Innovative design takes Paddington link 21 Jan 2015

London Underground (LU) awards £40 million design-build construction of the Paddington Station link tunnel to the Costain/Skanska JV.

Fig 1. Paddington Station Link tunnel (circled) for Crossrail-Bakerloo Line connection

The short but critical tunnel (Fig 1) will enable faster and easier pedestrian access from the new Paddington Crossrail station platform to the Bakerloo Line platforms of the Tube, which is run by London Underground. The Costain/Skanska JV also holds the £250 million C405 contract for construction of the new Crossrail station at Paddington, which started in July 2011.

Award of the link tunnel follows the same innovative procurement process used by LU for the Bank Station Upgrade contract, which was signed in 2013. The process, known as the Innovative Contractor Engagement (ICE) model, assesses bids made by contractors for the value that their proposal is adjudged to have added to the project.

The winning bid by the Costain/Skanska Joint Venture was scored as enhancing the value of the Bakerloo Line link by 25 per cent, mainly through reducing passenger journey times compared with initial designs, and by incorporating a design that minimises the level of disruption that will be caused to passengers while it is being built.

“This is the second successful application of the ICE procurement approach, providing both our customers and our business with significantly enhanced value. Increasingly, ICE is allowing the market to provide us with better value infrastructure than traditional approaches,” said David Waboso, LU’s Director of Capital Programmes.

Impression of new Crossrail Paddington Station

Simon Wright, Crossrail Programme Director, said: “Crossrail is now 60 per cent complete and we are on time and within budget. The Bakerloo Line link, being delivered by London Underground, is an integral part of Crossrail.” Paddington is one of the busiest stations on the Tube network and to alleviate the demand additional passengers will place on existing infrastructure once Crossrail is completed in 2018/19, it is necessary to build a new link between Crossrail and the Bakerloo line.

Around 85,000 passengers interchange to and from the Bakerloo Line each day and this is set to increase to over 115,000 when Crossrail starts serving Paddington at the end of 2018.

The new link will be completed by the end of 2018 in time for Crossrail’s opening. The construction procurement stage has involved close cooperation between the LU and Crossrail teams.