Crossrail urged to delay schedule to ease ‘intense pressure’ on assurance workers
Jacobs has encouraged Crossrail bosses to push back the project’s schedule to ease the “intense pressure” on assurance workers.
In its latest publicly available project representative report (Prep 9), Jacobs calls for the trial running target date to be reset due to concerns over resources and the amount of assurance work still to be carried out.
Trial running will involve the intensive operational testing of the railway, paving the way for it to open during the first half of 2022.
The current target date to enter trial running and Jacobs’ recommended reset date have been redacted from the public record. However, Crossrail chief executive Mark Wild has previously said trial running would begin by the end of first quarter of 2021/ beginning of the second quarter.
The Jacobs report adds that resource levels are still a “critical concern” as the project moves towards trial running.
“Optimisation of overall organisation resources, to within CRL’s budgetary constraints, remains a critical concern,” Jacobs Prep report states.
“The scale of the task and volume of work to complete represents a significant undertaking. This is causing intense pressure on the assurance teams.”
It adds: “We remain concerned that the rate of processing information to support the safety assurance process is ambitious and will require a performance step-change not previously evident on the programme.”
In its official response, Crossrail said that “further work” was being carried out to its detailed workforce plan. It added that Jacobs’ recommendation to delay the start of trial running had been “noted, as are the sources of pressure identified”.
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