Success / Failure 4

Project Examples - Failure or Success?

Boston Traffic Tunnel Project
The Boston Central Artery/Tunnel Project is the largest, most complex highway project in American history. The $10.8 billion project involves the construction of 161 lane-miles of urban highway - about half underground in a 7.5 mile corridor - through the heart of Boston.

The project started in 1991.

The time estimated to complete the project was 8 years (1998). The expected completion date is now 2004.

• The project includes a computerised traffic management system, however the need for data integration was not foreseen, so there was no standardisation of software. Contractors and sub-contractors used different versions of software and the end result was gridlock

• In developing a centralised data integration system, IT management became a project in itself. The problem of data integration was only solved in 1998, seven years after the project started!

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