With a career spanning five decades and involvement in projects around the world, the British Tunnelling Society’s (BTS) new chair – and Jacobs tunnels director for Europe – Alastair Smith has a depth of knowledge on tunnelling practices and insight into the industry like few others.
The first tunnelling project he was involved in was a drainage scheme in 1986, while pursuing a civil engineering degree at City St George’s University of London – a sandwich course sponsored by his then employer Sir William Halcrow and Partners. “At the time, pipe jacking was an innovative technology and a lot of the lessons I learned on that project are still relevant to today’s methods,” he says.
After his graduation in 1988, he worked on the Channel Tunnel. He was then involved in various international projects including irrigation tunnels in Egypt; a sewer in Paraguay, which was the country’s first ever tunnel; and a flood management system in Denmark.
In the UK, he worked on various water infrastructure schemes, Crossrail and more recently on the tunnels for Hinkley Point C’s cooling system. On the latter he comments: “The connections to the Bristol Channel for the inflow are probably the most technically challenging piece of work I’ve done.”
Smith celebrates the progress made in parts of project delivery, but he is also adamant that changes need to be made in processes and planning to boost efficiency and save money.
“I don’t know if we are building tunnels particularly quicker. We’re certainly building them in more complicated, challenging conditions with better management of all the impacts and the risk. Safety is one thing that we’ve improved hugely,” he says, pointing to Thames Tideway as a “testament to how the industry can deal with risk and safety”.
“We don’t put people in harm’s way in the same way [as we used to] and we have fewer people actually building them,” he says, but he highlights that the number of people supporting projects has grown considerably.
“We need to have a look at why is that happening. We’re getting multiple people doing a similar job, but for different companies. So I think that’s where the inefficiency comes in to some extent.
“I think we also need to have a review of the planning process. We are trying to set the rules too early. This doesn’t allow innovation, doesn’t allow better, more efficient techniques because they are set at a time when we perhaps don’t have all the information we need to work out the best way of doing things.”
He says that all the consenting has added a “huge amount of layers on the way we deliver these projects in the modern environment”.
Smith indicates that the industry could go further in communicating the constraints that it faces, the complexity of the works it has to undertake, and the benefits that tunnelling projects offer – pointing to Crossrail, Thames Tideway and London Power Tunnels.
As a result, he says that the public only remembers the disruption during the construction stage and sees the headlines about the cost of tunnels.
One of the objectives of his tenure as BTS chair is to improve the image of tunnelling. “I think that there is a need [for people] to have a better understanding of everything that’s involved. Tunnels are really complex and they’re rarely a cheap solution. They’re a solution that you need when constraints and disruption [from the construction of other asset types] wouldn’t be acceptable.”
He says that the industry should communicate that ‘there is disruption but there is a need’, as well as the long-term benefits they offer for transport, water and energy resilience. “If the wider public sees some of the things we do underground, they will probably be quite amazed,” Smith adds.
BTS is looking into ways of explaining the benefits of tunnelling to the public better and is exploring with ICE the creation of simple explainers.
He says it is also important for the industry to talk to parliamentarians to “make sure they understand what’s involved and the benefits,” because tunnelling projects are directly influenced by the political decisions of successive governments due to the long duration of the pre-construction period.
He believes that a “full future plan” is needed for infrastructure that will provide that continuity and lead to efficiencies. He finds the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy a step in the right direction.
I think we also need to have a review of the planning process. We are trying to set the rules too early. This doesn’t allow innovation, doesn’t allow better, more efficient techniques because they are set at a time when we perhaps don’t have all the information we need to work out the best way of doing things
Another area he wants to focus on during his tenure is the training of tunnelling engineers. He says companies in the industry struggle to find engineers with tunnelling skills coming out of university, especially since the termination of the Tunnelling MSc at the University of Warwick.
“As an industry, we are training them, but we’ve lost that year of dedicated education in things that are aligned to what we need in tunnelling” – not just how tunnels are built but also the management of risk.
Recently, BTS delivered a five-day design and construction course at the University of Warwick, but he says such courses can only “scratch the surface” of the information needed. The society is trying to bring back the MSc, with Smith calling for support from the industry.
“We just need to get commitment from tunnelling consultants and contractors that they’ll put enough students through to make it viable for the university to run it. It’s very important for the industry that we get something that allows us to train people.”
The industry also has to come together to push innovation in regard to decarbonisation, which Smith describes as a challenge because tunnelling requires moving large amounts of spoil and high volumes of concrete.
“It’s that same old problem that everyone wants to innovate, but nobody wants to go first. We are dealing with assets that are meant to be there for 100, 120 years and someone’s investing a lot of money. How do you give that confidence that it’s going to do the job for that time frame?”
He continues: “We’ve been using cement replacements for a lot of years. Where you set your baseline, I think needs to be more challenging for the industry.”
He believes that rather than individual industry players or clients testing different innovations, it would be better to have a “coordinated research programme with universities and get sets of data that we can all buy into in terms of design”.
“There was work done in pipe jacking in the ‘80s and the University of Cambridge did a lot of research for the industry. I think we could do with a programme that would serve the industry and allow us to be able to certify the innovative materials quicker and reduce the risk for the clients.”
BTS has set up a Net Zero Tunnelling Group to try and share best practise on carbon reduction, and clients have a key role to play. “I think if big clients take a lead and provide that information, then the industry will start taking it on board in other projects. National Grid has shown as a client a willingness to support innovation, help fund it and do the research.”
Smith adds: “We are all quite excited to see what Lower Thames Crossing is doing. We will have regular talks with the LTC team about the good things they are doing so we can share that information.
“The tunnelling society itself is about sharing best practise knowledge,” he emphasises. “We are educating, we are writing standards.”
With more than 800 members and over 80 corporate members, the society offers a platform for tunnelling engineers to learn from each other and push the industry forward.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the effort that BTS puts in to keep us at the forefront of best practise. Through our links with the ITA [International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association] we’re influencing the way tunnels are built, developed and promoted globally as well. I think it’s important as a chair to try and continue that, with the support of the people on the committee who are equally passionate about the different things that we do.”
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