2. Table of Contents
1.0 List of Tables .....................................................................................................................................................1
2.0 List of figures.....................................................................................................................................................1
3.0 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................2
1.1 About the Company.................................................................................................................................................2
1.2 Sutton Coldfield office ...........................................................................................................................................2
1.3 My team......................................................................................................................................................................3
.............................................................................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Objectives..................................................................................................................................................................3
3.0 Lake Loathing...................................................................................................................................................4
3.1 ...............................................................................................................................................................................4
3.3 Mouchels Role..................................................................................................................................................6
3.4 Health & Safety ...............................................................................................................................................6
3.5 Project roles......................................................................................................................................................7
3.51 Compliance Check .........................................................................................................................................7
3.52 Health and Safety design ............................................................................................................................8
3.53 Ghost Island option proposal.....................................................................................................................9
3.54 Traffic flows...................................................................................................................................................12
3.55 Vehicle tracking around pier.....................................................................................................................13
4.0 Project Management.............................................................................................................................................13
5.0 Conclusions .............................................................................................................................................................15
5.1 Application of academic skills.....................................................................................................................15
5.2 Knowledge Gained .........................................................................................................................................16
5.3 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................................16
6.0 Refrences..................................................................................................................................................................17
7.0 Appendicies.............................................................................................................................................................17
7.1 Road marking spec for Ghost island junction according to TSM5 ....................................................17
7.3 Design Standards for ghost island according to TD42 ........................................................................19
7.4 Drawings off all the HGV movements around pier..............................................................................22
http: //www. mouchel . com/who-we-are/company-overvi ew
3. PAGE 1
1.0 List of Tables
Table 1 – pg 4
Table 2- pg 8 - 9
2.0List of figures
Figure 1. Office layout – pg 2
Figure 2. Highway team structure – pg 3
Figure 3. Map showing main highways associated with Lake Lothing – pg 5
Figure 4. Three options for crossings across Lake Lothing – pg 6
Figure 5. T Junction designed by Shah Rahim – pg 7
Figure 6. Drawing annotated with drawing numbers for road markings – pg 8
Figure 7. Designing T junction to TD4 – pg 10
Figure 8. Designing T junction to TD42, line offsets and HGV corner radii added – pg 10
Figure 9. Designing T junction to TD42, fitting the minor road to existing alignment – pg 11
Figure 10. Vehicle tracking of HGV on the T Junction – pg 11
Figure 11. Highway design in mouchel drawing frame – pg 12
Figure 12 Traffic flows going through new roundabout – pg 12
Figure 13. one of four HGV movements vehichle tracked around piers – pg 13
Figure 14. Mouchel Travel guide – pg 15
Figure 15 Road markings according to TSM5 – pg 17
Figure 16 Visibilitychecks to be made according to TD42 – pg 18
Figure 17 Lane widths, corner radii and tapers to be measured according to TD4 – pg 19
Figure 18 Minor road approch dimensions to be drawn to TD42 pg 20
Figure 19 HGV movement into APB building – pg 21
Figure 20 HGV movement into APB building alternate maneuver – pg 21
Figure 21 HGV movement into APB building alternate maneuver pg 22
4. PAGE 2
3.0 Introduction
3.1 About the Company
Mouchel is a civil engineering consultancy with offices across the UK/Ireland, Middle East and
Australia(mouchel consulting,2016). The company focuses on a wide range of sectors within the
industry of Civil Engineering, specifically Highways/Transportation, Water, environment, maritime
and property infrastructure. Mouchel is perhaps best known for its work within the highways
industry as a lot of their work is based within this sector. Mouchel’s legacy within the Highways
industry can be seen as the company was involved heavily in the inception of Smart Motorways in
the UK, assisting highways England. Most notably assisting in the piloting of the concept of Active
Traffic Management (ATM) successfully demonstrated on the M42 in Birmingham, which would go
on to be replicated on major UK motorways such as the M25, M4, M5, M65 and M1(mouchel
consulting 2016)
Mouchel is currently thriving, and as a consequence of its continued growth; June 2015 saw the
acquisition of Mouchel by Kier Group for £265,000,000, a move that served to increase the
resources behind company operations, enhance company image and become a dominant player
specifically in the UK Highways and Highway works market due to the backing of Kier Group
(Aaron Morby. 2016)
3.2 Sutton Coldfield office
The placement took place in the Sutton Coldfield office north of Birmingham. Summer of 2016
proved to be a busy period in the office with several big jobs going on. For this reason, the summer
placement consisted of assistance in multitudes of big and small projects, not restricted to
Birmingham. Furthermore, the collaboration between the different departments in the office was
emphasized in the project as the placement included tasks given from not only the highways team,
but notably the Project Management team.
