2012 – March – Beavis & Keightly – Design Philosophy for Performance on the Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel

Paul Charles Beavis BA BE(Hons) PhD MIEAust Victorian Department of Transport Gareth Keightley BEng(Hons) Metro Trains Melbourne Melbourne Metro is a proposed 9km tunnel with five underground stations extending between South Kensington in the west and South Yarra in the east. It thus provides additional capacity through the inner core of the rail network, contributing to city growth and productivity. It provides new CBD rail capacity and connections for all the lines within the existing Caulfield and Northern rail groups. The introduction of a new rail corridor through the CBD offers the opportunity to introduce new approaches to operations and quality of service, including the ability to deploy technologies that enable a metro-style performance. This performance extends to the rail operations and stations operations which underpin the passenger experience, rail safety and the dependability of the system. Both the performance of the infrastructure with tunnel section and the surface lines are critical to the successful operation of the Melbourne Metro. This paper scopes a design philosophy for the performance of the Melbourne metro system driven by the user experience. This paper presents some of the functional requirements of the Melbourne Metro concept. It outlines how the functional requirements can be translated to criteria for regulatory acceptance and commercial completion using a RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) approach.The challenges include: delivering systems in a greenfields and brownfields environment; integration of an appropriate control and information system; rolling stock selection and transition; and infrastructure solutions. The transition to the Melbourne Metro corridor will also consider the implementation of in-cab signalling for High Capacity Signalling. Public Transport Victoria (PTV) with the Operator Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM) is pursuing a development program for in-cab signalling which will demonstrate the effectiveness and requirements of the transition of the network.