Exit 54 Pacific Motorway – Abraham Road

Challenges

• The relocation of frog habitat was a task that was previously unfamiliar to the on-site staff.  Through consultation with environmental experts, a process of slabbing the habitat and relocating.
• The amount of unsuitable material that needed to be removed and replaced proved time-consuming to the program.  The additional plant was allocated to the task to prevent the works from delaying the completion date.
• The construction of major drainage structures proved challenging through the wetter part of the year; however, the team overcame the issue of controlling stormwater by implementing diversion drains and a series of control pumps.
• The upgrade works on Abraham Rd needed to be phased so that live traffic would not be impacted, particularly given that the area contained a high number of schools and workplaces.
• The team carefully thought out traffic Guidance Schemes to ensure that the construction works would not impact the public while maintaining a workable area for the contractor.
• The take over from a previous Principal Contractor introduced additional challenges; however, these were all easily resolved with the client on time.

Innovation

Different methods of overcoming wet and unsuitable areas were suggested by Neumann Contractors, with these options being implemented by DTMR. These included the use of geofabrics, geotextiles, and bridging rock in particularly bad areas.