Crikey terminals cost money

[Flapping_Madly]

I think I'm right that Heathrow terminal 5 cost 4.2 Billion and handles 20 million SLF per year.

I also think I'm right that the new Terminal 3 at El Altet Alicante will cost 400 million Euros and handle 20 million SLF per year.

Looks like the spanish got a better deal and it wont have taken 15 years or whatever to get it.

Why the vast difference? Anyone know? I'm just astonished.

[Michael SWS]

There is no comparison between the two projects, and attemting to do so simply on passengers per euro without considering the facilities, quality or specific engineering challenges of the two schemes is simplistic.

Terminal 5 is a huge infrastructure project involving over 60 contractors, 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects on a site extending to 260 hectares. In addition to the terminal itself (capable of handling A380s) it includes a new control tower, a new road network including a spur from the M25, a 6-platform underground railway station and 13km of tunnels (including the 7th-longest road tunnel in the UK).

And, in any case, the figures you give are incorrect. The new Terminal 3 at Alicante will lift the passenger-handling capability of the entire airport to 20 million per year. Terminal 5 itself will be capable of handling 30 million passengers per year.

[raffele]

Don't forget that a lot of money was spent on the inquiries for T5 too, which subsequently makes up for most of the time it took to get the thing built.

And yes - when T5B is built and opened (I believe it's due to be completed next year?) T5 will be able to handle 30 million pax a year

[WHBM]

What you have noticed is the poor value for money got on many public projects in the UK, compared to other countries. The enormous amount quoted for the proposed new runway at Stansted, and various other works, can also be added to this.

There are a range of directions in which the money leaks, which those of us from this side of the industry can readily point to.

Originally Posted by Michael SWS

Terminal 5 is a huge infrastructure project involving over 60 contractors, 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects on a site extending to 260 hectares. In addition to the terminal itself (capable of handling A380s) it includes a new control tower, a new road network including a spur from the M25, a 6-platform underground railway station and 13km of tunnels (including the 7th-longest road tunnel in the UK).

Ah yes. That will be the 6 railway platforms of which only four are connected up and the other two now stated to be the wrong orientation, the Piccadilly Line layout round the various terminals designed by an imbecile, the road network with extensive flyovers but then just plain roundabouts at crucial points wasting all the flyover capacity, the plain stupid passenger flows inside the terminal building - many of us could just go on and on.

[Michael SWS]

Ah yes. That will be the 6 railway platforms of which only four are connected up and the other two now stated to be the wrong orientation, the Piccadilly Line layout round the various terminals designed by an imbecile, the road network with extensive flyovers but then just plain roundabouts at crucial points wasting all the flyover capacity, the plain stupid passenger flows inside the terminal building - many of us could just go on and on.

Yes, many of you could - and do - go on and on, with little or no justification.

If the road and rail links to Terminal 5 were being designed from scratch then of course they would not look like they do today. But if Heathrow were being designed from scratch it would not be sited where it is today.

The simple fact is that T5 had to fit into existing, well-established infrastructure, including a Piccadilly Line configured in a layout that made extension very difficult, in one of the most densely-populated parts of the entire country. That is bound to present unique engineering challenges and additional costs.

The two train platforms that are currently unused were a deliberate design decision, to provide future capacity for as-yet unplanned direct rail services to the airport. Only the hardcore moaners would criticise the fact that they are "not connected up" (and those same moaners would undoubtedly have moaned had such future-proofing not been built into the design). As for their being the wrong orientation, that is not something that everyone agrees on and which depends, in any case, on the direction of those future rail extensions. They cannot face in every direction. You may as well moan that the platforms at London St Pancras, which face north, are entirely unsuited for trains to Paris.

There are undoubtedly very valid criticisms that can be levelled at the interior of T5 (although not as many as some on this forum would have you believe), but I think the transport infrastructure works very well indeed in all circumstances except transferring between T4 and T5.

[WHBM]

As a professional in this area, I don't quite know where to start here.

Originally Posted by Michael SWS

The simple fact is that T5 had to fit into existing, well-established infrastructure, including a Piccadilly Line configured in a layout that made extension very difficult

Regret to advise that our predecessors, 25 years ago when the Piccadilly Line T4 extension was designed, made nice provision for a station underneath the T5 site, which is why it loops so far west, and why there is a straight section specially provided for a platform. Then the T5 architects changed their minds, and rather than just extend the loop arrangement slightly, came up with the ludicous one loop, one branch arrangement which has been regularly parodied in the professional transport press, and which gives daily operating problems for the Underground and causes confusion for visiting travellers.

In one of the most densely-populated parts of the entire country.

Actually its not. It was a great big sewage works site that nobody wanted to live near.

That is bound to present unique engineering challenges and additional costs.

therefore it won't.

The two train platforms that are currently unused were a deliberate design decision, to provide future capacity for as-yet unplanned direct rail services to the airport.

Hmmm, so if unplanned, which way do they face then ?

As for their being the wrong orientation, that is not something that everyone agrees on

A repeat of the Piccadilly Line wasted platform provision, of course.

[Capot]

BAA used to have a secret little book, and perhaps still does. It provided cost data for every single aspect of building new airport infrastructure. It was updated regularly.

Budgets for new projects were prepared on the basis of this little book.

The fatal flaw was that the updates took in the actual spend data on the most recent project, and thus built in to any new project cost the waste and overspending of the last.

That would account for much of the gross overspending by BAA on its major projects; the company's appalling record with handling planning issues is another, and finally you have the "architect" factor meeting the "Legacy" factor, when an architect uses the project to create a monument to his name, and the Directors who should prevent that encourage him to greater extravagance because of the "prestige" they imagine it confers on them.

BAA's perceived need to build a shopping mall probably doubles the cost.

So you end up with grossly over-engineered terminals designed to be shopping malls rather than simple inter-modal transfer facilities, overlaid with absurdly grandiose designer features.

A design and build quote was made for a 1m passengers/year terminal (30th busiest hour 5K each way) at a regional airport in UK by a building company in around 2001. The brief was "we don't want pretty, we want functional, think B&Q"). The fixed price was £2.5 m excluding furnishings and security, including slab and surrounds, all services, heating/aircon and floor finishes. There was no architect involved apart from the technicians who drew the structure and calculated the stresses etc. The floor plan was agreed with the builders across a table, and it was all movable anyway.

The BAA estimate for the same specification terminal at that time would have been around £50M, of which a "famous architect" would probably have waltzed off with 10%-15%.