Planning and Design of Downtown Line Stage 2

ADRIAN TEO, S.F. YEE, S.K. LAM, G.C. TEO

Land Transport Authority, Singapore. adrian_teo@lta.gov.sg, see_fong_yee@lta.gov.sg, siak_kuan_lam@lta.gov.sg, gee_chee_teo@lta.gov.sg

Abstract The Downtown Line stage 2 (DTL2) runs along the Bukit Timah Road / Upper Bukit Timah Road corridor with a route length of 16.6 km, 12 stations and a depot. The corridor is heavily built up with development on both sides of the existing road reserve. The Bukit Timah Road / Upper Bukit Timah Road corridor is congested with heavy traffic. The corridor has lots of greenery and mature trees. In addition, there is an existing canal with an approximate width of 6m ~ 10m over the southern section of the corridor. The planning and design of DTL2 would need to take all these into consideration and to minimise impact to the built-up environment, and ensure it is buildable. The planning and design of urban railways is a complex process. This paper traces the design development of DTL2 and examines the main issues that are critical to the successful outcome of this project. It covers planning concept, the development of the railway alignment taking into consideration the site constraints, selection of station location based on planning intention, and evolvement of the station layout and entrances. These include the interfacing with government agencies on land use integration, connectivity and loading provision for future developments. The paper also covers complex civil engineering challenges such as design and construction interfacing with existing and planned infrastructures, and adjacent existing developments in varying underground conditions. This includes considerations and major factors that determined the tunnel longitudinal profile and method of construction. Keywords: Planning Considerations; Design development; Challenges. comprises two wide road carriageways and the Bukit Timah canal in between though the canal diverts out of the corridor after King Albert Park station. PRINCIPAL FACTORS & CONSIDERATIONS This section discusses the principal factors that shaped the outcome of the design development process. They are key factors that were deliberated at the start of the project and at major decision points in the design process that finally led to the tender design. They will be exemplified when case examples are highlighted later. Besides these, the design was governed by the requirements of the Engineering and Architectural design criteria. Planning Considerations Based on transport needs, the corridor and station locations were chosen. The predicted line loads formed the basis for selecting the train system, which in turn influenced the alignment and other downstream design aspects. To optimize service to the catchment areas the chosen stations were at Bukit Panjang, Cashew, Hillview, Beauty World, King Albert Park, Sixth Avenue, Tan Kah Kee, Botanic Gardens (I), Stevens, Newton (I), Little India (I) and Rochor. (I) indicates an interchange with existing lines. In addition, Bukit Panjang station is within walking distance of the Bukit Panjang Light Rapid Transit (LRT) system. Alignment Considerations Given the corridor and the station locations, the alignment had a great influence on the cost of the project. Constructing the DTL2 on a dedicated at-grade corridor would incur the lowest construction costs. However, in land scarce Singapore where roads and building parcels

INTRODUCTION The Downtown Line would provide the vital stimulus to the Marina Bay new down town area by directly linking people from the Northern and Eastern parts of the island to the area with a quick, convenient, affordable and comfortable means of transport. Indeed the new down town area, Singapores key focus of development for the next 10 to 15 years, kick started the development of the downtown line. The challenge lay in providing a high quality of rail travel through a holistic approach that would meet the needs of the people, one that could attract Singaporeans to switch from cars to public transport. As part of the Downtown Line, the DTL2 section stretched from Bugis to Bukit Panjang. The Bukit Timah corridor through which it would run was already facing congestion during peak hours. With future increase in travel demand, the ridership on buses would exceed capacity by 2015, as buses alone would not be adequate to support the growth in travel demand along the corridor. To get to the existing city centre by rail, commuters in northern residential estates such as Chua Chu Kang and Bukit Panjang have to take a longer and circuitous way by travelling on the North-South line to Jurong East station and transfer onto the East-West line. For these residents, the DTL2 would shorten travel time to the city centre as a whole and extend the reach of rail to the new downtown area. Besides, students from the many schools along Bukit Timah Road would benefit from the DTL2. The term Bukit Timah corridor is broadly used in this paper to describe the route from Rochor Road through Bukit Timah Road to Woodlands Road. It essentially

