PTA rail security project takes out top engineering award

27/09/06

The Public Transport Authority's Urban Security Initiatives Project (USIP) has taken out top honours at the WA Engineering Excellence Awards.

Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan said USIP was designed to help Transperth grow its customer base by ushering in a new standard of safety and security across the urban rail network.

"This project introduced a raft of innovative features to support our transit guard officers," Ms MacTiernan said.

"These include improved lighting, emergency call buttons on platforms, and linked public address and passenger information systems.

"However, the jewel in the crown is a sophisticated CCTV surveillance system with a 24/7 monitoring centre capable of detecting, recording, and immediately responding to anti-social behaviour at stations across the network.

"This system is an outstanding success which has achieved an arrest rate of almost 100 per cent of serious offenders.

"It has become a national model for rail and counter-terrorism initiatives and has attracted attention from around the world."

Accepting the award, PTA Infrastructure Systems Manager Philip Schubert said the PTA and his team especially were thrilled to have won in a State with the highest level of economic growth in the world.

"The constant stream of interstate and overseas people who want to study the project, and the adoption of many of our protocols as national counter-terrorism standards is a ringing endorsement of the innovative thought and engineering practice, all of which predated the current focus of security authorities worldwide," Mr Schubert said.

The four-year, $27million project won the Engineers Australia Award 2006 – given to the entry which demonstrated the greatest level of engineering excellence, regardless of category.

It also won the Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology category.

USIP has become an automatic entry in the national awards.

The PTA also figured in two other categories:

• GHD Pty Ltd and Leighton Contractors Pty Ltd won the Infrastructure and Building category for their work on New MetroRail's Package E (part of the Southern Suburbs Railway); and
• GHD and the PTA were finalists in the Management of Engineering category for the development of an asbestos register.