The BG&E and Cardno design JV piloted the use of BIM for the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) on the Rocklea to Darra project – the first Queensland transport infrastructure project mandated to use BIM. For BG&E, this marked our first use of BIM, employing 12d software for all civil design work – including alignment, pavement, guardrails, in-ground services, and drainage.

The BG&E and Cardno design JV along with the construction partners – Bielby, Hull and Albem JV, undertook the successful tender and detailed design and construction of this project. The detailed design was completed in approximately nine months thereafter.

Due to savings that were achieved as part of the design and construction process, a vital $40 million service road upgrade was added to the scope of works and was delivered within the overall project budget.

Located approximately 15 kilometres west of Brisbane’s city centre, The Ipswich Motorway – Rocklea to Darra Stage One Upgrade is a three kilometre upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway and surrounding service roads.

A major challenge of this project was raising the existing motorway by 2.5 metres and widening it from two lanes to three lanes in each direction, without interrupting the 85,000 vehicles that travelled daily. This required complex staged construction methods and temporary traffic arrangements, developed in close collaboration with stakeholders and contractors.

Given the motorway’s location through a low lying floodplain, the upgrade included improvements to the existing asset and adjacent service roads, significantly enhancing flood immunity for a section of the motorway prone to frequent flooding, without creating impacts for adjacent landowners.

Geotechnical design solutions were implemented to address settlement issues through a floodplain with very soft ground. Innovative deck unit and pile design solutions were employed, including using non-standard wing plank deck units and developing a bespoke precast concrete driving shoe for steel-driven piles, eliminating the requirement to remove dirt from within the steel tubes during construction.

This project received an excellence rating from Australia’s Infrastructure Sustainability Council.