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are tightly packed together such a construction would push the existing roads outward and affect adjacent parcels substantially. This was not possible with DTL2. Elevating the line on viaducts was the next cheapest option which would have the similar effect of pushing the road outwards but to a lesser extent. The advantage of this above the at-grade option was that it would avoid conflict with road traffic. The underground option uses otherwise unusable land below roads which was the best option in terms of land use but at significantly greater cost. The fact of the matter was that the highly developed environment posed many constraints on the alignment and the elevated and at-grade options proved not feasible for the Bukit Timah corridor. Station Considerations Transport Planners dictated where the stations would be at a macro level. However, the actual station location was determined only through detailed understanding of the physical features around each station which often offered unique constraints on the alignment, location of the station, configuration of the station and the location and number of entrances. Stations were generally configured as island platform stations (common platform with tracks on both sides) to benefit the commuter. Only for the case of Stevens station was the platform stacked (two platforms one above the other with one track serving each platform) to suit site constraints. There are no side platform (two platforms at the same level with both bounds of track between them) stations in DTL2. The interactions with other authorities and agencies played a big role in station design. Through the consultation process, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) would advise where the station entrances should be to fit the urban environment and integrate with planned developments around the station. Physical Constraints on Construction Methods The DTL2 alignment is fully underground. As a first cut, station levels pegged out points along the vertical alignment. Station tops had to allow for a minimum 2m to 3m of soil cover for laying of drains, roads and utilities. Stations were all essentially 2 levels with a concourse and platform, except for Stevens and Newton station. With the aim of keeping stations as shallow as possible, track levels were calculated from the ground downwards by allocating the necessary structural thicknesses and floor heights. For the alignment of tunnels between stations, the so-called hump profile was preferred so that energy was conserved as the train reaches maximum speed at the bottom of the hump and climbs back up to the next station as it slows down. However, in reality this was often affected by subsurface obstructions in the form of canals, major utilities, other infrastructure, road facilities etc. The vertical alignment was further refined after studying the geological profile especially where bored tunnelling was employed. The

intention was to reduce the amount of mixed faced encounters by the tunnel boring machines. The type of tunnel construction, whether bored tunneling or cut and cover, depended on both cost and technical reasons. Technical reasons comprised track configuration, soil conditions and available space. Where there were track turnouts for crossovers or cripple sidings, cut and cover construction was employed. If the alignment was too shallow and soil conditions poor, the insufficient soil cover prohibited bored tunneling. Soil conditions also dictated the allowable tunnel separation distance which was generally kept to a minimum of 1 tunnel diameter. Cut and cover or mining methods were considered where tunnel centres were forced to be close together as was initially the proposal for undercrossing the narrow passage below the Malaysian Railway bridge north of Hume Avenue. Given the large length of tunnels, investing in bored tunneling machines was the way to go. Maximising the length of bored tunnels was the cost effective thing to do. A major saving in cost was the avoidance of utility and traffic diversions. Because the full road capacity had to be maintained to cater to the heavy traffic, a lane for lane replacement was required when diverting traffic affected by cut and cover construction. Preliminary traffic diversion schemes were developed to ensure constructability, identify extra land required for the diversion and to estimate the number of trees affected. Operating Pattern & Depot Requirements Based on planning requirements, system engineers laid out the operating pattern and determined the fleet size required to sustain the design headway and speed. Track and alignment engineers were advised what the depot stabling requirements were and where the crossovers and cripple sidings were to be located. The stabling size of the depot also catered for future extensions and the possibility of operating at closer headways to meet future demand. Contract Packaging For the main civil contract, the entire 16.6km line with its 12 stations and 1 depot was broken down into contracts such that each contract sum was suitable to be undertaken by an individual contractor or joint venture such as the case may be. Each contract in general included one or two stations and a stretch of tunnels. The line was broken down into 10 contracts numbering C911 to C921 as shown in Figure 1. They were Design and Build (D&B) contracts which allowed a more turn-key approach. The design through to construction of the work would be under the contractual responsibility of the main civil contractor. The civil contractor sought out a consultant to come under its wings to provide professional architectural and engineering consultancy services. The 10 D&B tenders were called at 1-month intervals.

