In a conversation with Vice President, Transportation Dan Williams in our Mid-Atlantic office, we explore the key trends in transportation and infrastructure and the innovative strategies that are reshaping the way we navigate our cities and connect communities. From cross-trained teams to sustainable infrastructure, Dan discusses the complexities and potential of full-service strategies that are propelling the DMV region into a future where mobility is not just a convenience but an essential and efficient experience.
How does your team address the changing infrastructure priorities we’re seeing across major cities?
On our team, we have experts across all types of infrastructure design, which gives us the unique flexibility to adapt to the needs of our clients. By creating a cross-trained team with experience across many different disciplines, allows us to give a sense of stability to our clients by using many of the same people who have a successful history with the client.
On our projects, we provide owners with a full-picture look at the infrastructure improvements within the project limits which allows us to assist owners in making the tough decisions on how to use the sometimes limited funding they have.
What innovations and technologies are we using for the delivery of major projects and programs?
We utilize BIM on a lot of our projects. Using BIM to deliver projects allows us to show clients exactly what’s going to be built. It helps designers see conflicts well before it goes to construction, saving time and money.
This allows us to provide clients with project-specific dashboards with up-to-the-minute information. They can know the status of a specific task and the very moment it was started and completed. It makes it really easy to see the health of the project at a single glance. This has been very useful for owners to have accurate stats and vital information at their fingertips.
In addition, by utilizing Power BI, we can synthesize massive amounts of data into usable and meaningful information. We can show tables, charts, and graphs that dynamically update with a single click on one data point. It allows you to dive into the data to make better sense of what’s going on.
How is EXP evolving to meet the needs of the DMV region?
We are constantly adding new service lines to better suit our clients’ needs. We have engineers who can perform MEP design for buildings and metro rail stations, develop location-specific pavement design, bridge and tunnel condition inspections and construction inspections on mega-projects.
What type of strategies inform your approach when it comes to design-build and progressive design-build projects?
A significant part of our work is partnering with reputable contractors in design-build and progressive design-build projects. We have a nimble team that can turnaround quality designs with accelerated schedules. With our work, we get the opportunity to develop alternatives that can save money, reduce construction time and improve safety.
For these projects, we’re going beyond the design and we’re looking from the owner’s perspective of the costs for the life of the asset. We have several people in our office who were previous owners and understand the challenges they are dealing with.
Learn more about our transportation capabilities.