Melbourne Airport Rail reaches consultation milestone

The Australian and Victorian governments have committed $5 billion each to deliver Melbourne Airport Rail. The project will connect Melbourne Airport with a rail service for the first time. The project will deliver 27km of new track, providing passengers with a 10-minute turn-up-and-go service from the CBD to the airport in under 30 minutes.

Planning and development is underway, with investigation work being undertaken to inform the design development and business case. As part of the extensive planning process Rail Projects Victoria is currently seeking community feedback on areas and issues of interest along the project route. Construction is anticipated to commence in 2022. 

The HKA team in Victoria was initially engaged to prepare the Project Management Plan (PMP) to determine best practice workflows, governance and stakeholder engagement. Following ratification of the PMP the team was commissioned to assist in providing constructability advice in support of options assessment for various Airport station locations and issues related to grade separation of the new heavy rail. The work included staging, productivity assessments, health safety & environment impacts, stakeholder engagement, costing, risk management, governance, planning, design, planning and project controls.