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C911 C912

Gali Batu Depot

Legend C & C Tunnel

Bukit Panjang

Bored Tunnel

C913

Cashew Hillview

ing major challenges and safety hazards. Permanent works design was not in their scope. A large amount of their deliverables would go into the tender documents for the D&B civil tenders. This included the following: Preliminary temporary works which specified the maximum allowable wall deflections. Geotechnical Baseline Report which served as a common baseline of the ground conditions and crucial for managing claims from contractors arising from differing ground conditions. Pre-condition survey of buildings for comparison with the post-condition survey to be done after construction. This included visual inspection and building damage assessments. Concept safety submission to identify and manage foreseeable hazards early in the design stage, and to serve as a base for the contractor to develop subsequent detailed safety submissions. Traffic impact assessments and preliminary temporary traffic diversion schemes. This included identifying the trees affected.

C915

Beauty World

C916
King Albert Park 6th Ave Tan Kah Kee Botanic Gardens Newton Stevens Little India Rochor Bugis

C917

C920

C918 C919

C921 DTL Stage 1

Fig. 1 DTL2 Contracts

DESIGN APPROACH & STAGES The DTL2 began as a planning concept in 2006. The task that lay ahead was to realise this concept by 2015, the target implementation date. After the necessary government approvals were obtained, the rest of the work focused on the design development itself. As the DTL2 corridor affected land use, it needed to obtain approval from the Master Planning Committee (MPC) before gazette of the railway area. Land that was to be acquired or accessed using the powers of the Rapid Transit System Act (RTSA) needed to be marked out on plan. Therefore the first design milestone was to obtain the approval from the MPC for the railway corridor. The MPC comprised representatives of the regulating authorities in Singapore, which had powers to attach conditional requirements to the approval. For rail projects where the development process could stretch over years, 2 stages of submission were carried out, a first stage submission for Provisional Planning Approval (PPA) and a second and final stage for Final Planning Approval (FPA). To get the plans ready, the horizontal rail alignment was drawn by alignment engineers for a 3-car train system based on planning parameters. Before the actual submission to MPC, a series of consultations were held with the respective regulatory agencies where the alignment and railway area were refined. The submission for FPA required more design details on the stations and the depot to be ready. The work by the team to secure the FPA approval ran concurrently with the preparation of tender documents for the D&B civil tenders to be called. To get the design up to speed for FPA, an in-house team of architects were assigned to prepare preliminary station designs. In addition a tender was called to engage 2 Advanced Consultants to provide civil engineering services. These consultants focused on construction methods, temporary work design and their impact to the environment and buildings while highlight-

The work with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) to determine which stations would be CDshelters was done early so that the stations could be designed accordingly. The advanced consultants period of service would also cover the tender review period where they evaluated the technical aspects of the tender submissions. Design development coordinators oversaw the work of the in-house team of engineers and architects, and the consultants to ensure designs were of sufficient detail for FPA submission and for calling of the D&B tenders. ENGINEERING CHALLENGES The Bukit Timah Corridor was by itself a busy major arterial road. A high density of utilities beneath the road and matured trees that lined the corridor all stood in the way of open excavation needed for the stations, tunnel boring machine shafts, cut and cover tunnels etc. In Singapore, all utilities are buried, therefore an extensive network of cables and pipes were packed into this major thoroughfare. They proved to be more costly to divert than expected. Singapore prides itself as a garden city with its heavy emphasis on tree planting. The Bukit Timah corridor was no exception with its continuous line of matured trees. The design of the depot offered its unique challenges and is discussed later in the paper. Coexisting with Other Planned Transport Infrastructure A 2-pronged approach was taken to improve travel along the Bukit Timah Corridor. In addition to the DTL2, stretches of the road were to be widened and elevated to segregate through traffic thereby improving

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speeds for road users as well. A major future underground infrastructure that would run parallel to DTL2 was also to coexist with DTL2 for a section. (See Figure 2).

