How to green a Brownfield site - Rail Freight Group fears a high carbon Olympics at Stratford

The Rail Freight Group’s Lord Berkeley has produced a briefing paper expressing concern that Rail freight is not being used to ensure that the Stratford Olympic are Green. Their views deserve a wider audience but the chief recipient of the briefing should already be aware of the key issues and rail’s potential advantages.

John Armitt, the Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority was appointed on the 1st of September 2007. He was previously Chief Executive of Network Rail from October 2002 and Chief Executive of Railtrack plc from December 2001. Mr Armitt is a civil engineer and joined John Laing in 1966 as a graduate engineer. During the next 27 years he worked on major construction projects in the UK and overseas, spending the last seven as Chairman of Laings International and Civil Engineering Divisions. From 1993 to 1997 he was Chief Executive of Union Railways, the company responsible for the development of the high speed Channel Tunnel Rail Link. In 1997 he went back to construction as Chief Executive of Costain, a position he held until 2001 when he joined Railtrack just after it had been put into administration.

The RFG illustrate their case by drawing extensively on the example of HS1 nee the CTRL and the only point RFG appear to omit is that the Bow Midland site will subsequently be reutilised as the eastern portal logistics base of Crossrail, ensuring the fullest legacy amortisation of any investment in the site. It might be useful if - in addition to updating their sustainability strategy - CLM, the ODA’s logistics control partners, and the Crossrail team exchanged notes

A high carbon Olympics at Stratford
May 2009

Although rail freight has carried a good proportion of bulk materials for the Stratford Olympic site, there appears to be no ODA policy on sustainability, which requires suppliers of other materials, which can satisfactorily be carried by rail to do so. A state-of-the-art logistics terminal on site has been built but, for the Olympics to gain the full sustainability benefit from it, the ODA and its delivery contractor must specify the use of rail connected consolidation centres around the country to link with this terminal.

Experience on other major projects such as Heathrow T5 has demonstrated the cost and environmental benefit of such an arrangement.

We estimate that, with this use of rail, deliveries to the Stratford site could be reduced by 50%, from an estimated 600 to 300 trucks a day at peak, and by 800,000 road deliveries overall. Rail freight produces five times fewer emissions compared with road, so such a saving would be a major contribution to restoring the ‘green’ image of the 2012 Olympics.

We challenge the ODA to get real with its sustainable transport policy, which will be meaningless unless it achieves the kind of environmental benefit, which these savings represent. The ODA must be proactive in identifying consolidation centres and insisting that suppliers use them.

That way, we will really have a green Olympics!

Feeble commitments to sustainability

The commitments to using sustainable means of transport for deliveries to and from the Stratford site are very weak. They only refer to bulk materials, which are, in any event, the easiest to move by rail, especially when there is a rail-connected terminal already available.

"On site reuse and recycling will reduce the need for bulk transport of materials"
(London 2012 sustainability plan Nov 2007)

Supplying this aggregate is an essential contract for the London 2012 project and it is important that sustainability is at the heart of our plans. The ODA required companies tendering for this contact to emphasise their environmental credentials and their plans for meeting the ODA’s sustainability targets. Specifically, those tendering were asked to ensure that they would either meet or exceed the following targets:
- 25 per cent of the materials needed to be provided as recycled aggregates.
- 50 per cent of materials needed to be transported by water and rail.
(Sustainability plan update, 2008)

This was and is welcome; what a pity the ODA is not applying similar criteria to the procurement of other materials.

The ODA sustainability policy states:

"Procuring goods, services and sponsorship sustainability with an emphasis on supplier diversity, fair employment and environmental attributes, as well as other social and ethical criteria as appropriate.

"A railhead has been built on the south side of the site, and we are working with contractors to identify which materials can be brought to site by rail or water cost-effectively."

(ODA Sustainable design and construction update, Nov 2008)

The problem is that there appears to be no commitment or process for requiring suppliers and contractors to use the railhead on site, and no sustainability policy to use rail or water transport except for bulk materials.

This puts the 2012 Games well behind Heathrow Terminal 5, Channel Tunnel Rail Link and the Channel Tunnel on its policy and actual success in delivering materials for construction by rail.

In this respect, it is a high carbon Olympics!

What is happening to date?

Bow East Logistics Centre (BELC) has been established on the construction site, a state-of-the-art common user facility that can accept 6 to 8 trains a day.

The ODA announced in April 2009 that it was exceeding its targets for sustainable deliveries to the Olympic Park in East London by delivering 57% (by weight) by rail compared to a target of 50%. This is welcome, and 2 to 3 trains a day are arriving at the BELC to discharge aggregates, some of which are secondary aggregates from Cornwall.

More recently, the ODA was reported to be negotiating a contract to move contaminated waste from the site to Teesport by rail through BELC. This has the facility, and the ODA and Environment Agency approvals, to stock this material and load it onto trains in a cost-effective manner. Sadly, up to now, the material has continued to be removed by road, adding cost and 50 road journeys a day to and from the Olympic site, even for journeys as far away as Teesport.

Apart from these flows, the ODA is relying on the various contractors and sub-contractors to ‘consider’ using rail. Whilst stating that ‘the BELC can also handle multi-modal product shipments like sand, steel, cable reels, pallets and containers’, the ODA appears to have done precious little to ensure that this will actually happen.

What could go by rail?

There are, at present, several key flows of material that can be transferred from road to rail without any additional cost or negative programme implications.

