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Imacf Consulting Projects
- A brief summary of several of the major Transportation Projects that
Imacf Consulting has been involved with are given below. These include the
Taiwan High Speed Rail,
Bangkok's first Subway System
and Kuala Lumpur's PUTRA LRT System.
Imacf Consulting has provided Structural Engineering, Design Management,
Construction Supervision and general Coordination role input for these Projects.
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- Taiwan High Speed Rail
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Taiwan's high-speed rail is scheduled to begin
operating in October 2005 with a projected ridership of over 140,000
passengers per day initially, increasing to 330,000 passengers per day by
2033. The non-stop express train will cover the 345-kilometer distance
between Taipei in the north and Kaohsiung in the south in 90 minutes. Even
with stops at all six intermediate stations, the entire trip will take only
two and a quarter hours.
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- With convenient transportation connections to be constructed between the
high-speed rail stations and the cities they serve, the new rail system is
expected to have a great impact on the way people live and work over the
entire length of the west coast. It will be easier to commute over long
distances on a daily basis, opening up new possibilities for community
development and reducing economic inequalities between north and south and
between highly developed and less developed areas.
Conceived in the 1980s, the project took
off as a 35-year build-operate-transfer contract awarded to THSRC in 1997,
with ground-breaking for Civil Works in year 2000. THSRC has selected
the Shinkansen 700T model to provide an average of 300,000 seats per day
once the operation reaches its full potential. The train will operate from
6:00 a.m. to midnight, with the remaining six hours set aside for
maintenance. Construction of the high-speed railway will cost roughly
US$13.9 billion, not including the US$3.1 billion the government spent in
land procurement and US$1.05 billion on renovating access roads.
In particular, it is expected to spur the birth of new towns in the
vicinity of the high-speed rail stations, which are located in relatively
undeveloped areas some distance from bustling city centers. There are six
new Stations along the alignment, with two existing rail station hubs in
Taipei being upgraded for the HSR operations. A further three stations are
planned for future development.
The Bureau of High Speed Rail (BOHSR) of the Ministry of Transportation
and Communications has mapped a strategy for development of new towns
surrounding five stations along the route in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung,
Chiayi and Tainan counties. Each of these five stations will be accessible
by roads and mass rapid transit systems linking them with nearby cities and
other key destinations. Tsoying Station is the sixth station and
will serve as the
southern terminus of the HSR system, and as a gateway to and from southern
Taiwan - see the Tsoying Station Technical
Paper for more details of a typical station design.
The various
Maintenance functions will take place at four Depot / Maintenance Base
facilities, located in Hsinchu, Taichung, YanChou and Tsoying. The primary
Operations Centre is located at Taoyuan Station.
For more Project Data
and photographs - go to the THSRC page.
- Bangkok Subway - the MRTA Blue Line
Bangkok’s new Subway
System commenced construction in 1996 and opened for public use in August
2004. This US$2 billion Project involved over 25,000 persons during
the 8-year construction and fit-out period to build the initial 22km
System of 18 underground stations and Depot Facility.
The MRTA Initial Blue
Line System alignment is approximately 22 km long, fully underground,
with final station locations refined after the preliminary design stage to
become 9 stations on both south and north sections. The tunnels are 5.7m
nominal diameter twin bored with a tunnel axis level typically between 16
to 23m below surface. Cut and cover box section tunnels are provided at
the Depot approach structure, at the terminal stations of Hua Lumphong and
Bang Su where crossover tracks are located, and at ends of the 2 stations
adjacent to the Depot approach which also have crossover tracks. All
stations are constructed as cut and cover box structures with diaphragm
walls.
There are a total of 8
Intervention Shafts on the alignment for emergency access / exit to and
from the tunnels from ground level. These shafts are located where the
distance between adjacent stations exceeds a length of approximately 1km.
The Depot Facility is
constructed on an elevated concrete deck covering approximately 22Ha of
the overall 48Ha site, providing a unique design solution for fast-track
construction and flood protection. The MRTA Headquarters building and
Contractor office facilities are also located adjacent to this site for
central access.
Additional
facilities include major bridge / flyover construction, khlong improvement
structures and a Park and Ride building for a capacity of 2000 cars.
The System integrates with other mass transit systems such as the elevated
Skytrain and future planned subway lines.
The Project was
governed by the MRTA as Employer and executing agency for the Thai
Government. Funding for the Project came from a combination of Japanese
Lending and Investment by the Concessionaire. The prime Lender for the
Project is the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), formerly
known as the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF), who funded all of
the civil engineering construction.
MRTA signed a
Contract with BMCL to be the M&E Concessionaire (also called the M&E
Contractor) in August 2000. BMCL provided the Railway Systems (M&E
Equipment), set up the Operational Management of the System, Operate and
maintain the completed railway for the Concession period of 25 years, fund
the M&E Systems installations and finance it’s Operations & Maintenance
requirements over the 25 year Concession. Train vehicles were supplied by
Siemens, with similar train-sets as used on the existing Skytrain System.
For more Project
Data and photographs - go to the MRTA page.
- Putra LRT - Kuala Lumpur
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The Project
was awarded to PUTRA (the Operator & Client) by the Malaysian Government in
1994 for a Design, Build and Operate contract based on a 60 year Concession
Agreement. The system is currently the longest automated driverless railway
in the world, consisting of 29km of railway, 24 stations and a depot. The
trains and system were procured from Bombardier of Canada who installed a
similar system for the Vancouver Skytrain. The project was fast-track
construction and became operational only 3½ years after first construction
contract award with Section 1 opening on September 1, 1998. The second phase
opened in June 1999 to complete the Project. This timescale is recognised to
be a major achievement for a modern LRT project. Total Project cost was of
the order of US$ 2 billion.
The majority of Civil works
were tendered on the engineer’s design and awarded to the Renong
construction group UEC and it’s partners. These companies constructed the
elevated guideway, depot facility, 18 elevated stations, 2 underground
stations and all power substations. Design Build Civil contracts were
awarded for the tunneling work – to Hyundai and Hazama, 3 underground
stations – SNC JV and City Properties, and also the integrated KL Sentral
station – to KLSSB.
For the Systems works, bids
were received from Canada, France, Germany and Japan, but were eventually
split and awarded to Bombardier / SNC Lavelin for the Rolling stock,
trackwork and depot equipment, to the Renong company EDSB for power supply,
and to Thorn Transit (now Cubic Transportation) for the fare collection
system.
The
initial System was established to operate 35 No 2-car train sets that can
accommodate around 150,000 passengers per day, operating from 6am to
midnight. This can be expanded to the design capacity of 400,000 passengers
by introducing more trains for four-car sets that can run on the guideway at
a minimum 90 second headway. The 14km journey on Section 1 takes about 20
minutes and the full 29km journey takes 45 minutes. The trip through the
underground section only takes about 5 minutes compared to about half an
hour in normal traffic.
LRT2 connects to the Star
LRT which was already operational, it connects with several bus terminals,
all stations have public bus drop-offs, and car & taxi drop off parking is
provided at all station entrances. PUTRA also operate their own feeder bus
fleet of 60 buses to take passengers in local districts to the nearest
station. There are three major Park & Ride stations on route, one at each
end station and one near a main highway routing, to attract car owners from
taking their car into the city centre. One of the prime revenue and
passenger generators for LRT2 is the link to KTM commuter railway services
and the Express Rail Link to the new International airport from the
integrated railway station at KL Sentral, which opened in 2001.
For more Project Data
and photographs - go to the PUTRA LRT page.
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