need for cross over tracks before and after the station, cut and cover was the way to go. The flyover was designed to be supported on top of the station box and tunnels. Due to the overall widening of Upper Bukit Timah Road there was limited space to place the entrance between the road kerb and the adjacent 13m wide canal to serve the Bukit Panjang residents and allow connection to the Bukit Panjang Light Rapid Transit (LRT) station. The entrance had to occupy a part of the road reserve but this was deemed acceptable as further widening of the road was not expected. Minimizing the Impact to Trees The lush trees that lined the Bukit Timah corridor with their continuous canopies had become part of the character of the Bukit Timah corridor. Affecting these trees was unavoidable, even if it was kept to a minimum with the use of bored tunneling methods. Other than trees affected by the actual footprints of cut and cover sections, traffic diversion would increase the number of trees affected. There was no parallel alternative route to effectively divert the traffic other than to remain within the Bukit Timah corridor. Tan Kah Kee station was located near the junction of Bukit Timah Road and Duchess Road to serve the developed school and residential belts along Bukit Timah Road and Dunearn Road. The initial station location required a large scale removal of mature trees that lined Bukit Timah Road and major diversion of traffic and utilities. In recognising the significant value of the mature trees, a balanced design was adopted by a major redesign of the alignment and station to avoid the trees with some compromise to facilities of existing developments (See Figure 3). Interface with Developments Being a fully underground system, the only station structures that will be visible above ground are entrances, ventilation shafts, escape stairs and cooling towers. These structures were kept out of the road reserve as far as possible so that future road widening would not be constrained. This meant they occupied the edges of land lots usable for development. Hence, their sizes needed to be kept compact and irregular footprints were avoided.

Fig.2 Future Infrastructure Interface with Rochor station The road flyovers at Petir and Hillview stations were planned to be implemented by 2020, but there were good reasons to bring forward their construction under DTL2 contracts. Firstly, disrupting the site again within a few years of completion of the DTL2 works would unnecessarily prolong the disruption to traffic and inconvenience to people living around the area. Secondly, there would be cost savings from economies of scale if both projects were undertaken by the same contractor. Lastly, the existing road junctions at Woodlands and Dairy Farm road were already facing congestion and would benefit from an earlier implementation. Construction programmes were developed by the programme planners to demonstrate the feasibility of packaging the flyover works together with the DTL2 works under the same contractor. In general the flyovers were built over the station and tunnels. Therefore their construction could follow the construction of station and tunnel structures. The process to obtain planning and funding approval to construct the flyovers was accelerated. The flyover works were included in the tender, and DTL2 works proceeded as planned. Besides the contractual and financial challenges, the introduction of the road projects meant additional coordination of design had to be carried out. The DTL2 alignment was intertwined with the type of construction of the tunnels, and how the flyovers were to be founded. The two broad approaches were either to align bored tunnels to avoid the foundations of the flyover or align cut and cover tunnels directly below the flyover and founded on piles to carry the flyover loads. The choice for Bukit Panjang was straightforward, as due to the

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(a) Before

(b) After
Fig. 3 Changes to Save Trees at Tan Kah Kee station

If the structures occupied existing open space zoned for future development, the stations were generally designed to allow for that, not only in its shape and form, but also to carry future building loads, such as at Beauty World, Sixth Avenue, Newton, Little India and Rochor. Loading grids were designed and advised by URA. The future developments were to be built close to or abut the station with direct connections. This was made possible by providing knock out panels and demarcating corridors reserved for future development. All these requirements were specified in the tender documents for compliance. Beauty World was a relatively old shopping belt, formed by several shopping complexes. The large frontage space (space between the road and the building faade) was to be comprehensively re-developed to spruce up the area. The design of station entrances were planned to compliment URAs concept plans. The design development for Beauty World went through many revisions on station entrance locations, showing the great pains taken to ensure station structures integrated well with the plans for the urban environment. An additional entrance was also extended southward to the public housing estate. This exemplifies how urban planners sought to extend the reach of MRT stations, as was also seen in other stations. In this regard, it is worth noting that bicycle stands were to be installed at all stations to encourage cycling to the stations. As far as possible station entrances were fully

integrated with bus stops, including covered linkways to enhance the commuter experience for a people centred approach. Newton Station The location of Newton station was largely governed by the need for the alignment to avoid foundation of existing infrastructure (Newton Flyover), adjacent developments and the proposed Singapore Underground Road System (SURS). It was sited partially within a plot of vacant State land and thus loading provisions had to be made in the station to safeguard the future development potential of the site. The original alignment at Newton was deep as it needed to undercross SURS and the existing North South Line rail tunnels. This made the station approximately 40m below ground and was probably the deepest station in Singapore at the time the design was undertaken. The originally planned cripple siding south of the station which was subsequently relocated was also deep. The Advanced Consultant foresaw major challenges in the construction of such a deep station and in view of the unknown timeline of SURS, proposed to swap the vertical alignments of DTL2 and SURS. There were other good reasons to adopt this change from cost and construction risks perspectives while not compromising the future implementation of SURS by making provisions in advance.

