Paving the way for smarter railway infrastructure, TIES Living Lab, the ground-breaking collaboration of 25 partners focusing on 10 infrastructure, data research and digital demonstrator projects, is now on the home run to successful completion. The collaboration, which kicked off in July 2020, has made significant progress on improving the way transport infrastructure is set up within live infrastructure projects that deliver value-adding benefits across the sector. The 10 projects all have an integral part to play in achieving the project objectives:
- Improve the way Transport Infrastructure projects are set up to maximise value
- Achieve better assurance of project and programme value and what assets should cost (benchmarking)
- Accelerate the wider adoption of MMC (Modern Methods of Construction)
- Establish TIES Living Lab as a catalyst for long term cultural change across sectors by making a compelling case for long term HM treasury to scale the facility
As the collaboration prepares for the final push on the acceleration pedal, the projects are driving their way through their checklists and have made notable progress over recent and coming months:
- September 2021 saw Project 6 – Cable Route Management System (CRMS) Automated Design leading the way in a successful completion of their objective of delivering a digital tool to show how automation can assist with CRMS feasibility analysis and design. The project is now ready for the exploitation phase of the programme.
- Project 1 – Metrics, Benchmarking & Repository, is on track to complete their repository in April, of which will allow TIES Living Lab partners to be better informed about the performance of their projects, including showing potential for live links to the Intelligent Infrastructure Control Centre.
- Project 4 – MMC Footbridges, are set to complete their design phase by the end of March for the new innovative footbridge which will meet or exceed the targets of the UK Government 2025 Construction Strategy: 33% lower costs, 50% faster delivery, 50% lower emissions and 50% improvement in exports.
- Project 5 – MMC Equipment Rooms, are well underway with production on a new generic template for modular equipment rooms which are built off site, reducing future infrastructure investment time, cost and risk.
- Project 7 – Cooling Panels, has successfully passed a critical Internal Design Review meeting, allowing them to continue in their work in developing and testing an innovative approach to cooling underground stations.
- And finally, Project 9 – Advanced Logistics, which sets out to deliver a range of digital solutions to track the status of an asset throughout its lifecycle – from early design to using BIM Asset Tagging to manufacturing, transportation and onsite logistics -have created value beyond the project scope by creating a cloud based advanced logistics platform.
If you would like to stay up-to-date with the latest TIES Living Lab news and successes, please stay tuned and follow us on LinkedIn!