Set in the heart of London’s financial district, Bank station is one of the world’s largest and most complex underground railway stations. With over 100,000 passengers using this major interchange hub every morning rush hour, the station needed a capacity increase.

AECOM was appointed by Dragados as a design partner and with the integrated design team, we’ve delivered the concept design, approved planning application for the oversite development building, and an approved Transport and Works Act Order, which received no objections due to our highly effective stakeholder engagement approach. 

Adding value

By carefully considering the implications of Transport for London’s (TfL) aspirations, and through close collaboration with the supply chain, AECOM and Dragados were able to improve the reference design’s benefit-cost ratio to increase TfL’s value by 46 per cent in the tender.

Overcoming project challenges: minimising stakeholder disruption

Bank being one of the largest and most complicated subterranean railway complexes in the world has meant that our project team has had to overcome a number of technical challenges to ensure successful delivery. Together with Dragados, we achieved this by minimising disruption to stakeholders, including local businesses and communities, and station operations.

The station extension was designed to pass underneath sensitive buildings like the Bank of England, but through effective stakeholder engagement, we were able to eliminate objections at the public enquiry.

Other challenges overcome have included:

  • Tunnelling under iconic landmarks and historic Grade 1 or 2 listed buildings, all of which are extremely sensitive to settlement and ground movement
  • Having to adhere to tight planning restrictions on the work including limits to noise, dust, traffic and general disruption
  • Working in an extremely tight subterranean space as a result of five different underground lines and the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) all passing through the station.

Passenger benefits

The innovative design and close cooperation with all project stakeholders was successful and Bank station now has a new Northern Line southbound-running tunnel that has created more platform space and reduced passenger interchange time.

The Northern Line benefits from step-free access for the first time and the DLR platforms also have improved step-free access. We’ve also created more direct routes within the station, including two new moving walkways, further cutting passenger journey time.  

Delivered on time and within budget, this upgrade has transformed Bank into a modern station fit to serve one of the most important financial districts in the world.