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Stevens Station The design of Stevens station at the junction of Stevens Road and Bukit Timah Road was largely dictated by availability of space. The alignment was designed to avoid the foundation of existing Wayang Satu road flyover and adjacent developments (a row of shop houses and The Equatorial condominium along Bukit Timah Road) which then required the vertical alignment to take on a stacked arrangement. This resulted in an atypical compact station. The station was original intended to function as a civil defence shelter. The SCDF required stations to also serve as hardened shelters as part of their war time strategy. Additional rooms were required for the station to function as a civil defence shelter. This coupled with the thickened walls meant a larger station footprint for the already confined site. The station was eventually designed as a non-CD station. Little India & Rochor Stations Little India and Rochor stations were proposed to be under the existing Rochor Canal Road, Sungei Road and Bukit Timah Road. The planning, design and construction considerations of the two stations were conceived together due to their close proximity and many factors, namely the future underground infrastructure, existing Rochor canal and utilities that were along the same corridor.

A major component of the value-engineering study focused on the rail alignment between Newton and Rochor and relocation of the cripple siding south of Newton station to underneath the realigned Rochor canal south of Little India station. There were tangible and intangible benefits to be gained for the canal and the siding to coexist one over the other at the new location. Both needed to be constructed by an open cut method and could use the same set of retaining structure. It also eliminated disruption to heavy traffic and inconvenience to public at the original site of the cripple siding. The risk associated with deep excavation was also reduced. DEPOT The DTL depot was to be at-grade and located at the northern end of DTL2. In land scarce Singapore, the choices of sites for a depot were not many. The densely vegetated site at Jalan Gali Batu was opposite low density industrial area. It occupied State land and land belonging to the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF). The huge site made it suitable for a depot, but a drawback was the undulating ground with some parts as high as 50m (or 20 storeys) above Woodlands Road. The ground was generally low along Woodlands Road and sloped upward further into the site. Figure 4 shows the topography of the site. To minimise the amount of soil to be excavated to construct the depot at the required rail level of reduced level

Fig. 4 Topographical Plan of the Area. The future underground infrastructure would run parallel to DTL2 and over cross the existing NEL tunnels. In doing so, the existing Rochor canal would need to be permanently diverted to one side of the future infrastructure. At the bottle-neck section, both the future infrastructure and Rochor canal were directly above Rochor station. Due to the close interaction of these infrastructures, extensive value-engineering studies and numerous design options were proposed to develop a wellcoordinated and cost efficient solution. (RL) 108.0m (between 1.5 to 3.5m above Woodlands Road), the depot was designed adjacent to the road. The layout of the depot took on a longish shape to keep it to the low land. A new road was to run along the northern boundary which replaced an affected service road serving MINDEF. At this area, there was an existing cemetery. The design of the depot considered the slope cutting required for both the new road and the depot, and sought to minimize earthwork and the number of affected

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graves. Advertisements to inform the next of kin to come forward and claim the remains at 1,956 graves for private exhumation or exhumation by LTAs exhumation contractor were put up in early 2008. The need to work within a narrow timeframe dictated by the Chinese Qing Ming festival, while handling the matter sensitively posed a unique challenge for LTA. The exhumation works were completed in Feb 09, just before the award of the main civil tender. The resultant longish depot actually suited a track layout that facilitated train operations. The day-to-day launching and withdrawal of trains and the movement to maintenance facilities within the depot could be carried out with minimum shunting. Several configurations of the depot were studied to determine the best layout for stabling, workshops, offices, stores and a substation that would optimise the day to day operation and maintenance of the depot. Figure 5 shows the final configuration of the depot developed for tender.

avoid the stockpile. In July 2007, LTA proposed to relocate the affected part of the stockpile to an area adjacent to the existing stockpile. To carry out the partial relocation of the stockpile, the following works would have had to be carried out: Setting up of a new stockpile site with new internal road access and alteration works to the existing stockpile site; Construction of retaining wall between the boundary of stockpile site and the proposed DTL depot; and Provision of an emergency road access for MINDEF.

