EXPORTING EXPERTISE DOWN UNDER…
Bechtel’s Global Rail Sector Lead AILIE MacADAM tells PAUL STEPHEN how lessons learned from Crossrail are being applied by the company on the other side of the world
On May 4, global engineering and construction firm Bechtel was appointed by Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) as an official delivery partner for the Sydney Metro project.
As part of Australia’s largest public infrastructure project, Bechtel has been charged with leading the Tunnels and Excavations package of Stage 2 of the scheme - Sydney Metro City & Southwest - working as part of the customer’s integrated team.
The scope of the works includes managing the delivery of 9.6 miles of twin-bore tunnels using five tunnelling machines, and the excavation of six new metro stations.
By burrowing beneath the central business district of a city of more than five million residents, plus the world-famous Sydney Harbour, the project is remarkably similar to Crossrail in London owing to both its technical complexity and scale, and the economic and capacity benefits it will bring.
At a projected cost of $11.5-$12.5 AUS billion (£ 6.77bn-£ 7.36bn), it will provide infrastructure and signalling enhancements to Sydney’s existing suburban rail network, increasing capacity across the Sydney Metro network from 120 trains per hour in the peak to 200 trains per hour, making room for an additional 100,000 customers by 2024.
Bechtel’s role in Sydney will also be very similar to the part it continues to play at Crossrail, having been appointed as Crossrail Ltd’s project delivery partner in 2009 to help construct 13 miles of twin tunnels and eight new stations in the line’s central section.
As part of Crossrail’s integrated management team, Bechtel is bringing together more than 150 contracts ranging from the first stages of demolition in London through to the final commissioning of the railway, ensuring the customer’s core values are upheld throughout.
Bechtel’s Global Rail Sector Lead Ailie MacAdam highlights the company’s experience of managing Crossrail’s complex interfaces and wide range of stakeholders as a lead factor in TfNSW’s decision to award it the Sydney Metro project contract.
She says: “Our role in Sydney has striking similarities with the central section of Crossrail. Driving tunnels beneath busy city streets combined with the logistics of keeping the city open for business is an extraordinary feat, and so we will be using our experience in London very extensively.”
With the Crossrail programme approaching 88% complete and now entering a phase of infrastructure testing before opening to passengers in December 2018, Bechtel has been able to transfer some of those skills to Sydney. This includes MacAdam, who was delivery director at Crossrail during peak construction until 2014 when she was promoted to general manager of Bechtel’s rail division, and then to be its Global Rail Sector Lead.
She says that she is excited to be working for TfNSW as it shares many of the progressive values pioneered by Crossrail in being a responsible client and an agent for change across the nation’s entire supply chain. This includes a commitment to increasing the ethnic and gender diversity of the workforce, and leaving a lasting skills legacy.
She adds: “It’s a project that everyone in
TfNSW liked the delivery partner approach used by Crossrail Ltd, and admired our talent and skills on the project. Ailie MacAdam, Global Rail Sector Lead, Bechtel
the Asia Pacific region wants to be part of. We really enjoy working with Crossrail and now with TfNSW because they both feel a responsibility to make a real change to the industry.
“The similarities between the clients is obvious in terms of the values they uphold, which makes them the sort of clients that it is terrific to work with and make a difference together.”
In terms of specific lessons being transferred from Crossrail to the southern hemisphere, MacAdam says that TfNSW will be carefully studying how commercial developments have been incorporated into the station designs to maximise the potential for economic growth along the route.
“We want to maximise the return on investment made in the original infrastructure. I can see that the customer in Sydney will be looking at ways to understand the overall infrastructure outcome, combining both station and oversite development needs to maximum effect, including cost, schedule and customer end use.
“Across the world, Crossrail is held up as an example not just for what we’re doing from a technical point of view, but also how we are doing it in terms of understanding stakeholders, improving health and safety and solving problems effectively. The motto I used at Crossrail was ‘looking around the corner’, to encourage people to think about the next challenge and how to meet it, and we can do that much earlier in Sydney through integrated design.”
Ultimately this transfer of knowledge and skills from London to Sydney will be a selffulfilling prophecy for Bechtel and the UK, says MacAdam.
That is because for more than 60 years Bechtel has been operating internationally and exporting lessons from its UK projects across the globe, but then bringing back further valuable lessons from abroad.
She adds: “I’ve no doubt that there’ll be things that I learn in Sydney and elsewhere around the world that I can bring back to the UK to add more value for our customers. Let’s just see what happens.”