Rail & mass transit

Connecting people, goods and places

At Aurecon, when we look at rail and mass transit infrastructure, we see much more than its component parts. We see its potential to connect people and goods by providing an efficient transport backbone across our landscape and within our urban areas. We see opportunities to build industries and strengthen economies by ensuring the efficient and cost effective transportation of goods. And we see the importance of involving communities in shaping rail and transport networks in ways that will maximise their connectivity and ease of use.

Our transport experts have shown this passion on countless rail and mass transit projects in many parts of the world, across heavy haul, freight, passenger and metro networks. We have developed an in-depth, global knowledge of the rail sector, as well industry standards, systems and practices. This allows us to provide comprehensive advice and solutions across the lifecycle of a project, from inception through to feasibility studies, stakeholder engagement, design and construction, final testing, commissioning and ongoing asset management.

Aurecon has a strong understanding of the business and economic fundamentals of successful rail and mass transit projects. We ensure we always understand the specific business operations requirements and success factors, as well as the wide range of industries that rely on the broader transport chain. In designing, planning and delivering rail and mass transit projects, context is everything.

Our difference

We combine our technical engineering offering with our advisory expertise, so we can help clients best align their assets to their strategy. Our differentiator is our blend of technical expertise to shape infrastructure with targeted advisory depth providing alignment with business strategy. Our offering delivers more value now and in the future.

We do not consider rail as ‘just rail’. We partner with our clients to consider the economic and societal needs behind infrastructure; and we can design the best solution, regardless of mode. Importantly, we believe in the power of stakeholder engagement and how involving the community across the lifecycle of a project is an important consideration as part of the technical, engineering and advisory expertise we bring to a project.

We are also embracing the future of rail and mass transit as being increasingly digital. New technologies impact how and where people live and work, and directly affect rail and transit needs. For Aurecon, the key to success in this new environment is to harness imagination, link this to evolving digital tools and empower our teams to ensure rail and mass transit infrastructure is future ready.

We have a strong track record providing market-leading expertise across the full range of specialist engineering and design disciplines. This includes strong understanding of whole of project lifecycle considerations such as Systems Engineering and Assurance. We offer our clients services ranging from initial project development and planning phases, through to full engineering design and documentation, construction phase services (including project verification to a level required by regulators), as well as specialist advice in operations, maintenance and management of rail and mass transit assets.

Aurecon’s network modelling expertise allows us to assess operational impacts, efficiency and capacity of new or existing transit projects. This is a valuable capability to plan and validate rail and mass transit concepts and designs. It also provides operating expenditure (OPEX) insights for elements including fuel burn, train crewing expenditure and fleet utilisation.

How we deliver

We offer an integrated approach where we combine our traditional engineering and technical services with the following considerations in order to assure our priority is the delivery of customer-centric project and high value asset outcomes:

• Rail advisory services – We integrate our engineering offering with our advisory expertise so we can align assets to strategy. We have the technical expertise to shape the asset base so that it delivers more value to the business, now and in the future.
• Delivering innovation in rail and mass transit – We help our clients make sense of the major challenges and trends in rail and mass transit – from community welfare and population trends, through to environmental and cost considerations. We contribute diverse expertise bases, experiences and perspectives to achieve the best possible transit solution for our clients.
• Efficient and effective team built through partnerships – We work as a team with our trusted partners to bring the right skills and expertise into each project at the right time. From partnering with architects or top tier technology firms to optimise assets through digitisation, our professional networks bring the most impactful team to each and every project.
• Health and safety comes first – Our systems and processes are deliberately designed to achieve the best possible health and safety protocols and outcomes across all projects. We incorporate safety education and practice into everything we do, including the way we engage and communicate with staff, communities and stakeholders.

Our rail and mass transit services

• Infrastructure advisory – We provide a range of infrastructure advisory services for rail projects including strategy advice, options identification and assessment, investment and cost benefit analysis, delivery models (including PPPs), transaction management, and benefits management frameworks.
• Systems Engineering and Assurance – We provide systems engineering to support development of operational concepts and definition of stakeholder requirements, development and management of the system requirements and system architecture and the verification and validation of the delivered system to the requirements. This includes assuring of the system performance and safety in accordance with the operators’ safety management systems and applicable rail safety legislation.
• Rail specific services – We provide civil engineering services (civil, structures, geotechnical and alignment design), rail systems (signalling, traction power, electrification, telecommunications, tunnel systems, passenger services, intermodal connectivity, operational systems and stations) and station planning, and fire and life safety.
• Consulting – We deliver documentation, specialist advice in operations, project verification as required by transport regulators. We also review success factors relevant to the industry, and the broader transport network. Our expertise is increasingly in demand across road, rail, ports and marine, aviation and urban transport, and for providing the crucial links in industrial product supply chains. We also deliver consulting services for transport planning, feasibility and transport impact studies, transportation policy work and transportation legislation.
• Construction management – We offer construction phase services, maintenance and management of rail and mass transit assets for the life of the project.