John Sisk & Son Ltd - LUAS Cross City Project

Project Highlights

The Luas Cross City was one of the largest projects ever undertaken in Ireland and involved an extension that brought the Luas Green Line through the city centre to Broombridge on Dublin’s northside.

Construction on the €368m Luas Cross City line began in 2013, and it was delivered on time and to budget in late 2017. Construction works for Luas Cross City (main infrastructure) was carried out as a joint venture between John Sisk & Son and Steconfer, a Portuguese-based global railway construction company. The project included the construction of 5.9km of track with 13 new Luas stops.

Enerveo were appointed by Sisk/Steconfer as specialist sub-contractors for the public lighting works due to our:

• Experience of working in the City of Dublin
• Skill and ability to work in complex environments
• Flexibility to work during restrictive hours
• Capability of working within a large city environment
• Knowledge and expertise in working with heritage columns

One of the major logistical challenges that faced the team that delivered the new Luas Cross City line was coordinating the activities of numerous stakeholders to minimise disruption on the capital city’s main thoroughfares.

Throughout the duration of the project, Enerveo: 

• Laid 21.4km public lighting, mains and sub mains cable
• Installed/repositioned 200 columns
• Repositioned 60 heritage columns as part enabling works
• Installed 550 LED lanterns
• Installed 100 CMS nodes

Client Benefits

Upgrading Dublin’s well-known city streets and street furniture for future generations whilst keeping the history and heritage alive and in keeping with tradition and the realm of surrounding architecture.

Our Areas of Expertise

To identify hazards, with particular emphasis on safety, Enerveo's Contract Manager used the team’s experience to develop a risk register that itemised and categorised the foreseeable risks to our successful service delivery.

We used previous, comparable risk registers that were completed and updated during the delivery of similar contracts as well as holding discussions and site visits with Sisk and Dublin City Council.

After the risks had been identifed, individual or groups of risks were assessed on their potential impact and likelihood. Credible scenarios were developed and documented to describe the identified risks associated with elements of our works. The scenarios described what could go wrong, how it could go wrong, the potential impact and how likely it is to happen.

After we identified the risk and assessed the impact and likelihood, control measures were verified that were subsequently implemented to reduce or eliminate the level of impact and/or likelihood of each risk or hazard occurring.

Actions to address risks were developed and assessed considering a range of reduction and control measures, strength of existing measures and addition of new measures. All risks were prioritised, documented and had a plan put in place to reduce the possibility of occurrence. For onsite activities that formed part of our installation process, task specific risk assessments were created. They detailed the risk and control measures, referring to safe systems of work and method statements. Method statements were created for individual tasks to detail the correct and safe process that should be followed. Being a live project, at certain times the overhead tram line would become and remain energised (750 V DC). This restricted our area of work as there was limited approach available once the line was ‘live’.

Sisk’s program of work dictated that when the line would become ‘live’ Enerveo were not permitted to work within the confines of the line. There were occasions when the ‘live’ project specification changed, meaning that it was necessary for our works to be undertaken along the route of the live trams.

An example of this occurred in Abbey Street. Lights that were not originally part of the agreed project ended up being added to the works which resulted in relevant units being electrically isolated. To mitigate the issue, Enerveo worked with the Tram operators Veolia, and had permits issued for us to work in an area outside of Sisk‘s control. The Rail Procurement Agency (RPA), Track Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and Sisk Health & Safety crews were on site at all times and were empowered to shut works down immediately.

Traffic Management

All TM was carried out by Sisk in conjunction with our requirements and in compliance with Chapter 8. Enerveo
liaised with Sisk on site to ensure that all requirements were fulfilled.

An example of such an area is the one highlighted above at the junction of Abbey Street and O’ Connell Street. This involved Enerveo adapting to Sisk TM and altering an installation plan to t with the main contractor’s plan of works on site.

Enerveo collaborated with Sisk to prepare a Traffic Management Programme (TMP) in order to plan TM throughout the Contract. Our flexible approach to working hours ensured that track disruption was kept to a minimum at sensitive times such as peak commuting periods and school start/finish times. Enerveo's managers visited sites across Dublin to assess suitable TM for our TMP. The TMP was a live document which ran alongside our programme of works. The Council and other stakeholders informed us
of any reasonable planned issues.

Enerveo worked collaboratively with the Council Officers, the RPA, TII and Sisk to ensure that the TM requirements were in place prior to any works commencing. We created and maintained an excellent working relationship with Sisk to ensure compliance with legislation, regulations, standards and industry guidance, all in accordance with the Council’s requirements.

Site Safety

All works sites had signing and guarding to Chapter 8 requirements set out by appropriately trained and authorised personnel, to ensure the safety of our operatives, Council sta and the public. Work sites that required more complex TM were set out by Sisk.

Our local management team had many years of operational experience and consistently applied best practice track safety and management. We ensured all visitors to site received a site induction and that operatives stopped works whilst a site visitor was within any established works exclusion zones.

There were several instances within the Contract where working hours were restricted. Enerveo's flexible approach allowed works to be completed out of hours, minimising disruption and allowing works to be completed within time and budget. An example of this is the GPO building.

Enerveo were required to upgrade lights on one of Ireland’s and Dublin’s most famous and historically important buildings, the GPO building. Lighting mounted on the GPO building was not part of the original Bill of Quantities and was added 18 months into the Project. DCC requested this to be completed as additional works.

Requirements included LED replacement of lights around the forefront of the building. Night work was required to full the project due to the location of the building and the sensitivity of the work, including:

• Height of the installation
• Requirement to pinpoint the position of the LED’s
• 7 and 7 nos of 2 blocks of LEDS
• Retrotting lanterns
• Hours of work (23.00 – 04.00)

After completing all our regular detailed processes, Enerveo completed works over a five-night period avoiding any disruption to businesses and road users.