Transportation stalemate says Arup's rail leader

The flow of transportation projects in the UK has reached a stalemate situation says Colin Stewart, Ove Arup's new railways business leader. "There's too much debate," he said last week. "We need some schemes to come into reality."

Transport accounts for 20 per cent of Arup's annual turnover of £200 million. In the rail sector of this, Stewart wants to lift Arup's workload from £20 to £25 million, but points out that this will be difficult given that the Channel Tunnel Rail Link has a major influence on Arup's current figure.

"We have the lion's share of the innovative front-end projects in the UK transportation sector at the moment," said Stewart, pointing out that the consultant is active on CTRL, the London Underground privatisation and the West Coast Main Line (WCML).

Stewart was deputy project manager and technical director at Rail Link Engineering before moving to his new post. RLE is a consortium of Arup, Bechtel, Halcrow and Systra, the design wing of French railway SNCF and a specialist in high-speed rail specification.

With Arup being independent, not floated on the Stock Exchange, it has to be careful about offering equity stakes in projects, said Stewart. "There was a flurry when DBFO came out to invest equity with dubious effect," he contended.

"We show commitment in other ways. CTRL, for example, is incentivised. We will be part of producing a project on budget and on time and we expect to be rewarded for taking that risk. If it comes in below budget we expect to benefit. Currently the project is on course in terms of both time and money."

Arup's role in the London Underground privatisation is different: it has become the strategic engineering adviser to the client. The decision not to hold back in the hope of being able to bid for the task of modernising the LU, was "difficult" said Stewart.

The project needs to be created properly, he said, pointing to a £7-11 billion total spend. Stewart said the likely route forward is for London's Underground network to be split into three parts: a shallow section along with two deep sections.

The slowdown at Railtrack is a problem, said Stewart. For Railtrack's recent Network Management Statement to be followed by a review of expenditure, putting plans on hold, is unsatisfactory, he felt. Contractors were expecting to be bidding for a £1.2 billion annual spend. "Railtrack appears to be backtracking," he said. "Some contractors have brought in new track-laying machines and potentially have nowhere to go."