Figure 21. Office layout
5. PAGE 3
Figure 1 depicts the configuration of the Sutton Coldfield office. As discussed in 1.1, Kier Group now
backs Mouchel and therefore, the Sutton Coldfield office is shared between Kier and Mouchel.
3.3 My team
The placement was taken on the Highways team and the role assigned was that of a Highways
technician. The primary role of a technicians in consultancies is to be competent enough with
Computer aided design (CAD) to convey technical information into design drawings. The CAD
drawings are then taken into the works requirement to aid the specification, which will be added to
the contract and eventually interpreted by the chosen contractor. The role however was not limited
to this as the highway team offered many shared responsibilities in tackling the challenges of
design and meeting the client’s standards. The Highway consultancy team family tree is as follows.
2.0 Objectives
Spending 12 weeks with one of the UK’s leading Civil engineering Consultancies presents a very
unique learning experience. With this in mind, a set of objectives was considered to address the
Keith Lewis
Technical Director
Darren Morris
Senior Engineer
Oleg Makarov
Senior Engineer
Shaun Joyce
Senior Engineer
Shah Rahim
Graduate Engineer
Jamie Clift
Engineer
Zoe Santos
Senior technician
Ben Austin
Technician
Tom Owen
Technician
Anesu Chimkupete
Trainee Techician
Ethan Smith
Apprentice Technician
Daniel Goodwin
Engineer
Rafael Moran
Senior Engineer
Paul
Principle Engineer
Kwaku
Principle Engineer
Figure 22. Highway team structure
6. PAGE 4
question of maximizing all the benefits this opportunity gives. The key parameters considered in
this regard are depicted and summarized in Table 1.
Table 1 Objectves
OBJECTIVES
COMMUNICATION - Networking with professionals for my career goals
- Learning technical language
- Liaising with people from different disciplines
INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE - Awareness of the appropriate design standard
attached to jobs
- Awareness of Health and Safety protocols associated
with design
- Knowledge of the elements of a contract
- Gain an appreciation of how different teams
collaborate and hold individual responsibilities in
projects
`TECHNICAL PRACTICE - Improve my competence in AutoCAD
- Learn new software
PROBLEM SOLVING - Gain experience in assessing real life situations
- Offer multiple proposals for tasks
- Get in the habit of searching for data outside of what’s
presented
RELATING INDUSTRY
PRACTICE TO COURSE
- Look out for applications of Eurocode 2
- Look out for opportunities to practice the known
AutoCAD commands
- Look out for topics covered in CPM in particular such
as Risk Assessment, Bill of Quantities and CDM
regulations
3.0 Lake Loathing
3.1 Background
Lake Loathing is a watercourse, which flows into the North Sea. It separates the town of Lowestoft
in Suffolk into north and south and is approximately 180m wide at its widest point (Rob Surl, 2015)
7. PAGE 5
Figure 23. Map showing main highways associated with Lake Lothing
The north and south are currently linked by existing road crossings east and west (A12 and A1177
respectively), which have been deemed inadequate for the existing demand for traffic. The traffic
issue in this town have become rather notorious and thus has taken away from incentives to visit
the town. An Incompetent road network naturally has adverse effects on local business ass there is
less investment, less attention and less expansion and in the Lowestoft project, a business case for
the design proposals was put forward by Mouchel and approved. The issue with Lowestoft is one
which has attracted publicity to the extent that it was promised in the last general election that a
Lowestoft crossing will be built by the year 2020 (Rob Surl,2015) Mouchels role in BIM and the
subsequent production of proposals has been going on since February 2015, and during the process,
Mouchel assessed 4 separate options that were variations of Eastern Crossings, western crossings
and central crossings based on Bridges or Tunnels.
