Bentley praised for work on €825m UK rail project

Bentley Systems has received praise following the successful completion of the expansion of Bank station, part of London’s underground rail network.

The Cannon Street entrance of the upgraded Bank station in London, UK. Image: Transport for London

The €825 million upgrade is one of the most complex subterranean engineering projects recently undertaken in the city, including the construction of a new platform, a new ticket hall and entrance hall, plus new escalators and lifts.

Transport for London awarded Dragados the design and build contract for the upgrade in 2013, with construction work starting in April 2016.

Among the many companies Dragados introduced to the project, the lead consultant was Aecom, with WilkinsonEyre taking the concept designs and developing detail.

Also working on the early stages of the project were Robert Bird Group, which provided civil and structural engineering services, Dr Sauer & Partners, responsible for the design of tunnels and shafts, CPC, which provided project management services, and Byrne Brothers and Keltbray, who acted as subcontractors.

‘Single source of truth’

After trialling a number of document management systems, Bentley Systems’ ProjectWise software was selected to coordinate the complex BIM-led project, which had teams operating throughout the UK and in Spain.

The common data environment was ultimately utilised by more than 400 professionals, working across more than 30 different companies.

An illustration of a platform at the expanded Bank underground station in London, UK. Image: Transport for London

According to Bentley Systems, the ProjectWise system housed approximately 1,800 3D models and close to 5,000 drawings produced during the project’s design phase.

Pablo Corredor, Dragados’ BIM manager on the project, said the ProjectWise software was able to “facilitate the exchange of information between disciplines…between all the participants, in fact.”

He added, “We carried out a comparison between ProjectWise and a not fully-automated electronic document management system, and we found that ProjectWise required 40% less resources to administrate the system.”

Bentley said that, by using its collaborative environment, workflows on the project had been streamlined to the extent that 95% of first-time package approval had been approved by the client.

The company’s applications, it added, had also helped solve 92% of clashes during detail design.