public transportation
Enhancing Efficiency in
TRANSIT
MAINTENANCE By WSP
Photos courtesy WSP
T
ransLink’s Hamilton Transit Centre (HTC), which opened in September 2016 in Richmond, B.C., provides the infrastructure necessary to service, maintain and dispatch a fleet of 300 buses for the Lower Mainland. It has allowed the public transportation authority to increase its overall fleet to approximately 2,000 buses, while closing outdated facilities in Vancouver-Oakridge and North Vancouver. It is also among TransLink’s most energy-efficient facilities, incorporating compressed natural gas (CNG) fuelling and designed to be equivalent to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification. To help accomplish these aims, WSP’s multi-disciplinary team spanned structural, mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, as 20
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well as project management, architecture, communications, security and sustainable design, and was involved in the project’s complete life cycle, from choosing the site in 2009 to opening day. The project comprises eight main structures on an 18-acre site, including buildings for operations, administration, maintenance, fuelling, bus washing, wastewater treatment, vault pulling (i.e. fare counting) and tire storage. All were designed to support timely dispatch for the bus fleet and efficiency, safety, comfort and productivity for 700 employees. Designing for the site A transit centre requires large parking areas for the fleet, but also needs to be close to the population it serves. Building HTC in Richmond,
where land is very expensive, meant the site design had to be as spaceefficient as possible. To address such constraints, while also reducing costs, delays, wear and tear, the design team worked to reduce site circulation distances by 100 m per vehicle per day. This was achieved after evaluating vehicle and employee circulation patterns and the effects they have on each other. The facility is located on a brownfield industrial site that required significant environmental remediation and preloading (i.e. soil consolidation), which threatened to extend the project schedule. As well, there was significant off-site dike work along the Fraser River involving two municipal governments, provincial and federal ministries and private utilities. The extent of the site work was addressed through multiple, overlapping construction contracts to maintain the project schedule. Efficient management of permit processes and authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs) was also key. Maintenance logistics An early design was nearly completed for a diesel-only facility when TransLink chose to incorporate CNG and
January/February 2020
2020-02-03 7:36 AM
