Southern Queensland Accelerated Road Rehabilitation Project Alliance

The Southern Queensland Accelerated Road Rehabilitation Project (SQARRP) Alliance was established to replace 31 timber bridges with new concrete bridges and approach works, in southern Queensland from Stanthorpe to North of Bundaberg. The SQARRP involved grouping together projects to upgrade the road network, resulting in significant time and cost savings. The bridges replaced were on strategic road network links carrying heavy freight loads, with the new bridges constructed to modern loading standards.

Civil Mining & Construction was selected from a field of over 7 mid-tier civil contractors operating in Queensland who submitted an expression of interest. Feedback from the selection panel of reasons why CMC was selected over the other companies was:

Strong effective systems
Human resource depth with large complex civil and alliance experience
Sophisticated project cost control systems
Good company culture

The alliance consisted of Department of Main Roads, CMC, Queensland Bridge and Civil, Humes, Wagstaff Piling and Aurecon. Construction of the bridges was split between CMC (14), Queensland Bridge and Civil (14) and Roadtek (3), with CMC performing approximately 50% of the value of the work under the alliance.

A complex options analysis was undertaken to develop the most cost efficient span length for each of the 31 bridge structures. This incorporated all facets including piling costs, deck unit supply, transport and erection costs, river bed access costs, pier and headstock costs.

The outcome of this exercise was that each bridge had a different optimal span length however adoption of these custom span lengths delivered significant cost savings. This exercise was made possible due to the input of Humes (Precast Supplier) and Wagstaff Piling (Piling Contractor) being alliance participants of the project.

The Alliance has secured a further two bridge replacement projects crossing the Barwon and Macintyre Rivers on the NSW/QLD border at Mungindi and the Boonanga Crossing. These additional works are forecasted to cost $13.7M and will be funded jointly by Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (QDTMR) and the Roads and Traffic Authority NSW (RTA). RTA will be retaining full ownership of both bridges upon completion. CMC will be constructing the Mungindi bridge and approaches.

For more information on the Mungindi Bridge refer to the project's information page.

Client:	Queensland Department of Main Roads
Project Location:	Southern Queensland
Contract Value:	$120 million
Year Completed:	2009
Scope:	Alliance Design & Construction Bridge works Road works