London Underground's Station Capacity Programme win big at the Constructing Excellence awards

Transport for London (TfL) gained top level recognition for two major projects within London Underground's Station Capacity Programme at the Constructing Excellence Awards in London.  

The Constructing Excellence Awards are the leading built environment awards in the UK, recognising best practice, innovation and excellence.   Bank Station Capacity Upgrade (BSCU) won the Integration and Collaborative Working award.  

The Bank/Monument station complex, located in the heart of the City of London's financial district, is the fourth busiest interchange station on the London Underground network with 98 million customers using the station in 2012/13.

This is set to increase in the coming years. So TfL is planning a major upgrade of the six-line interchange which will increase capacity by providing more space to get on and off Northern line trains and provide a step-free route between the Northern line platforms, Docklands Light Railway and street levels.  

TfL has sought to maximise the scheme's benefits to customers while reducing costs by taking a new approach to procurement (innovative contractor engagement) that rewards innovation throughout the supply chain. Adopting this method on the Bank project has delivered 45 per cent additional value through cost savings and improved benefits.

This has reduced the estimated final cost of the project by £61m and cut planned engineering closures by more than 22 per cent.  

The judges said: "Although all the entrants in this category deserve an award, it was London Underground who had taken collaboration to a new level. Theirs was an impossible challenge which could not be overcome with a traditional approach."  

Simon Addyman, BSCU Programme Manager, said: "For London Underground and Dragados to be awarded this prestigious industry award after being together as a project team for only one year is a real honour. It is testament to the significant effort that the whole supply chain has put into working as a single project organisation to build on and deliver the value the innovative contractor engagement process produced." This summer TfL will be applying for a Transport & Works Act Order, which if granted will give permission to do the work, which is proposed to start in 2016 and be delivered in 2021.

Victoria Station Upgrade (VSU) programme received a Highly Commended in the BIM (Building Information Modelling) Project of the Year category.  

The judges commented: "This project evidences a truly collaborative engagement by the whole team. The strong interaction between the site and the design teams has contributed to the predictability of the outcome, not only in terms of cost and schedule, but also in the management of risk, and health & safety. The Victoria Station Upgrade project adopted BIM way before others were even recognising the value and contributed significantly to assessing the feasibility of the scheme."  

Glenn Keelan, VSU Programme Manager, said: "It's encouraging to see the judges recognise how VSU BIM is being successfully applied as a delivery/collaboration tool in a live and complex construction environment, and is reducing cost, time, and risk to the benefit of all parties. Given that we were competing with high quality 'completed' projects this recognition is a genuine achievement."

VSU, which is the redevelopment of Victoria Underground station, will provide an additional new entrance and third ticket hall, as well as doubling the size of one of the existing ticket halls, step-free access, reduced journey times, congestion relief and extend station life by 75 years. The first phase of the work including the new entrance to the new North Ticket Hall will be completed by the end of 2016 and all the rest of the work will be completed by the end of 2018.   

The complexity of the task, in the middle of one of London's busiest stations, with new tunnels constructed between existing tunnels, lying at varying levels - between London clay and overlying, water-bearing river terrace gravels - required the team to use BIM as the 'single source of truth'.   The VSU model encompasses the entire project and incorporates 18 discrete, but interacting, design disciplines.

The BIM working process was built around collaboration between the client and a federated project supply chain and included a unified data creation system for management and sharing, developed design procedures/CAD guidelines, a 'shared pain/gain' contract , co-located design teams , application of bi-directional model data, linking modelling tools and engineering analysis software.  

BIM has hugely enhanced predictability of works interfaces and with lessons learnt being shared with future projects and external parties.   Post-completion, the model will provide TfL with an accurate record of assets - those belonging to third parties as well as its own. Containing spatial and technical information, including object libraries, the model will assist TfL in managing the maintenance and operation of the asset throughout its life.