8. PAGE 6
Figure 24. Three options for crossings across Lake Lothing (Google Maps,2016)
At the stage that the summer placement commenced, the options had been reduced to the central
bridge. There has been great optimism shown towards opting for a Bridge instead of a Tunnel
despite some debate including UKIP in Waveny calling for the Tunnel (Andrew Papworth,2016).
However there seems to be a consensus on the Bridge with the Waveny MP Peter Aldous saying
“We have got something that is so overwhelmingly with what the people want” (Andrew
Papworth,2016)
3.3 Mouchels Role
In this job, the acting client was Suffolk County Council (SCC). SCC awarded a contract to Mouchel
Consulting in which Mouchel was appointed Principle Designer (Andrew Papworth,2016). The scale
of the job makes it multidisciplinary in nature and involved the collaboration of the structures
team, Geotechnical team and the Highways team. Being a principle designer means that Mouchel
Consulting leads all aspects of the pre-construction process.
3.4 Health & Safety
Health and safety is emphasized not just in construction, but also in the pre-construction phase.
Mouchel Consulting; being the principle designer, was to adhere to the legislation presented in the
Construction Design Management regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) which details the responsibilities of
all parties involved in a construction job and in our case, the Principle designer’s responsibilities.
“Principal designers must: …work with any other designers on the project to eliminate foreseeable
health and safety risks to anyone affected by the work and, where that is not possible, take steps to
reduce or control those risks” – (HSE Books,2015)
It should be noted that the legislation has written in bold the terms ‘eliminate, reduce or control’.
The Protocol advocated in Mouchel is the ERIC principle. It is an Acronym for Eliminate Reduce
9. PAGE 7
Inform Control. It works as a logical process for designers and on this basis, which meets the ideas
relating to ‘eliminate, reduce or control’. Meeting this particular legislation is often conveyed by
Mouchel through the Hazard Identification checklist along with the Hazard elimination schedule.
3.5 Project roles
A lot of junction improvement and brand new horizontal road alignment needed to be considered
to further assist the bridge crossing. Technicians working on the Lake Loathing project this
summer were tasked with exploring all possible options, producing CAD sketches of appropriate
alignments and either brand new junctions or junction improvements.
3.51 Compliance Check
The first task presented was a compliance check. Shah (a Graduate engineer) had drafted a Ghost
Island junction as part of the horizontal alignment in Lowestoft. The Ghost Island Junction is a
measure to reduce traffic that is commonly caused by vehicles turning. The compliance check was
ordered by Paul (Principle engineer) who wanted assurance that the Ghost Island junction was in
compliance with the Design manual for roads and bridges (DMRB Standard). Further specified in
the task was to ensure that the junction was suitable to HGV access. The following drawing was
given on a 1:500 scale A3 paper.
Figure 25. T Junction designed by Shah Rahim (Shah Rahim,2016)
10. PAGE 8
After the compliance check, the Paul requested that the design be annotated with references to the
traffic signs manual chapter 5 (TSM5). The relevant road markings specified are in the appendix.
Figure 26. Drawing annotated with drawing numbers for road markings
3.52 Health and Safety design
As alluded in 3.4, Health and safety is a major consideration in terms of design. Part of the task
given was to carry out a health and safety protocol on the design of the proposed ghost island T-
junction. The task is done to satisfy the CDM regulations and more bluntly, to ensure the most
optimal design proposal.
