PROJECT STORY
The challenge
Our capital city’s transport must be easy to use to everyone – whether you are younger or older, a wheelchair or scooter user, have a visual or hearing impairment, dementia, autism, or you travel with small children.
TfL Station Accessibility Programme
Making London a city for all
The solution
We’re supporting Transport for London (TfL) with its largest ever programme of accessibility investment, which will ultimately create 41 new step-free stations across the Capital.
The Impact
The project will leave a legacy to the people of London and in the surrounding communities, giving access to the tube network for everyone and improving their quality of life.
7
Stations designed to be step-free
4
stations built & brought into step-free use
80+
Human Factors and Ergonomics issues/risks eliminated or mitigated in design
The challenge
Enhancing our streets, further improving step-free access and giving customers the tools to plan accessible journeys all contribute towards London being a city for all. Our capital city’s transport must be easy to use to everyone – whether you are younger or older, a wheelchair or scooter user, have a visual or hearing impairment, dementia, autism, or you travel with small children. That’s why we’re supporting Transport for London (TfL) with its largest ever programme of accessibility investment, which will ultimately create 41 new step-free stations across the Capital.
The solution
The Accessibility Programme is a significant challenge for London Underground with several tranches of works at various stages of design or delivery all occurring at once. Tranche 2 brought significant technical challenges and constrained construction access to be overcome to provide inclusive design solutions to maximise accessibility for all passengers at Wimbledon Park, Sudbury Hill, Burnt Oak, Debden, Northolt, Ickenham, and Hanger Lane Stations.
Planning permission needed to be obtained, including meeting heritage and listed building consents, whilst design was progressing. We provided multi-disciplinary design services across Project, Design & BIM Management, MEP & Fire Design, Systems Engineering, Civil Designs, Telecoms Designs, Premise & Planning Design, Engineering Safety Management and Human Factors, Sustainability, and Ecology, as well as Construction Support & As Built production.
To meet fixed station opening dates we developed an overlapping design process, with the team undertaking Concept, Detailed and Enabling Works design simultaneously on different stations. Arcadis’ scale of expertise meant we were able to act as Lead Designer, taking ownership of the scheme development, supported by two specialist subconsultants. We provided design and construction support services to the contractor, Octavius, for the design & build works to the tight programme.
The London Underground stations were constrained with older assets, as well as the operational railway and day-to-day use. Arcadis had to carefully integrate the new lift and bridge solutions into the station to allow the station to function and provide a seamless user experience after construction, and in several station had to remodel ticket office areas. Designs were developed in full 3D modelling to allow visualisations and integration of outcomes so everyone could understand what the final result would look like during development.
The design team worked with Octavius and TfL closely to discuss solutions for the designs. The team produced modular and offsite design solutions with Octavius’ fabricators to limit disruption to the operational stations.
The impact
The project will leave a legacy to the people of London and in the surrounding communities, giving access to the tube network for everyone and improving their quality of life.
Our Human Factors team were an integral part of the overall design team and worked collaboratively to identify, manage and close out any people related risks and issues arising within the designs. Through workshops with the design team, key operational representatives and stakeholders, we were able to understand how each station operated differently and the unique user needs associated with each station.
