AITPM News - Victorian Branch Meeting - The West Gate Tunnel

In early September the Victorian branch hosted a technical forum, sponsored and hosted by Aurecon, focused on the West Gate Tunnel Project. The West Gate tunnel will provide an alternative to Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge. The project includes: the widening of the existing roadway along the Princes Freeway; twin tunnels under Yarraville; a connection to the Port of Melbourne and an elevated roadway connecting into the Tullamarine Freeway and North Melbourne.

The event was moderated by Sal Ahmad from AITPM Vic Committee and Aurecon, featured speakers and a Q&A session as well as a chance for networking at the beginning and the end of the evening.

The first speaker was AITPM National President Paul Smith, who donned his other (hard) hat as the Deputy Director Traffic and Network Planning on West Gate Tunnel. Paul gave an overview of the project objectives outcomes and timelines. The West Gate Tunnel is being delivered by a consortium and Paul explained the role of each of the parties in the project.

Next was Carl Brodrick from Transurban, as manager of the eastern zone of the project Carl was able to provide an update on construction and gave insight into some of the challenges of working on such a complex project.

Finally, Alex Gilbert and Nathan Lawrence from Aurecon presented. As the project director for the designer Alex was able to provide an overview of some of the technical details of the project’s design and construction, this included the construction techniques being used and the tunnel systems. Nathan is a digital information manager and he explained how detailed 3D modelling of the project alignment assisted in the road safety audit. Nathan even brought a virtual reality set up which allowed the participants to experience the design in VR. Many thanks to Sal Ahmad for organising this event and to Aurecon for providing the venue.