Crossrail

THE CHALLENGE

Crossrail is one of the largest infrastructure engineering projects in Europe. It is building 42km of tunnels, 10 new stations and improving 30 more. The finished railway, will be named the Elizabeth line when it opens in central London in 2018. SYSTRA are part of the team with Bechtel and CH2M serving as Crossrail’s project delivery partner team to deliver this £14.8bn project.

The Elizabeth line will provide a major new suburban rail service for London serving 40 stations from Reading, Berkshire to Shenfield, Essex. It will connect the City, Canary Wharf, the West End and Heathrow Airport to commuter areas serving London.

The new railway will bring significant benefits to London, not only will it improve journey times and reduce overcrowding on the Underground, it will support London’s economic growth and help to maintain its financial capital status. By 2026, employment in London is predicted to increase by 13% and its population growth by 10%.

An estimated 200m passengers will travel on the Elizabeth line each year, increasing central London’s rail capacity by 10%.

SYSTRA’S ROLE

Since 2009, SYSTRA has been part of the Project Delivery Partnership on the £14.8bn Crossrail 1 project. With our PDP partners (Bechtel and CH2MHill) we are responsible for managing the delivery of the detailed design phase, contract procurement, construction, testing & commissioning through all phases of the main civils, MEP systems and railway systems for the project. We are an integral part of the clients Technical Information Team that manages all of the BIM related requirements (EIR) that make up the Works Information.

On behalf of CRL we author these requirements and manage the compliance and assurance teams that accept and audit the BIM deliverables of all T1 contractors. We manage the supply chain technical audits o encourage world class initiatives and BIM related innovations.

The Crossrail project is nearing completion and is regarded as one of the forerunners in the use of BIM based project delivery contributing to many of the standards and initiatives that the UK now adheres to for BIM Level 2 delivery.