Melbourne Metro - Melbourne, Australia

Sector: Transport - Metro

Procurement Type: Design & Construct

Owner: Melbourne Metro Rail Authority

Construction Cost: ~ AUD 9 Billion

Contractor: John Holland – Lend Lease - Bouygues Joint Venture  (Cross Yarra Paternship)

NOMA´s client: Arup - Arcadis - WSP Join Venture (Detailed Design), Cross Yarra

Design Period: 2017 - 2020

Construction Period: 2018 - 2024

Project Phase: Tender and Detailed Design

 

The Project

The Melbourne Metro Rail Project is a metropolitan rail infrastructure project and will create a new end-to-end rail line from Sunbury in the west to Cranbourne/Pakenham in the south-east, with high capacity trains and five new underground stations.

The project comprises the construction of twin nine-kilometre tunnels and five underground stations at North Melbourne, Parkville, State Library at the northern end of Swanston Street, Town Hall at the southern end of Swanston Street and Anzac on St Kilda Road.

The two stations under Swanston Street will be directly connected to the City Loop at Melbourne Central and Flinders Street stations.

To keep Swanston Street open while the project is built, access shafts up to 11 storeys deep are being dug adjacent to Swanston Street at City Square and behind Young and Jackson Hotel where the station entrances will be. These shafts will be used to transport machinery, equipment and workers underground to excavate and line the station caverns below the surface of Swanston Street.

The State Library and Town Hall stations will be built as 'trinocular' caverns, i.e. three overlapping tunnels, and will be mined by road headers. Whereas, the new North Melbourne, Parkville and Anzac stations and the entrances to the tunnels will be built using a construction technique known as cut and cover.

The running tunnels will travel under the Yarra River with a separation of around seven metres between the below the riverbed, east of the Princes Bridge. To minimise impacts at the Yarra River and surrounding areas, tunnelling with Tunnel Boring Machines will be used for this section of the project.

Key Aspects of the Project

• Twin nine-kilometre rail tunnels from the west of the city to the south-east as part of a new Sunbury to Cranbourne/Pakenham line.
• Five new underground stations at North Melbourne, Parkville, State Library (at the northern end of Swanston Street), Town Hall (at the southern end of Swanston Street) and Anzac (on St Kilda Road).
• High capacity signalling to maximise the efficiency of the new fleet of High Capacity Metro Trains.
• Train / tram interchange between Anzac Station and the Domain Interchange.

Scope of Works

NOMA Consulting was engaged by CYP and by AAW JV to carry out the tender and detailed design, respectively, of the following aspects:

• Rock parameter assessment for mined station caverns and tunnels considering anisotropic behaviour of Melbourne Formation.
• Design of the primary support for both mined trinocular State Library and Town Hall station caverns and adits.
• Design of primary support for both mined tunnels between State Library and Town Hall station caverns
• Design primary support for mined tunnels at Parkville and for all cross passages
• Design of TBM temporary works which include pushing frames for all stations, TBM cradles, segment support bracings and launch seals
• Settlement assessment due to construction of all mined station caverns and mined tunnels
• Design coordination with permanent works and early works shaft designers as well as other design disciplines (geotech, M&E, construction team, etc)