Congratulations Jason Quarta and John Dellis
Our Cross City Tunnel (CCT) team in Sydney Australia operate and maintain one of the city’s most important pieces of transport infrastructure. Over the past 10 years, they’ve helped move more than 150 million cars safely through the tunnel, and managed more than 1,800 incidents without harm.
It’s this ongoing focus on safety which has led to the development of a world first. The team use Truck Mounted Attenuators (TMAs) to keep workers safe during incident management and routine maintenance operations. TMAs are fitted to the back of heavy road vehicles, which are placed between the worker and oncoming traffic. When deployed, they absorb the crash energy of the errant car.
After an ongoing issue with the standard design TMA caused significant damage to tunnel fixtures, the team had to think outside the box to deliver an innovative solution.
The CCT team engaged Group Plant with their concerns who worked in close consultation with an external supplier to re-design the traditional style TMA.
The result is a world first sliding TMA that is safer, lower in height, shorter in length and faster to deploy. What’s more, because the new design also fully supports the weight of the TMA when its stowed, it’s led to less wear and tear, and increased the overall lifecycle of the equipment.
Says Civil and Mechanical Supervisor, Jason Quarta, “The end outcome was 12 months in the making but has delivered a world first. It shows what can be achieved when different parts of the business work collaboratively together.”
Adds Senior Plant Engineer, John Dellis, “Where possible we are now standardising the design for tunnel applications, and a second unit has recently been commissioned and is in operation in the Eastern Distributor Tunnel in New South Wales.”
Pictured: Jason Quarta and John Dellis with the world first sliding TMA at the CCT workshop in Sydney, Australia.
