futuramadramallama

Sigh. Washington Dulles Airport Will Spend $8 Million Each To Refurbish 60 Year Old People Movers - View from the Wing

Summary: Two mobile lounges will be refurbished at $16M total. If that goes well, they'll do the other 47. As a result, they expect to get another 20 years of operation out of these. Presumably this is cheaper than building out the AirTrain to Concourse D. (Yet somehow, less expensive to them than buying "off the shelf" tarmac-buses from Cobus?)

danib62

I just wonder how they would get arriving international passengers to the IAB in a post-mobile lounge IAD. The aerotrain as it is now isn't set up for that.

Section 107

Remember there are two kinds of vehicles - the mobile lounges for terminal to terminal and the planemates for airplane to terminal. The original contract to renovate ALL the vehicles was awarded before COVID inflation and estimated at $160 to renovate all the units after the test case for the first two. Surely that will be significantly more if that is the way they go for all the rest in 3 years after the first two. But even at $200m it will still be less expensive than building out the aerotrain before the new united hub is built (which right now is estimated at closer to $2b than not and of course will cost more than that when it's done). It will still be quite some years before the C/D replacement even gets underway.

The vehicles are much more useful than Cobus' or any of the alternatives. Unlike the buses, the mobile lounges/planemates do not require anyone to walk down to ground level and outside in the weather. As much as some (many?) folks dislike IAD now because of the distances involved - imagine how much new love the airport will get when folks will be required to walk down airstairs and across the apron in the elements to then get on a bus and then again to get off the bus and into the main terminal/IAB. The main terminal would have to be drastically reconfigured to get pax off the buses at ground level and into the building and into IAB. Especially after MWAA finally got rid of the X terminal at DCA.... yeah, MWAA might have its brain farts - but that ain't gonna be one of them.

The planemates offer significant advantages in brining pax to the main terminal from aircraft parked out on the midfield hard stands when no gate is available (think 9/11 or when an airport (such as DCA, BWI or PHL) gets closed due to weather or a crash).

The mobile lounges are an anachronism, but they offer advantages for which cost should not be the only consideration.

UAL250

I really don't mind these, I think it's kind of cool to see out the apron especially around 3-5pm with all the international planes out there. I prefer it to the dark and meh underground train.

I do agree it's not great for arriving intl' passengers, but it is what it is.

futuramadramallama

Interesting. Did not know the build-out of the AirTrain extension to D would be so much more, or, that they presumably aren't starting it until C/D is actually replaced. Either seem like good reasons to delay the AirTrain extension.

tods27

They already did a similar project extending the train to C, so I'm betting they have good information on the costs. It just doesn't make sense to do that extension before doing the C/D replacement as you would need to tunnel under the D gates.. They could potentially demolish D before building the train under it, so save money there. It's hard to find hard info on the plans.

djp98374

I have a feeling they will do something very different.

C and D become separated where D is moved to the side and then C centers on the light rail line.

lamphs

There has to be more to this.

I have extensive experience with a large fleet of public safety vehicles. A fire department ladder truck, new, in today’s dollars ranges from $1.7-$2.2M. A ladder truck is far more complex than the mobile lounges (of which I’ve experienced more times that I can count). A full refurbishment of a ladder truck is about 75% of a new ladder truck. An OK refurbishment, say, the electrical and hydraulic systems are in good shape, is about 50% of a new ladder truck. I can’t imagine that the price tag is $8M per vehicle, hence my comment that there must be something more to this.

djp98374

$8M for one people mover smells very fishy.

futuramadramallama

Perhaps there is. If you do some digging (research), please let us know the results.

LETTERBOY

Probably typical MWAA waste and incompetence.

GUWonder

It seems to be the inflated cost for the contractor to get their act together with getting started and only thereafter going to more of a cost plus arrangement for the rest but not getting there.

If I were to be doing business with WMAA for this, I too would want to dump my prep costs on the front end with a margin for the business being pulled under the rug after (or maybe even before) delivering the first one or two and thereafter facing wind-up and possibly dispute/litigation costs on top of reputation damage.

Also, doing business with the WMAA and being otherwise in the area isn’t all that cheap, and so WMAA ends up being their own worst enemy in getting value out of money.

If someone thinks they could have done it for $4M-$5M from the start, then they should have paid attention to the tenders and maybe got into the game by asking for $6M. I wouldn’t do it.

LHCVG

How much does the bespoke nature of the people movers factor in here? Not saying that makes up for the $8m, just wondering if this is part of the long-term drawback of such a unique design, where it takes that much front-end setup investment (to the above) because there is virtually no pool of COTS mechanical relatives around to leverage for economies of scale (not to mention that there is "essentially zero" chance of any new-build work to spread to the costs over, only further increasing the overhaul cost when you have to keep rehabb'ing parts and structures would be replaced outright in any other example).

lamphs

I am likely going to do so because I am genuinely curious.

You may well be correct.

Often heavy equipment (vehicles) are very aged when it comes time for refurbishment, and COTS availability can be an issue. In those cases, a responsible customer knows this up front and smart decisions are made to refurbish or scrap/replace. To me, and again used the mobile lounges many times, the basics should be available. Kneeling features are common place in the transit bus industry. A replacement diesel engine/transmission combination meeting today's emissions standards, should cost, all in, less than $250K, and that is being generous. Being able to operate the vehicle from both ends is simply a steering linkage. (All wheel steer technology has existed in military vehicles for years.) The rest is simply cosmetics - seating, flooring, etc.

djp98374

you just take the base frame of a box truck.