141074)

Submitted to: Prof.

A.B.Raju

Project Background and its context

Project announcement:- Feb 1996 followed by signing of Treaty of

canterbury
Project objective:- Undersea rail tunnel linking Folkstone in the UK
with France
Transportation, Boost Business & Tourism and Connect Britain with
mainland Europe are the major project reasons.
Business Model:- Public Private Partnership and BOOT (Built, Own,
Operate and Transfer)
The govt. of France, The govt. of Britain, Eurotunnel Group, Citizen of

Project Life Cycle Evaluation:

Inception Phase: Historical background, nature of project,

political climate and pre-feasibility studies.
Development Phase: Planning, financing and conceptual
designing.
Implementation Phase: Detailed designing, construction,
installation, testing and commissioning.
Closeout Phase: Overall performance, settlement of claims,
financial status and post-project evaluation.

Inception

Development

Execution

Closeout

Scope:
Fixed transportation (51.5kms)
Economic development
Pressures causing mishaps:
Lack of scope causes resource planning, cost estimating & budgeting
difficult.
Air-conditioning costs
Formation of intergovernmental commission
Finance aspects:
Treaty says to no government aid
Pursued via equity &loan capital markets.
Scheduling:
Activities related to activity definition, activity sequencing, activity duration
estimates.
Planning 3 tunnels which required 46 contractors to complete the design
requirements.
Changing safety rules created negative variances.

Inception

Development

Execution

Closeout

Incompatibility issues could have been avoided by stating Initial quality

requirement in more detail. Areas of improvement There was much
interpretation for the agency like IGC .The IGC decision to change 600mm doors
to 700mm doors itself delay the project to 9 months.
Teamwork & cooperation considering the scope of the project was very
important. Contractual agreements made teamwork a complex activity.
It was very difficult to come to a mutually agreeable solution to material
issues due to incomplete requirements, scope changes and thus , risk response
strategies should have been considered.
Efficient communication is very important in preplanning, contract
negotiations, financing and technical issues during the inception stage.
Communication plan addressing horizontal and vertical communication
channels should be in place. Communication seemed to breakdown in case of
issues regarding organizational structure , finance and contracts as the issues
were not timely solved.
Plan should also include information sharing, issue tracking and performance
reporting.

Inception

Development

Execution

Closeout

In 1986 Anglo-French Treaty signed, Transmanche Link (TML) awarded

contract and Eurotunnel declared owner for 55 years post completion of
the project.
The proposal included a 32 mile double rail tunnel to accommodate
both through-trains and special car and truck carrying shuttle trains.
Original cost estimation of the project was 5.5 billion USD which was
eventually increased to 14.9 billion USD.
Financing was pursued via equity and loan capital markets forming a
large scale 7,00,000 shareholders and a consortium of almost 220 lending
banks worldwide.
English and French government being party to the project, had created
a conducive environment to facilitate its success to boost European trade
and economy.
Pre-feasibility study with high level design perspective and respective
rough order of magnitudes of estimates were appropriated to certain

Inception

Development

Execution

Closeout

Construction on the Tunnel began in late 1987, and was commissioned

as fully operational in December 1994
One of the biggest challenge for this project was bringing together
French and British engineers with different working methods, corporate
executives from ten collabrotive companies under the TML umbrella, and
close to 13000 workers who had to be train to various degrees within
three years, into a single project team.
Main issue is related to communications barrier.
Other main problem why it was delayed and increases expenses were
attributed to monopolistic power of TML consortium(Trans Manche Link).
The IGC mandated that where there were differences in the two
countries' standards, the higher of the two should prevail. In theory this
was a great idea, but contractors couldn't easily realize the decisions of
IGC.
IGC were always escalating the safety requirements, and costly changes
were dictated to the contractors at every step of the way inefficiently.
The approval process went through too many steps, from TML, then
Eurotunnel, then Maitre d'Oeuvre, to IGC finally.
First it was expected to be $ 7.4 billion but at the end it expected $ 15

Inception

Development

Execution

Closeout

Early tunnelling efforts also ran into some problems on both the
French and British sides. There were poorer-than-expected geological
conditions on the British side, leading to constant delays in favour of
safety.
On the management side, there were significant delays due to
conflicting priorities between Eurotunnel and TML (Costs, Risks and
Financing).
Various problems occurred during the excavation, such as a slipping
of muck on the belt conveyor, water splash from the screw conveyor,
deformation of cutter head, muck penetration into the driving part of
screw conveyor.
Due to the adverse tunnelling conditions, the rate of progress of
construction varied on both sides. The English side progressed at an
average rate of 150m/week while the French side progressed at an
average rate of 110m/week.
To solve the overheating problem, a special air-conditioning system
had to be employed to keep the temperature in the tunnel between
38C to 50C. In the Channel Tunnel project, the Fire Protection
System was established, including fire detection system, water pipe
system, ventilation system and emergency response teams.

Inception

Development

Execution

Controls in wrong hands

Controls
Financing Banks

Construction
Companies

Profit Maximization

Risk Minimization

NO IMPORTANCE TO OPERATIONS

Closeout

Inception

Development

Execution

Closeout

The immense amount of Litigation and Claim against project.

Scope: Scope of the project increases due to overall changes request
through out the life of project.
Cost & Schedule Management: Max. Efforts to analyzing the source of
overrun cost and blaming participating organization.
Team work and Communication: Team work and communication had
broken down in several key area. Like Financial banker focus on
minimizing their losses ,so they refused to negotiate any settlement.
Clearly win-win negotiation far from mind between the parties.
Time Over shoot: the greatest impact of ROI.
Quality of project: Quality of a project is up to the mark as per
engineering design and expectation. Even no. of accident was less as
per industrial avg. during project running time.
Effective Change Management: They ready to make changes as per

Cost Management

HR Management

Time Management

Risk Management

Communication Management

Boring Phase
No unified structure

Fitting Phase
Unified structure

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