Jacobs Engineering, the project management oversight contractor (PMOC) working on behalf of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), recently performed its biennial “risk refresh” exercise for the Honolulu rail transit project. Jacobs recommended that the project budget should be $134 million more, or 1.6 percent higher than HART’s budget of $8.165 billion. Jacobs also estimated full passenger service could begin in September 2026, eight months later than HART’s full service date of December 2025.

The fact that the view of the PMOC is so close to HART’s estimate validates HART’s hard work in turning around the project and managing both the project’s cost and schedule. HART now uses a robust risk management and cost control program to manage the project, and it is certainly showing positive results. Gone are the days of billion-dollar shortfalls, runaway costs and long-term schedule overruns.

The PMOC’s estimates are important. They are required by FTA to be taken into account in the recovery plan that HART issued last September. But it is also important to note that the project budget is NOT changed by the results of the PMOC analysis. The PMOC is deployed by FTA to review the project on a monthly basis. It performs its risk refresh every two years. HART, on the other hand, manages the project day in and day out, and, by utilizing the aforementioned robust risk management system, HART is able to focus on ways to address potential risks that could threaten both budget and schedule.

The results of our efforts, as shown in HART’s publicly available monthly reports, show that, with high probability, the project will be completed at or below $8.165 billion and be ready to begin full passenger service by December 2025. This budget and schedule have been consistent now for more than 18 months, and HART will continue to manage to this budget and schedule. Indeed, that is something we must do moving forward.

The PMOC report also correctly pointed out that there is potential to benefit from significant cost-saving measures in the City Center section of the project, which has yet to be procured. We certainly agree and believe that, with more than $4 billion worth of work remaining in the project budget, HART will have the ability to generate costs savings that will more than offset the difference in the HART and PMOC estimates.

This also reinforces HART’s plan to pursue a public-private partnership (P3) to provide increased cost and schedule certainty for the remainder of the project. Under a P3 or design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) approach, cost and schedule risks are transferred to the private sector partner.

By having the private sector partner take responsibility for a significant portion of the financing for the construction work, a strong incentive is put in place to enforce timely completion within budget and to prepare the entire system for passenger service. The inclusion of long-term operations and maintenance as part of the P3 partner’s responsibilities requires the P3 partner to run train operations according to strict performance guidelines, including such tasks as ensuring clean stations and maintaining operational elevators and escalators, all within a fixed and predictable cost.

The P3 partner also must account for long-term rail system replacement needs so that the transit system is always well maintained.

HART has now put into place in its daily operations strong project management techniques. And by introducing global best practices such as a public-private partnership for the City Center and Pearl Highlands Transit Center and Garage project, HART believes it can attain still more increased cost and schedule certainty, and deliver on the commitments the public expects.