Simon Hughes is bringing a methodology and systematic approach to America’s largest on-going infrastructure project, California’s High-speed Rail. His global experience and perspective makes him a critical asset to the project, and his work could save the tax-payer funded project a lot of money.
Simon was born in England. He says he was always building things and taking them apart as a kid – an engineer from the beginning. At his first job out of college, he was placed in the railroad department of a small engineering company. He jokes “I thought I’d be bored. Two bits of metal on a bed of rocks, what’s so complicated?” He has been a top-notch railroad engineer for 20 years now, working on massive and complex projects like the high-speed rail line linking London to the Channel Tunnel between France and the UK) as well as the second high-speed rail line connecting London to Birmingham and beyond. On the latter, he was responsible for siting the London station below ground, where construction encountered things like an ancient burial site and movement beneath historic and revered architecture.
Simon has always understood the value of giving back what he has learned. He sits on the Management Committee for the Railway Civil Engineers Association in the UK and has served the International Union of Railroad on the plenary committee. A committee that helps other countries with advice and expertise to update their design standards and build better railroads. This involvement led international conference organizing and speaking, taking him to Beijing and Philadelphia.
When the opportunity arose to move to California and work on the project, he jumped at it. “My wife and I had decided early on to not live a ‘what if’ life. We didn’t want to sit back someday and say ‘what if’ we did that crazy thing.” He talks about this immense public infrastructure project using words like intense and fascinating. He’s almost giddy. To the project he’s consistently brought a global perspective for how high-speed rail has been built successfully around the world – valuable lessons learned.
When asked about the differences in engineering and construction between the US and the UK, his tone changes and he’s direct. He’s quick to acknowledge that it’s not perfect anywhere in the world, but he thinks construction moves faster in the UK.
Simon says that in the UK, they don’t always try to build their way out of a transportation problem. Another bridge over the freeway is not always the only answer. Why are people trying to cross the freeway at that point? Other non-building solutions are examined thoughtfully and carefully before starting on the infrastructure building path. It’s that kind of upfront thinking that makes Simon an expert with a new methodology that could help deliver the California High Speed Rail project and other US projects more effectively and cheaper.
The process is called Verification and Validation (V&V) and Simon says that people’s eyes glaze over when they hear about it because they think it’s just more quality control. It’s actually a system of checks and double checks embedded early in a project using innovative software. V&V forces the client to decide early-on what they want in terms of requirements for a project’s performance. Once these requirements are defined the system incorporates the exacting specifications needs to design each element in an organized and searchable manner. The result is a very useful tool that aids designers by taking volumes of specifications on a given project and easily narrowing them down to those needed for specific parts of the design.
As the designs are created they are linked to the specifications. As the designs are built and verified, evidence is linked in as well. This delivers, in a very systematic way, an accurate, searchable document to show that owner requirements and specifications have been met. It reduces costs and change orders dramatically. It builds confidence into the system from the start. V&V is used around the world, it’s new to the US.
Currently, Simon lives in Folsom, California. “People are so warm and welcoming. Sure, the culture is different, but we love it here. I want to be a part of bringing something significant to the process of build great infrastructure in America.”