Railway infrastructure assurance for Heathrow Express

The purpose of this paper is to show that the assurance process by railway infrastructure managers is not overly onerous and can benefit the project by identifying risks at an early stage in the project’s life cycle and provide guidance on acceptable control measures. The control measures adopted can provide a greater level of certainty on project risk, cost and programme. This paper looks at project risk, operational risk and strategic risk exported by the 2012 London temporary departure terminal as a case study to illustrate the assurance process. It describes how the project is presented to the review panel, how the project is assessed and the control measures adopted for low-, medium- and high-risk projects. The paper details requirements for a tunnel monitoring plan where applicable and the ongoing emergency preparedness planning during the life cycle of the project. It covers the completion of the project with regard to the interface with the Heathrow Express infrastructure.