CityLink Tullamarine widening (CTW) project – bulla road to power street

This involved the widening of a 24km section of three major Melbourne freeways which were the western section of the CityLink tollway, and the Tullamarine and Westgate Freeways.

The project incorporated additional lanes, upgrading of existing and design of new bridges and civil structures together with other measures, including the development of a new freeway management system to increase the capacity of the existing road corridor, reduce travel times and improve safety across the network.

The complexity of the project stemmed from the true brownfield nature of the site. It required widening and upgrading of more than 2 km length of existing bridge and elevated structure in a very tight corridor of Melbourne's busiest road which carries up to 210,000 vehicles per day. Minimising disruption to traffic and loss of toll revenue during construction were identified as the key challenges for this project along with working in close proximity of live traffic and numerous services.

GHD used specifically selected software across the project which helped to alleviate risks and generate significant benefits for the client. The use of the bridge documentation package Tekla for example was adopted for 3D modelling of complicated bridge structures to improve visualization and understanding for the client, facilitate procurement and generally improve the ability to construct the project.