Developing a goods management plan for Paddington Station

The challenge

As part of the Crossrail project, Paddington Station is a site for major construction work for a number of years. Due to the location of these construction works, goods access to Paddington Station was set to change during the Crossrail development programme.

To manage these changes and to continue to facilitate retail and station business in the coming years during construction, Network Rail needed to understand the current pattern of demand for goods-in waste-away at the station, and determine the necessary logistics changes.

Our role

Commissioned by Scott Wilson (now URS) o&i consulting was asked to develop options and recommend a plan to accommodate demand during Crossrail construction. To achieve this we undertook a survey and analysis of current servicing demand and flows to, from and within Paddington Station.

o&i consulting structured and designed a survey to record all goods and waste flows to, from and within the station. We set up and managed a survey team, placed at a number of key locations throughout the station where the relevant data could be captured. The survey covered three 24 hour periods.

Through our analysis of the survey data our client received a clear picture of internal and external station goods and waste movements, and an understanding of key characteristics associated with these movements. We also provided our client with additional information about its operations such as the vehicle types using each location; number of vehicles and dwell time on the kerb; and inside station movements by company, product category and route. Most importantly, this phase of work provided an insight into the demand that needs to be relocated.

Our key objectives when designing a goods management plan were to minimise changes to existing servicing arrangements where possible, make use of existing facilities where possible and to develop solutions that would be simple and easy to administer and use.

o&i consulting set out to determine the options for reallocating demand affected by Crossrail construction and to ultimately recommend the most appropriate way forward for facilitating servicing movements during the construction phase.

A number of scenarios were considered to address the possibility that some facilities may not be available for the period required. For each scenario, the goods management plan provided a detailed description of the rules, processes, infrastructure changes, equipment, staffing, routing, communication and planning requirements that would be needed to realise the chosen option.

We ensured our client was equipped with a detailed plan to enable servicing movements to, from and within Paddington Station to continue throughout the Crossrail construction period.

o&i expertise on this project

  • Survey design and management
  • Statistical analysis
  • Logistics operations analysis
  • Goods-in waste-away flow management
  • Process engineering
  • Capacity planning
  • Operations planning
  • Stakeholder involvement and collaboration
  • Transport and logistics operations expertise and experience

 

Project Key Facts

Title: Developing a goods management plan for Paddington Station

Client: Crossrail on behalf of Scott Wilson (now URS)

Theme: Transport & Logistics