Ava Footbridge
Innovative consortium creates footbridge fit for the modern age
Image: Ava
Network Rail joins forces with forward-thinking SMEs to build accessible stainless steel bridge
Adjustable design Network Rail describes the bridge design as light yet robust. It is manufactured using a stainless steel frame and is simple to install. The design can be adjusted to fit any station on the network, meaning it has the potential to connect communities previously unable to benefit from footbridges. Currently some 80 per cent of the rail network is made up of small to medium-sized stations. Network Rail is aware that making stations more accessible encourages more use of the network; this also
June 2022
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It is manufactured using a stainless steel frame and is simple to install
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etwork Rail has been working with the Ava consortium of SMEs on a project to create a new fully accessible footbridge that can open up journeys for everybody. Funding has been provided through Innovate UK, which supports business-led innovation in all sectors. The consortium is part of the TIES Living Lab programme, which is tasked with improving efficiency in the industry and features Network Rail, Expedition Engineering, X-Treme Systems, MTC and Walker Construction. Key collaborators include Hawkins Brown, SCX, Atelier Ten, Quantum Infrastructure and the Norman Foster Foundation.
encourages socio-economic development in local communities where there are more accessible stations. Network Rail’s challenge is around station footbridges. It usually uses an access-for-all structure, however timescales currently involved in building these require a different approach. Network Rail head of buildings and architecture and Ava footbridge project sponsor Anthony Dewar had the idea to approach novel suppliers and collaborate in a consortium to create a new design and new process for constructing a footbridge that could save time, money and carbon. Each option, component and material has been tested against the opportunity to save whole life carbon. While upfront carbon has been reduced by concentrating on replacement cycles overall,
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embodied carbon will be significantly lower. Statistics from Network Rail suggest the Ava design has a 56 per cent lower carbon footprint than other bridges. The bridge has been designed as a system and has been reconfigurable from the very outset. It’s not a custom-designed bridge for each site, rather it’s a system that can be configured for any site, which means components can vary in scale or in number. They can be tuned up or down depending on whether you need to go higher or lower over the railway; spans can vary with the system, able to go from two to fourtrack with an island platform, to six-track.
Beautiful and sustainable The consortium has also not just changed the design of footbridges, but the lifts too. A custom design has been created that has a dual system to minimise downtime, meaning the lifts will likely be in service more often. The use of bead-blasted stainless steel has been selected with the aim of creating a “more beautiful and sustainable” structure, but one that is also easier to maintain than many modern bridges that can currently be seen across the network. Network Rail says that using this stainless steel creates a “beautiful, weather-proof and vandalism-proof finish.”
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