To better deliver on Queensland’s extensive infrastructure pipeline, the Queensland Government’s Department of Transport and Main Roads has implemented the Collaborative Project Initiative, an approach that transforms its relationship with its partners.
Queensland is evolving rapidly. The second-fastest growing population in the country, an array of election commitments from the new government elected in 2024, and the impending 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games combine to produce a substantial and expanding demand for infrastructure across the state.
The Queensland government counts 139 infrastructure class proposals or projects in its pipeline, and a constrained fiscal environment, resource pressures, and the imperative to deliver projects on time and within budget are making it more important than ever for government departments and planners to deliver efficiently and effectively.
Recognising its responsibility to deliver this infrastructure pipeline, Queensland Government’s Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) has established the Collaborative Project Initiative to respond to TMR and industry’s shared challenge of capacity, culture and capability. The principles driving the project recognise that lowest price contracts promote adversarial behavior that is unsustainable and that collaboration supports industry sustainability irrespective of market conditions.
“We need to systemise collaborative procurement and delivery to allow TMR and industry to build the culture and behaviours that will allow us to collaboratively respond to market capacity as we get to that pipeline of work,” said Julie Mitchell, TMR’s Deputy Director-General Infrastructure Management and Delivery.
“We’ve shifted our focus from what we’d ordinarily do, to a collaborative approach so that we can improve productivity and really focus on project delivery, rather than disputes or other negative aspects of delivery that might get in the way. The approach recognises that performance matters and we need to choose a partner with a fair price”.
Rising to the challenge
The Collaborative Project Initiative is positioning TMR to better meet Queensland’s transport infrastructure delivery challenges.
“The Collaborative Project Initiative has been in place since 2021 and has been jointly developed and implemented by TMR and industry,” Mitchell said.
“Our role is to develop a collaborative procurement and delivery model, which we refer to as our guided collaboration toolkit. That’s essentially about systemising the concept of collaboration throughout the project lifecycle and embedding it into our system from the beginning all the way through to the end of a project. The model is a streamlined, collaborative framework for planning, procuring and awarding contracts based on capability, capacity, past performance and ability to deliver value for money”.
This process is seeing TMR shift from contract-driven behaviour to a culture-driven one.
“That’s saying that we can deliver collaborative outcomes, irrespective of contract type and commercial model,” explained Mitchell.
“It’s not just about the procurement and delivery elements of the lifecycle; we need to focus earlier on planning and pre-procurement processes as well.”
This approach is allowing TMR and its partners to focus on ‘best for project’ outcomes: understanding the consequences and impacts of contract conditions in ways that allow all parties to work proactively to deliver outcomes on time and on cost.
Six steps to success
TMR and its industry partners have developed six principles that underpin the collaborative procurement and delivery model. The first of these is to unlock planning and pre-procurement to streamline delivery. The second is to work with the market.
“That’s about understanding and responding to market capacity and needs, and positioning TMR as an informed and active client,” Mitchell said.
The third principle is to enhance the tender process to optimise the time and cost of tendering.
“We know that time and money can be well spent at tender, and it’s about finding the right level of effort to achieve the project outcomes.”
Principle four sees TMR evaluate tenders differently, focusing on choosing a partner with a fair price rather than the lowest price, as well as balancing performance requirements, improving cost confidence and rewarding past project delivery success.
The fifth principle streamlines project delivery by leveraging existing contracts and reducing overheads and administrative burden, and the sixth concerns scalability.
“None of what we’re doing is one-size-fits-all,” Mitchell said.
“We’ve got projects that are a million dollars through to a billion dollars or more, so our infrastructure solutions must work for different tiers of contractors and designers.”
Aggregation and flexibility
These principles ensure that TMR’s collaborative approach touches every stage of a project, and the success of that can be seen in the real-world delivery it has enabled.
TMR’s Bruce Highway Targeted Safety Program, for instance, is seeing the department spend $9 billion on improving road safety to priority sections of the Bruce Highway between Gympie and Cairns.
“One of the aspects of the model looks at how we aggregate projects into programs, such as the Bruce Highway Targeted Safety Program,” Mitchell said.
“That means we can procure efficiently through program delivery or, alternatively, by disaggregating bigger projects into smaller packages to manage risk or market capacity.”
Another success story involves the Rockhampton Ring Road, 17.4 km of new roadway connecting the Capricorn Highway in the south to the intersection of the Bruce Highway and Rockhampton–Yeppoon Road in the north.
“That was a model that involved a short expression of interest process to procure a single proponent for each contract, which significantly streamlined the procurement process,” Mitchell said.
“This meant that we could flex and scale quite rapidly compared to what we would have done using a traditional procurement model. This was critical as the project scope and funding changed.”
“As we continue to embed collaborative practices into the way we deliver infrastructure, it’s clear that the real value lies not just in the outcomes—but in the partnerships that make them possible. The Collaborative Project Initiative is a testament to what can be achieved when technical expertise, shared purpose, and trust converge.”
That spirit will be front and centre at the upcoming 2026 Engineering, Innovation, and Technology Forum, being held 18–20 August 2026. The Forum’s theme, ‘Delivering Value – Where risk and opportunity converge’ is the perfect opportunity to showcase Queensland’s most forward-thinking transport projects, with a spotlight on collaboration and delivery excellence.
“The call for abstracts for the forum is opening soon. We’re looking for presentations that reflect the challenges we face in delivering smarter, more sustainable transport solutions under increasing resource and budget pressures, and celebrating collaboration success stories is one important element of this,” says Mitchell.
The call for papers will open mid-October, inviting subject matter experts, project leads, and innovators to share their stories, insights, and breakthroughs. Submissions close on 16 January 2026. For details, visit the Engineering, Innovation, and Technology Forum website.