The above works was estimated at $80 million and required 18 months of construction time. Special monitor-

Fig. 5 Overall Depot Design. Despite the design effort to minimise the amount of excavation, the volume of earth to be removed remained substantial. On top of excavating the ground to the required levels, slopes had to be cut to a gradient of 1:2.75 to ensure stability and minimize erosion. Programme planners advised that the risk to the construction programme would be high if the excavation was tasked solely to the main contractor. A 10 month long advanced contract was called to carry out the excavation and disposal of 1.3 mil m3 of soil. Relocation of HDB Granite Stockpile to Make Way For Depot Construction The proposed reception tracks leading to the DTL depot required part of the existing Housing and Development Boards (HDB) granite stockpile to be relocated. (Figure 4 shows the location of the stockpile in relation to the site). The stockpile was already occupying the site prior to the confirmation of the depot location and it was not feasible to realign the proposed reception tracks to ing measures and care were needed during the partial relocation of the stockpile to prevent local collapses. In February 2008, HDB informed LTA that they were exploring the feasibility of relocating the entire stockpile from Jalan Gali Batu site to their Seletar site instead of partial relocation. This proposal would not require the works listed above. In addition, freeing up the entire stockpile land would allow the future stabling area, originally located at the hilly terrain in the northeast portion of the depot, to occupy the current stockpile site instead. This would substantially reduce the extent of slope cutting. The new location for future stabling also improved operational efficiency by allowing stabled trains to travel to the workshop, and vice versa, without making a u-turn. As this stabling area would only be constructed in the future, the stockpile area would be used as the temporary staging area (TSA), thus saving the need for a larger worksite area and more excavation. The TSA was the area where the Contractor would stage his construction work for the depot as well as E&M and

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trackwork for the DTL2 tunnels. As HDB had extensive experience and expertise in both stockpiling and relocation of the granite stockpiles, they were engaged to manage the relocation works. HDB appointed a contractor to carry out the relocation works in October 2008. The relocation of entire stockpile of approximately 1.5 million tonnes of granite from Gali Batu to the Seletar site by HDB was estimated at $20 million. Reducing the Amount of Earthwork at the Granite Stockpile Area As mentioned earlier, the depot was located on undulating terrain and required large amount of soil to be excavated to construct the depot at the required level. Realising the large volume of earth to be removed and the possible late handover of the granite stockpile area, the design and project teams sought out ways to reduce the time required for the earthwork in order to meet the construction programme. The idea that resulted was to situ-

The usual design was for both TSA and the depot to be at same level. The reason for this was that heavy materials, including steel rails, would be transported between the TSA and the depot on steel-wheeled work wagons that run on steel rails. The limited friction at the steel wheel to rail interface limited the gradient that the work wagons could climb safely without slippage. The DTL2 engineers were agreeable to a slope that did not exceed 3% in gradient. Based on a maximum gradient of 3%, the TSA was situated about 11m above the depot. The amount of soil that was required to be excavated was reduced by about 30%, resulting in reduction in cost and more importantly, programme risk. Figure 6 shows the final levels for the TSA.

CONCLUSION
The design development of the Downtown Line Phase 2 drew extensively from a wide range of in-house technical expertise including transport planners, project man-

Fig. 6 Situating the TSA at a Higher Level ate the TSA at a higher level. The amount of soil to be excavated at this area was estimated at 2.5 million m3. Programme planners gave a maximum of 18 months to complete the excavation works at the TSA so that the programme for downstream works were not affected. At an average work rate of 700 truck trips / day it would require 22 months to remove 2.5 million m3 of earth. The 22 months was considered optimistic as other factors like inclement weather, public relation issues and other unforeseen delays to the work were not taken into consideration. This was also assuming that there would be no delay to HDBs removal of the granite stockpile. agers, architects, civil engineers, mechanical & electrical engineers, track & alignment engineers, programme planners, contract management officers, surveyors, public relation officers etc. The delivery of a project of this scale and complexity required enormous amounts of coordination. The DTL2 was successful developed from planning to design. Taking over the baton, the ongoing construction of the DTL2 under the authoritys construction arm will be another chapter filled with challenges.

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