Boston – The American Council of Engineering Companies of Massachusetts (ACEC/MA) has named Michael Baker International as a winner of its 2020 Bronze Engineering Excellence Award for work on the MBTA Rail Transit Tunnel Inspection Manual.
The awards, which celebrate innovation, ingenuity, and excellence in engineering achievement, were recently announced and will be celebrated at the 2021 ACEC/MA Engineering Excellence and Awards Gala.
Michael Baker developed a unique, element-level inspection manual for transit and commuter rail tunnels in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s transit system. The manual details procedures for assessing universal aspects of transit tunnels, defines state of good repair and levels of deterioration, and provides calculations for prioritizing maintenance and rehabilitation, allowing repairs to be quantified and prioritized.
The firm also performed a 200-foot calibration inspection to set a foundation for qualifying future inspection teams, created start-up guidelines for the manual and, since the project was delivered under-budget, has offered to provide training to tunnel inspectors.
