Inner Northern Busway: Queen Street to Upper Roma Street

Abstract

The Inner Northern Busway (INB), Queen Street to Upper Roma Street, project completed the central link in Brisbane’s busway network. It connects the northern, southeastern, eastern and future western bus transit routes, and improves urban connectivity and travel times while removing buses from busy city streets. Design and construction of the project was extremely challenging. The 1.2 km project was very complex; with no single 50 m section the same. The project included a 500 m tunnel, two major bus stations within existing city structures, a cycle centre, and significant road and rail interfaces. The INB project was delivered under budget and six months ahead of schedule over a three-year period. This paper, based on the ACAA award nomination prepared by the INB HUB Alliance partners, focuses on technical and management innovation as evidenced in the INB project. In particular, the paper details six of the most complex and difficult design and construction challenges faced on the project, and details how project leadership and management innovation helped to deliver outstanding project outcomes.

Key Words:

• Alliance
• Brisbane City Council
• Bligh Voller Nield
• busway
• Coffey
• community
• contract
• Countess Street
• EDAW
• Fire Life Safety
• INB HUB Alliance
• Inner Northern Busway
• innovation
• key result areas (KRAs)
• Queensland Transport
• Leighton Contractors
• Management
• Maunsell AECOM
• performance
• public transport
• schedule
• stakeholders
• structural
• technical
• transport
• tunnel
• ventilation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

R Rawlings

Ray Rawlings

Ray Rawlings is a civil engineer with more than 27 years’ experience in planning, design and delivery of major road, bridge and busway infrastructure projects. Since joining AECOM, he has been a key player in winning major projects, including Brisbane’s Eastern Busway, the Inner City Rail Capacity Study and the Australia Trade Coast Transport Study, and was instrumental in the delivery of these and the award-winning Inner Northern Busway Alliance. Ray has also held leadership positions with some of Australia’s most iconic alliance projects, including Queensland’s TrackStar Rail Program Alliance and Brisbane’s Eastern Busway Alliance, and has built a strong reputation for business development, key-client relationship management and project delivery. In addition, he has significant public-sector experience, including in policy and strategy development and implementation, and customer service delivery. His public sector experience also includes leading integrated transport planning programs and studies. Ray is now based in Melbourne and leads AECOM’s transportation team in the Victoria and South Australia region.

D Burchard

David Burchard

David Burchard, an Associate Director with AECOM, has over 17 years’ experience in engineering design. He has contributed to a diverse range of projects, including underground transport infrastructure, maritime, industrial and commercial building projects. He has also designed underground mining facilities, powerstation works, residential high-rise buildings and institutional buildings. This broad range of engineering design experience has provided David with a keen awareness of the interface issues on complex multidisciplinary projects. He has played key roles in engineering teams to plan, design, verify and construct numerous transport infrastructure projects, such as the Inner Northern Busway in Brisbane, the New MetroRail in Perth and the Dehli Metro in India. His recent experience as Technical Manager on the TrackStar Alliance has further consolidated his skills to coordinate complex multidisciplinary designs, while working in an operational rail environment. While with AECOM, David has worked with various construction teams in alliance delivery projects, located in CBD urban environments. These projects fostered a collaborative working environment, where both designer and constructor worked closely together to develop innovative solutions to complex issues. During the early stages of the Inner Northern Busway Project, David was lead structural engineer for the project, and then, later, Design Manager for “Area 10” – covering King George Square Station and Albert Street tunnel.

A Purchase

Andrew Purchase

Andrew Purchase is a senior tunnel ventilation engineer with experience on multidisciplinary tunnel infrastructure projects ranging from conceptual planning through to detailed design, commissioning and development of emergency procedures for tunnel systems. He has been involved in key infrastructure projects in Queensland, as well as several projects in New Zealand, the United States and Puerto Rico. For the Inner Northern Busway project, Andrew was a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeller and was involved in the detailed design and commissioning of the tunnel ventilation systems. The CFD modelling was used to inform structural design and construction changes on the fly, as well as to inform stakeholders and other discipline designs. The CFD was also an important tool for assessing the smoke-control strategy for the tunnel and sizing the mechanical ventilation equipment. Commissioning of the tunnel was used to validate the modelling undertaken and demonstrate the accuracy of the techniques used. Andrew is currently the tunnel ventilation designer and a fire life safety team member for the Victoria Park Tunnel in Auckland, New Zealand. He is leading the tunnel ventilation design for the new 455 m, three-lane cut-and-cover tunnel that forms part of the key transport route in Auckland. This project faces unique challenges because of its location and ambitious timeframes for construction, which has just commenced.

J Miles

Julia Miles

Julia Miles has 15 years’ experience as a communication and community engagement specialist. She has been involved in numerous large-scale, complex projects where she was responsible for the driving the communication and community relations strategies, often reaching results that exceeded the client’s expectations. Julia worked as a Specialist Community Relations Adviser for Rio Tinto Aluminium (Comalco) in Gladstone, where she developed and implemented high-level communication strategies to effectively manage relationships with multiple stakeholder groups – from government representatives and industry bodies to Indigenous groups and local communities. She led a community partnership approach within the organisation and developed a schools program encouraging employees to become mentors through the Young Achievers Australia program. Julia joined Leighton Contractors in 2005 as the Stakeholder & Community Relations Manager for the Inner Northern Busway (INB) project. Julia led a team of stakeholder and community engagement professionals to deliver an award-winning community relations program for the project. This included a unique Business Support Program to effectively manage relationships and future compensation claims of a high-needs stakeholder group. Julia also coordinated the highly successful INB public open day, which saw 12,000 people walk through the busway. Julia has now stepped into a management role focusing on bid development and coordinating tender submissions for Leighton Contractors Northern Region (Queensland, Northern Territory and Papua New Guinea). Julia holds a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Southern Queensland and has completed the International Association of Public Participation program.