The Ellenbrook Line will provide people in Perth’s growing north-eastern suburbs more transport choice. At 21-kilometres long with five new stations, the line is the city’s largest public transport project, connecting people from Ellenbrook to Bayswater and the CBD. The project is part of the METRONET program, Perth’s largest investment in public transport, providing Perth with more transport, housing and employment choices.

Since 2018, our local team, in a joint venture with Jacobs, has supported the Public Transport Authority (PTA) and METRONET on the project across all stages, including the business case, engineering and land use study, concept design, and detailed engineering design for the MEL Alliance (consisting of PTA and Laing O’Rourke). Services provided include track design, fire and life safety, digital engineering, utilities and earthwork services, and civil, structural, electrical, highway and geotechnical engineering.

Community, accessibility and collaboration guided our approach for a purposeful and people-centred design. On completion, local communities will benefit from shorter commute times to work and education, less congestion on Perth’s roads and new station-based community spaces. Over the next 30 years, the precincts around each station will shape vibrant communities with access to more housing, jobs, community services, tourism and recreation opportunities.

Morley-Ellenbrook Line video thumbnail
Find out more about the collaboration with multiple partners, the Public Transport Authority (PTA) and METRONET to deliver this city-shaping rail project.

Rail engineering

To develop the project’s concept design, we collaborated closely with METRONET, Western Australia’s State Government and local councils in a series of option development workshops.

Together, we co-designed objectives to guide the concept design, including sustainable development, accessibility, improved connectivity and liveability, reduced congestion and integrated transport, and explored over 100 possible design options.

We then collaborated with Coniglio Ainsworth Architects and Place Laboratory on the concept design, turning design possibilities into reality. Together, we combined the workshop outputs with our outputs from the project’s ‘Infrastructure Australia Business Case in the form of the Engineering and Land Use Planning study’ (ELUP) to create one concept design encompassing all design objectives.
 
Throughout the workshops and ELUP process, we formed a strong relationship with METRONET, allowing our team to help shape the project and develop the best solution for the community.

Building information modelling

For the detailed design stage, our digital engineering team created data-rich building information models (BIM) to provide timely design updates, data and visualisations, and inform construction decisions. Each model was designed to the highest level of BIM development for construction, Level of Development (LOD) 300, and in compliance with the ISO19650 BIM framework and PTA’s BIM and asset management standards. This approach provided a detailed and constructible 3D representation and guaranteed design compliance with industry regulations.

We created a common data environment (CDE) to share timely design updates with Laing O’Rourke, Perth Transport Authority and Jacobs. Each project collaborator could access this single source of truth to track progress, make decisions, conduct 3D design reviews and communicate changes.

Following PTA’s digital delivery strategy, we integrated comprehensive asset information for over 30,000 assets into our BIM models and integrated this information with PTA’s asset management system. This approach facilitated efficient asset tracking during construction, ensuring streamlined operations and effective asset lifecycle management.

A view across Ellenbrook Station

Over the next 30 years, the precincts around each station will shape vibrant communities. Ellenbrook Station © METRONET

Lifts at Ellenbrook Station

Community, accessibility and collaboration guided our approach for a purposeful, people-centred design. Ellenbrook Station © METRONET

Morley Station exterior

Morley Station offers a dedicated bus interchange, secure bike shelters, and is a 17-minute journey to Perth CBD. © METRONET

From day one we built an incredible team from scratch and now we have a thriving line. Thanks go to Arup for providing a number of the vital skills that we needed.

Anthony Kannis

Director General, Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage

Partners & collaborators

METRONET / Laing O’Rourke / Jacobs