COVENTRY VERY LIGHT RAIL

Projects
COVENTRY VERY LIGHT RAIL

WEST MIDLANDS, UNITED KINGDOM

The UK’s growing cities need affordable integrated public transport solutions that get people out of their cars, helping to reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, and support decarbonisation and the drive to net zero. With support provided by RLB, Coventry City Council is pioneering the development of an urban Very Light Rail (VLR) system that can be built at a fraction of the cost of conventional tram and light rail schemes.

Urban VLR vehicles will be battery-powered, which avoids the need for expensive overhead line equipment, and very light, roughly a third of the weight of a conventional tram car. This means they can run on a revolutionary track system that sits just 30cm below the road surface, avoiding the costly diversion of gas mains, water pipes, power cables and telecommunications. These and other innovations will make urban VLR systems considerably cheaper to construct, operate and maintain, bringing them within reach of towns and small cities.

At a glance

Client
Nicola Small
Services
Commercial Success, Procurement, Commercial Assurance and Portfolio Evaluation, Cost Benchmarking and Cost Intelligence
sector
Infrastructure
Location
Doncaster, England

Providing cost certainty

RLB initially supported the project with cost planning through the design stages, providing Coventry City Council with historical cost data from other transport projects that would enable them to benchmark their own cost projections, giving programme assurance and cost certainty.

Our role developed and we would go on to provide procurement of design services, planning and management of the tender process, applications for funding from the Department for Transport, and developing the business case. We also completed feasibility studies for the first planned routes and depot locations, making recommendations based on client requirements, cost and social value analysis.

"The expertise of the RLB team played a pivotal role in the project’s development. They made sure our cost estimates were robust, providing challenge where challenge was necessary. Having this independent assurance from a firm with such a strong reputation in cost management gave us credibility and helped secure the government funding we needed."

Nicola Small, City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement Programme Director, Coventry City Council

Trust and collaboration

We forged a good relationship with Coventry City Council by building trust. We were agile and responsive, delivering our services on time and to a high standard. The culture at RLB places teamworking at the heart of everything we do. Our people worked out of the council’s offices to foster collaboration and everyone on the project worked as one team towards the same goal.

Wider economic benefits

Still in development, Coventry VLR promises to provide a comfortable, reliable, frequent, low-cost, low-carbon, hop-on hop-off transport service. But this technology offers far more than just a greener alternative to travelling by car. Creating permanent way infrastructure attracts investment and enhances land values to a degree unattainable by other transport schemes. By improving connectivity, it will create jobs, increase social mobility and support wider economic development in urban communities.