The Health and Safety assurance was done through the use of a Hazard Identification checklist
along with the Hazard elimination schedule. The Hazard Identification checklist lists the most
common hazards associated with construction and leaves a section for the designer to rank each
hazard into low risk, high risk or not applicable. Classification of risk was done on the basis of
opinion and then subsequent discussion with the Paul. Below is a summary of the Hazards
Table 2 Hazard IdentificationChecklist
Potential Hazards
arising from
Not Applicable Low Risk => No action
needed
High Risk => Action needed
1. Existing Structures X
2. Existing services X
3. Earthworks X
4. Foundation X
5. Service installation X
6. Drainage works X
7. Highways X
8. Steelwork
Construction
X
9. Concrete
Construction
X
10. Masonry X
11. PAGE 9
Construction
11. Timber
Construction
X
12.Cladding X
13. Glazing X
14.
Mechanical/electrical
systems
X
15. Railway activity X
16. Demolition X
17. Maintainence X
The activities of high potential risk are the ones that need heavy consideration in the design stage.
For instance, existing services was singled out as a high risk in the sense that the ground represents
a large unknown. A designer would address this by carrying out statutory undertaking to gather
information about any BT lines, oil pipes, electric cables etc that are underground at the location of
the build. In general anything that represented a big unknown was associated with high risk,
another example would be earthworks, at the time of the design there was little knowledge of the
ground conditions, not to mention the Lake Lothing represents a water course ~300m away from
the junction proposal hence groundwater is a reasonable concern. Low risks were activities that
could be reasonably managed without major input from the designer, however they are marked to
show they have been acknowledged. Such is the case with the railway. A railway does exist a few
hundred meters away and it is thus important to acknowledge it, however a designer can be
confident that the potential hazards caused by the railway do not need to be addressed in the
design stage. Lastly the ones non applicable do not have anything to do with the project, cladding
and glazing for instance are more typical in the construction of buildings than junction builds.
3.53 Ghost Island option proposal
The alignment proposed included a new roundabout in close proximity to an existing roundabout.
The new roundabout drafted by one of the engineers was directly connected to the bridge.
However the Principle designer was curious as to whether designing a T-junction into the bridge
extension would be feasible instead of another roundabout. Hence in order to investigate this, an
appropriate DMRB compliant sketch was needed. Depicted below is the existing solution.
12. PAGE 10
Figure 27. Designing T junction to TD42
By inspection, it seems probable that a T junction can replace the roundabout as it can fit in line
with the major road however this is not without concern. There exists a number of constraints in
the geometric design. The addition of a T junction here would push the design up a little which is
an issue due to the lack of space above the roundabout. Furthermore it was noted before designing
that the corner radius of the T Junction was to comply with the standards of a HGV. As alluded
above, the position of the T Junction can be gauged by inspection, as the major road can be joined
by a line through the roundabout. This line gives a suitable insertion point for the ghost island
which can be designed in space and then joined into the alignment, furthermore the design lanes
can be defined through the offsets of this line. The ghost island T junction was drawn according to
the DMRB standards set inTD42. And the first draft can be seen below.
Figure 28. Designing T junction to TD42, line offsets and HGV corner radii added
This preliminary draft was just to get a better picture of the T junction and very specifically its
alignment with the major road. Having decided that this was acceptable, the joining of the minor
road to the existing alignment was figured out. Noteworthy also is how the design above includes a
13. PAGE 11
15m radius corner radius coupled with a taper for HGV access. Going further I elected to use the
more standard 20 m corner radius with no taper.
Figure 29. Designing T junction to TD42, fitting the minor road to existing alignment
After all the necessary geometries were designed, the ghost island was finally tested for HGV
adequacy using the Autodesk Vehicle tracking software, which in effect, modeled the junction.
Finally the Junction was inserted into the alignment whilst cutting out the roundabout.
Furthermore, the appropriate road markings were added in place according to TSM5.
