OP27 Before-and-After Study Review - Federal Transit Administration

The PMOC shall assess if the Grantee has adequately analyzed and explained the causes of changes in
project scope and capital cost. Explanations are required if project scope or cost has changed from the
last milestone. The Grantee should provide a detailed explanation of the reasons for changes in the
project’s capital cost (constant year dollars (constant$) and actual cost (YOE$)), broken down into the
following categories, including but not limited to:
• Scope
• Schedule (i.e., variances in cost due to change in the revenue operations date)
• Unit pricing/inflation
• Project reviews (constructability, coordination, risk assessment, etc.)
• Institutional factors (FTA process, local politics or funding, Agency process, third party
agreements, selection of project delivery method, etc.)
• Other changes
During construction of the project, the PMOC shall ensure that the Grantee preserves the actual (asbuilt)
project scope and capital cost data as it becomes available in order to sufficiently document the
changes between the as-built scope/costs versus the projected scope/costs. In addition, the PMOC
shall ensure that the Grantee’s Analysis of Changes Since Last Milestone outlines why a difference
exists, if any, between the cost at FFGA execution and the actual (as-built) cost. To more clearly
document the impacts of inflation, the Grantee should convert their estimated/predicted capital costs
(in YOE$) and actual costs (also in YOE$) to constant year dollars in which both are referenced to the
same base year. When analyzing both the predicted and actual capital costs, the Grantee should
typically use the year of the entry into PE as its base year reference, with all other base year costs
converted to this same year, and the actual costs (in YOE$) deflated down to this year, in order to
calculate the actual cost in base year dollars (use ENR or other approved indices to calculate constant
year costs).
6.2 Review of Before-and-After Study Plan
As shown in Appendix B, it is recommended that the Grantee develop and submit its Before-and-After
Study Plan at entry to PE or FD, since project information is required to be preserved beginning at the
conclusion of the AA phase. The purpose of the Before-and-After Study Plan is to make sure that data
collection and analysis are done in ways that ensure that all comparisons made are complete and
accurate. There are many factors (both internal and external) throughout a project’s life that will result
in changes; therefore, the Before-and-After Study Plan must include the Grantee’s procedures to
capture and document changes, preferably as they occur.
When reviewing a Grantee’s Before-and-After Study Plan, the PMOC should determine the following:
• Did the Grantee properly identify the work to be done for its Before-and-After Study;
• Does the Study Plan provide for capturing what has happened to date;
• Does the Study Plan reflect the project characteristics;
• Does the Study Plan capture all known issues which have influenced the project scope and
costs.
FOR FTA INTERNAL USE ONLY OP 27 Before-and-After Study Reviews
Rev. 2, May 2010
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