Saudi Arabia, Riyadh Metro Special Reports and Interviews
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Saudi Arabia, Riyadh Metro Special Reports and Interviews

LINDSAY VAMPLEW
Project Director, RAMPED (Riyadh Advanced Metro Project Execution and Delivery)


LINDSAY VAMPLEW
Project Director, RAMPED (Riyadh Advanced Metro Project Execution and Delivery)



In August 2013, a joint venture of US engineering consultants Louis Berger (55%) and Hill International (45%) secured a project management and construction management (PMCM) contract for Riyadh Metro Package 3, from Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA).

Known as RAMPED (Riyadh Advanced Metro Project Execution and Delivery), the joint venture acts as an interface between the ADA (as the client) and the design-build (DB) contractors within FAST Consortium.

“We oversee the design and construction deliverables during project execution, ensuring deliverables meet client specifications while assisting DB contractors to achieve greatest value for the client,” explains RAMPED Project Director Lindsay Vamplew.

In overseeing Package 3, covering Lines 4, 5 and 6, design dilemmas have been resolved, complex engineering challenges conquered, and technical and technological triumphs have, for the most part, prevailed over the last five years. In the multinational, multidisciplinary world of DB consortia, strong stakeholder relationships are non-negotiable prerequisites - and are a firm feature of RAMPED’s modus operandi.

“There were only three of us,” Vamplew recalls of RAMPED’s understated beginnings in 2013. Posted to Riyadh by Louis Berger as part of an advance party ahead of the DB contract awards, Vamplew would steadily expand the team to more than 420 at peak, including a number of Saudis who have subsequently risen impressively through the ranks.

“We shared a room with RMTC [the other PMCM consultant] in the Cultural Palace [in Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter],” he says. Dar [Al Handasah], who had prepared the tender, briefed us both, but we hadn’t seen the DB contract at that point.

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