Weekly round-up - 20 March 2015

HS2 seeks delivery partner, Atkins wins HS2 BIM deal, Highways England's new home, Northern Line extension TBMs on order.

  1. HS2 has gone out to tender for a delivery partner in a deal worth between £250M and £350M, to last for the first 10 years of the scheme. The delivery partner will take on “the management and coordination of engineering and environmental design development by separate design organisations, and support the management of the programme of ECI  delivery contracts”. The promoter has also looking for enabling works contractors for £900M of work spread over three lots along the route.

  2. Orders have gone in for the two tunnel boring machines for the £1bn Northern Line extension. London Underground has picked French firm NFM technologies to supply the machines to the Ferrovial Agroman Laing O’Rourke joint venture by summer 2016. 

  3. PwC has been appointed to review the process so far on decisions about the future of Manston Airport, Transport Minister John Hayes has announced. The appointment of PwC is part of the government’s commitment to support Thanet District Council in their efforts to secure Manston’s future. The Kent airport closed on 15 May 2014 and the council has subsequently been considering options for keeping it open. Hayes said: “The independent consultancy we have appointed will strengthen the ability of Thanet District Council to find the right deal to secure Manston’s future.” See also Transport Select Committee on Smaller airports.

  4. Government is providing £350,000 of funding to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for a study into a new Stockport bypass.  This funding is the latest stage of the implementation of the South East Manchester Multi Modal Strategy. 

  5. Atkins has won a four year contract to provide Building Information Modelling (BIM) technical services to HS2. The contract will include professional support covering the planning and delivery of a range of activities including BIM educational and assessment tools for the supply chain, and working to help drive long-term efficiency and durability into asset management. “HS2 is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Europe and a fantastic opportunity to embed BIM right from day one, delivering real value to the project - and to the industry as a whole," said HS2 director of BIM Jon Kerbey. Atkins director Mark Roberts said: "Adoption of BIM will revolutionise programmes like High Speed 2, materially improving delivery efficiency and success, and embedding an approach that looks beyond design and construction into the requirements and benefits for the whole operational life of the railway.” 

  6. Latest ‘Road Traffic Forecasts 2015’ predict that levels of traffic will increase on motorways and major roads by up to 60% in 2040 compared with 2010 levels. For principal roads the increase from 2010 to 2040 could be as high as 51% and for minor roads the prediction is up to 54%. Car ownership is predicted to increase from 25 million in 2010 to 35 million in 2040, an increase of 42%. Road Surface Treatments Association chief executive Howard Robinson used the figures to continue his call for more to be done to address the road repair backlog – not just on strategic links but on the £12bn local road backlog. “Decades of under investment means that our road networks are unable to cope with the impact of current traffic levels let alone an increase of between 50 to 60%,” he said. 

  7. The new headquarters of Highways England - the company that will run motorways and major A roads – has been opened in Guildford, Surrey by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin. The new company replaces the Highways Agency on 1 April and will be responsible for delivering more than £15 billion of investment by 2021.

  8. Remote control monitoring business Senceive is celebrating 10 years in business and success of its FlatMesh wireless sensors. Years of development and proven results in-use mean the monitors have won product approval from Network Rail, London Underground and Tubelines over the years for earthwork, trackbed and tunnelling application among others. They now also come with an integrated infra-red camera for real time visual confirmation of movement. And new is the FlatMesh Nano – an extremely small tri-axial tilt sensor – particularly intended for tunnelling works.

  9. Fresh from news in the Budget that Government is to enter into Contract for Difference negotiations, Gloucester, Swansea tidal barrage promoter Tidal Lagoon Power has named Graham Hillier as its managing director of Development Services.  He will join the company later in the spring from his role as executive director at Natural Resources Wales to oversee the provision of in-house environmental, planning and property services to each of Tidal Lagoon Power’s projects subsequent to the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon.

  10. A new competition has been launched to encourage rail innovation. The Train Operator Competition (TOC’15) is funded with £6M from the Department for Transport and organised by FutureRailway, an expert body set up by the rail industry to accelerate research, development and innovation. It is inviting proposals which train operators and their supply chains will fund, along with government financial support. These will be aimed at: enhancing customer experience, expanding capacity, reducing costs, and reducing carbon.

If you would like to contact Jackie Whitelaw about this, or any other story, please email jackie.whitelaw@infrastructure-intelligence.com.