Figure 30. Vehicle tracking of HGV on the T Junction
14. PAGE 12
Figure 32 Traffic flows going through new roundabout
This design was then put into a Mouchel Drawing frame and taken by the principle engineer to be
used as part of the presentation to the client.
Figure 31. Highway design in mouchel drawing frame
3.54 Traffic flows
Another key part of the lake loathing project was to obtain the traffic flows going through the
bridges and through various junctions in the area. Going back to the role of a technician, the
technician is responsible for conveying information in a way that is coherent for others to easily
interpret. Hence another task assigned was to take traffic flow data for different roundabouts and
bridges, and represent the data through CAD drawings, one of the drawings depicting the
information can be seen below.
15. PAGE 13
3.55 Vehicle tracking around pier
An issue was raised in terms of the public interaction with the central bridge. The issue was that
there were two piers in close proximity to a warehouse, which HGVs frequently use. The piers
hence cause a potential obstruction for the HGV access to the building. The task given to me was to
demonstrate designs suitability to HGV access which can be done using Autodesk’s Vehicle
Tracking software. A number of different movements were considered.
Figure 33. one of four HGV movements vehichle tracked around piers
4.0 Project Management/Sustainability
Whilst the placement was taken as part of the highways team, a portion of the time was spent
working with the Project Management team who were stationed on the same floor. Whilst project
management in of itself is not engineering, their role is an extremely pivotal one in driving the
success of jobs, being awarded work from clients, and promoting sustainability in the running of
the office.
16. PAGE 14
4.1 West midlands Framework
Mouchel has recently been awarded jobs in the west midlands area. The procurement of these jobs
was made possible in part due to the condition that Mouchel adheres to a Framework Agreement.
It is known as the West midlands Framework, and is an agreement between Mouchel with Walsal,
Sandwell and Birmingham city council on a set of terms and conditions associated with awarding
jobs to Mouchel with each respective council being the client.
4.2 Social Value action plan
Part of the Framework included a social value action plan, put into effect as part of the agreement
with Birmingham city council. The social value action plan constituted a set of activities promised
by Mouchel to Birmingham city council to demonstrate mouchels commitment to having a
socioeconomic effect on the local area (i.e Birmingham), and furthermore demonstrating that the
company has a high regard for sustainable practice. The socioeconomic/enviromental effects were
split into the following parameters; Local Employment, Buy Birmingham, Partners in communities,
Good employer, Green and sustainable and Ethical procurement. Following through on the social
value action plan is important as it enhances company image and the reputation of Mocuhel as
being involved with the local communities can result in being more favorable in the awarding of
contracts specifically within Birmingham.
There were 52 promises in total, listed in a spreadsheet as Key Performance indicators (KPI’s); and
as part of the social value action plan, the Project Management team needed someone to find a way
of providing updates as to whether the promises have been met by mouchel or not. The task was to
find ways of providing updates on the company. The main approach was to ask for recommended
contacts and send e-mails requesting information, particularly with Human Recourses on the first
floor. Other information could be mined on the Company shared folder. The task entailed a lot of
networking/communication skills as well as discussion.
4.3 Green Travel Plan
One KPI in particular was highlightedas an issue for Mouchel. Mouchel made the following
promise in KPI42.
“Mouchel will develop and maintain a Green Travel Plan for its McLaren House and Sutton
Coldfield offices that will focus on maximising sustainable transport outcomes for journeys to and
from the offices, and between the offices and BCC's operational locations associated with the
Framework contract.”
This promise was problematic at the time because Mouchel’s Sutton Coldfield office still had no
Green Travel Plan. Thus added to the project management task was the drafting of a Green travel
plan for the company. This required research into Green travel plans in other companies as well as
research into the current measures taken by the company in promoting Green travel. The company
Travel Guide in particular was a helpful source of information. The guide itself offers some good
information on the travel options available to the office but still requires a lot more detail in terms
of being a company green travel plan; for instance it mentions the cycle routes as well as the cycling
scheme but forgets to mention the office showers and changing rooms which would further
incentivize cycling and thus demonstrate mouchels commitment to green travel and hence,
sustainability.
