KEY FACTS

CLIENT

Blueprint

YEAR COMPLETED

2015

BUILD TYPE

New Build

SERVICES PROVIDED

Traffic Signals
Rail Track
Micro-Simulation Modelling

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

BWB played a key role in Nottingham's NET Phase 2 tram extension, delivering transport, traffic signal and infrastructure design services. The £570m scheme has extended the lines to Chilwell and Clifton, more than doubling the size of the city's tram network by adding 11 miles of track, 28 stations and 22 trams.

BWB has been involved for over a decade, initially providing detailed traffic modelling and highway design of junctions on projects that connect to the tram route including ng2 Business Park, Highfields Science Park and Medi-Park. Following this the NET Promoter appointed BWB for the Advanced Design Phase of the scheme where we reviewed and redesigned five shared-use traffic signal controlled junctions on the tram route through Beeston town centre. We were later commissioned by Nottingham City Council to assist them in checking the detailed design proposals prepared by the scheme's external design team.

The extension opened to the public in August 2015 and it is anticipated that the scheme could help generate £300 million a year for the local economy and help create up to 8,000 jobs.

Key Challenges

BWB played a pivotal role in extensive lobbying on behalf of developer Miller Birch to influence the NET Phase II proposals for the Chilwell Line that runs through the ng2 site. We successfully negotiated alternative tram stop arrangements that deliver safer pedestrian access to the stops within the site and worked closely with the NET Promoter to develop access arrangements capable of future modification to accommodate the tram route.

Our next input came during the Highfields Science Park project, a deceptively complex development site where the previous owners had failed to deliver viable redevelopment proposals. In securing planning consent and delivering the first phase of built development, BWB developed a radical alternative to the published proposals for NET Phase II in the vicinity of the site. Our alternative signalised gyratory scheme delivered a junction capable of accommodating development traffic satisfactorily and a layout capable of being readily modified to accommodate future construction of NET Phase II.

BWB was subsequently appointed by the NET Promoter for the Advanced Design Phase of the NET 2 programme. We were instrumental in reviewing and redesigning five shared-use traffic signal controlled junctions on the tram route through Beeston town centre, producing a complex TRANSYT model of the Beeston area and revised junction layout designs which were all fed into a microsimulation model used to demonstrate the impact of the tram on other highway users and to prove the business case of the NET2 scheme.

BWB developed alternative proposals to the published NET scheme that rationalised and improved the layout of a number of sites including, Queens Medical Centre, Medi-Park, Abbey Bridge signalised junction, Beeston Town Centre Interchange.

KEY CONTACTS