Reinforcing bars

With the four Olympic Venues at an early stage of construction there is a demand for reinforcing bar used extensively in structural concrete. Much is likely to come from South Wales. Over 100,000 tonnes of this product were delivered by rail to for the construction of Heathrow Terminal 5 but up to now, no contractor or supplier has shown interest in delivering steel by rail to Stratford. So records show that 6 to10 trucks a day are delivering this material to the site at present; and that with construction of only four of the 12 venues under way.

Kerbs and concrete sections

Other materials suitable for rail transport include kerbs, where some 50,000 are likely to be required, perhaps needing 320 lorry movements. Additionally, precast concrete panels for cladding venues and apartment blocks will be needed, which might require 6,000 lorry movements to the site.

Other suitable materials

There are many other materials which are suitable for rail transport, include:

Other steel – structural – ducting or pipe. Balconies
Bricks, blocks, cladding or bridge ramparts
Reinforced pre-cast concrete structures from ground beams and pavement slabs to retaining walls and kerbs.
Water services. Pipes and drains.
Scaffolding and crane equipment
Plant, machinery, portacabins.
Roof cladding.
Floor coverings, tiling, marble, sandstone, and screed.
Timber- trusses, doors, windows, door frames and glass.
Dry lining materials, plasterboard or insulation.
Plants -trees, shrubs & turf (estimated 500,000 trees and shrubs needed).
Containers, pallets
Final fix products – bathrooms, urinals, ironmongery, kitchens

All these could come by rail – if the ODA and its delivery contractors specified it. Evidence from projects such as Heathrow Terminal 5, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and Channel Tunnel construction itself demonstrated that this was practically possible, as well as being environmentally and economically beneficial.

The above list only includes those materials, which historically have been successfully transported by rail; the industry accepts that there are many others better suited for road transport.

What the ODA must do

There appears to be a lack of central policy direction on sustainable transport of materials, with each developer, contractor, sub-contractor or supplier being allowed to make their own arrangements. On other major projects, including those listed above, all such suppliers were required to comply with a sustainable transport delivery plan, which required them to investigate delivery by sustainable means (rail or water) and use these unless they can demonstrate that it would be uneconomic or impossible to do so.

In addition, to avoid clogging up the site with transport or materials waiting to be used, consolidation centres are often set up at railheads remote from the site, to which suppliers can send materials for delivery by rail on a particular day or when called forward by their site customer. This also facilitates rail deliveries since regular, at least daily, trains can bring these materials to the site from such centres at any time of the day or night with deliveries to the end use on the site from BELC at times required. This reduced both the traffic congestion around the site but also on it at peak periods.

There are already rail connected sites which could be used as consolidation centres, as close as Barking and Willesden, and further afield from the central Belt of Scotland, Manchester, Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Wakefield, Peterborough, Felixstowe, Southampton and South Wales. Others could be added depending on demand.

All it needs is for the ODA to specify that suppliers of materials that can effectively be transported by rail should use one or more railheads for deliveries, and discuss with the train and terminal operators what facilities are needed and the likely timings and other requirements. Delivery costs to consolidation centres are likely to be lower, not only because of shorter distances but with no need to allow for delays getting to and into the Stratford site.

The ODA must therefore arrange with terminal and train operators to set up and provide such facilities on a common-user basis.

Finally, the rail freight industry accepts that it must work closely with the ODA to persuade programme managers and suppliers that this will save time and money, increase reliability and reduce traffic congestion both on and around the site - and contribute to the sustainability of the Games. However, experience on other projects shows that this can only succeed if the client, in this case the ODA, takes the policy lead.

The benefits of using sustainable transport

One or more daily trains from such centres would, based on a survey done in April, and allowing only those materials such as listed above that are known to be capable of being transported by rail, save around 50% of the lorry movements into or out of the site –at that time saving some 200 trucks a day.

This saving could rise to 300 trucks a day later this year. In total, the industry estimates that 800,000 truck movements could be saved if rail carried the above materials.

So we are challenging the ODA to review on an urgent basis its sustainable transport policy, which will be meaningless unless it achieves the kind of environmental benefit, which these savings represent, since rail freight creates one fifth of the carbon emissions of road freight.

What will happen if rail is not used?

Daily truck movements into and out of the site are forecast by CLM, the Olympic Delivery contractor, to peak at around 500 trucks a day, although with delays to the programme and for other reasons this figure is likely to increase. Restrictions on night time deliveries around the site mean that these all have to take place between 0800 and 1800. There will be some 9,000 workers on the site at peak, and some of these will use their cars, adding further to the congestion around the site.

This is all likely to expose the frailty of the local Boroughs’ roads and, no doubt at some stage, there will be pressure on local authorities to allow 24 hour a day deliveries to ‘keep the Games on programme’, something unlikely to be necessary if the ODA implemented a rail delivery plan quickly.

Conclusion

The ODA must change its policy on sustainable transport for materials other than ‘bulks’ to enable rail to carry an estimated 50% of deliveries.

The railway industry itself needs to help change the habits of the building industry that for many years have traditionally used lorries or vans to transport their products to site.

The use of rail freight can reduce the lorry journeys coming in and exiting the park by over 800,000. This will make a significant difference to the local roads and indeed the environment.

London 2012 has been positioned as the “greenest Games ever”! Rail transportation has to be a key part of the logistics plan to achieve this.

Tony Berkeley
May 2009

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