17. PAGE 15
These small details regarding incentivizing green travel were not the only elements need adding; an
appropriate Green Travel Plan also needs a staff survey along with an analysis of results. Using
Surveymonkey.com, a staff survey was created and checked with members of the PM team. At this
point it was realized that a staff wide survey could generate information that could be of much
wider use than just the framework agreements. With this in mind the task became of even higher
significance and for thisreason it was suggested that the Survey should be sent to transport
planning on the first floor.
5.0 Conclusions
5.1 Application of academic skills
Whilst Highways was something I’ve never encountered on an undergraduate level; there were
some opportunities presented where academic skills and knowledge was put into practical use in
the office. The main skill put into practice was autoCAD, a software I learnt independently over last
summer and further practiced in the second semester of my second year at uni; the use of the
Figure 34. Mouchel Travel guide
18. PAGE 16
software was extremely relevant during the placement. Construction Practice Management class of
second year provided a good knowledge base in terms of the protocol and management associated
with civil engineering; for instance, I came into the placement familiar with the CDM regulations
(granted we covered the 2007 CDM). Core skills as it pertains to teamwork and planning also
relevant to the placement as I had done a lot of group work before. In general there was a good
knowledge base from the degree I am studying, however much to learn as it was my first time in
industry and first encounter with highways.
5.2 Knowledge Gained
A lot of valuable knowledge was gained from the experience, as I had never had previous
involvement, working with a civil engineering consultancy. Coupled with that, Highways is a
subject that is not at all covered on an undergraduate, emphasised the learning curve. In terms of
technical knowledge, I learnt a lot more about manipulating AutoCAD though the invaluable help
of the other technicians who showed me new commands and methods of design to speed up work.
Furthermore, the use of AutoCAD Vehicle tracking was something entirely new to me but
eventually became very intuitive and fun to use and indeed was a vital part of the work I did. Most
importantly (as far as technical work) was the knowledge of the DMRB design standards of which I
became more and more familiar with especially as it pertains to horizontal alignments.
The learning was not just limited to technical knowledge, but discussions with senior members of
the team revealed other important responsibilities of engineers outside of technical work. Most
notably I learnt about the contents of a contract document. Contract documents compile all the
works information and site information necessary for the contractor to do the job. What I found
interesting and relevant was all the documentation that engineers may be responsible such as
producing a Bill of Quantities, a works Specification and PCI (pre-construction information).
5.3 Conclusion
The summer placement was extremely beneficial to my development as a civil engineering student.
It opened my eyes to the busy world of highways engineering, a sector that is seemingly booming
with work to be done on both small and large scales. The experience helped me narrow down my
options in terms of a career path in Civil engineering
19. PAGE 17
6.0 Refrences
mouchel consulting. (2016). MOUCHEL - HELPING COMMUNITIES THRIVE. Available:
http://www.mouchel.com/who-we-are/company-overview. Last accessed 23/10/16.
mouchel consulting. (2016). THE SMART MOTORWAYS JOURNEY WITH HIGHWAYS
ENGLAND. Available: http://www.mouchel.com/sectors-and-services/smart-
motorways-journey. Last accessed 23/10/16.
Aaron Morby. (2016). Kier to sell Mouchel Consulting as group
streamlines. Available: http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2016/07/04/kier-to-
sell-mouchel-consulting-in-streamlining-plan/. Last accessed 23/10/16.
Rob Surl. (2015). Outline Business Case. Lake Lothing Third Crossing, Lowestoft. 1.4
Andrew Papworth. (2016). High-Level bridge recommended to be Lowestoft's third
crossing. Eastern Daily Press.
HSE Books. (2015). Regulation 11 Duties of a principle designer in relation to health
and safety at the pre-construction phase. Managing health and safety in constuction.
1 (1), pg30.
7.0 Appendicies
7.1 Road marking spec for Ghost island junction according to TSM5
