Sydney MetroDesigning Australia’s biggest public transport infrastructure project

With a commitment to sustainability across the project, the Sydney Metro City & Southwest line-wide works has achieved a ‘Design – Leading’ IS rating, from the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia. Contributing to this is Aurecon’s innovative design for six of the 11 new substations, featuring regenerative energy storage solutions, the first use of this technology on a high voltage network.

Central Station

As part of the Aurecon GHD Joint Venture, Aurecon led the design and engineering of one of Australia’s most complex brownfield transport projects – the Central Station Metro upgrade – delivering an integrated, human-centric station that enhances safety, accessibility, and the daily experience of over 270,000 commuters.

Aurecon’s role spanned structural, civil and building services engineering, tunnelling, pedestrian modelling, and digital delivery. Our design overcame the technical and logistical challenges of building deep underground infrastructure within a live rail environment – with innovative solutions like top-down construction and inclined support columns enabling excavation and tunnelling to occur simultaneously.

Sustainability and safety were embedded throughout, contributing to a 6-Star Green Star rating, a 21 per cent carbon reduction, and seamless operations throughout construction.

Central Station reimagines the city’s most iconic rail hub, revolutionising the passenger experience and revitalising one of Australia’s busiest rail interchanges.

Sydney Metro Gadigal Station and Parkline Place

Aurecon is helping redefine integrated urban mobility through its work on the Sydney Metro Gadigal Station and Parkline Place, delivering critical engineering and design services across both the underground metro station and the over-station commercial precinct. This bold, vertical precinct blends public transport, commercial space, and residential living, creating a sustainable, high-performance hub in the heart of Sydney.

For Gadigal Station, Aurecon provided engineering design for platforms, adits, the station box and complex ventilation systems – all constructed simultaneously with the buildings above. By employing top-down construction, the team enabled faster delivery while navigating constrained underground space.

Sydenham Station Upgrade

Aurecon played a key role in transforming Sydenham Station into a major interchange on the new Sydney Metro City & Southwest line, untangling a historic bottleneck, making stations more accessible, and enabling trains and commuters to move more easily across the network.

Delivering key design and engineering services in partnership with GHD for joint venture client John Holland and Laing O’Rourke, this complex upgrade bridges old and new – integrating advanced metro systems into a live rail environment while enhancing the customer experience for generations to come.

Upgrading Sydney’s rail backbone for a smarter, more reliable network

Beyond the Sydney Metro, Aurecon helped deliver one of Sydney’s most significant programs of rail infrastructure renewal, an estimated $1 billion upgrade to signalling, traction power, station access, and track systems across the Sydney Trains network. As part of the NovoRail Alliance, Aurecon worked alongside Transport for NSW, Laing O’Rourke and John Holland, providing end-to-end rail engineering, program advisory, digital engineering and sustainability expertise.

Novo Rail Alliance delivered infrastructure upgrades for 103 projects across Sydney’s train network over 14 years.

NovoRail’s work is essential to the success of Sydney’s rail network, delivering the foundational upgrades that support broader transformation of the city’s rail system – of which Sydney Metro now forms a critical part. While Sydney Metro introduces new high-capacity lines and stations, the existing Sydney Trains network must evolve in parallel – and that’s where Novo Rail plays a critical role.

From complex station upgrades at Redfern and Wynyard to network remodelling at Hornsby Junction and power infrastructure upgrades between Strathfield and Hornsby, Aurecon has been central to delivering better performance, greater capacity and improved commuter experience. The alliance has leveraged cutting-edge tools, from 3D modelling and clash detection to virtual reality passenger testing, to de-risk delivery, enhance customer outcomes, and future-proof assets.

With a strong focus on accessibility, environmental performance, and operational resilience, Novo Rail represents Aurecon’s commitment to smarter rail solutions that move Sydney forward.