Darlington Upgrade Project

Project Details

• The Darlington Upgrade Project is another important stage in the delivery of Adelaide's North South Corridor and will deliver an upgrade of approximately 3.3 kilometers of Main South Road, including:
  • A non-stop motorway between the Southern Expressway and Tonsley Boulevard
  • A lowered, non-stop motorway passing underneath Flinders Drive, Sturt Road, Sutton Road/Mimosa Terrace and Tonsley Boulevard
  • Grade separation of the Main South Road/Ayliffes Road/Shepherds Hill Road intersection
  • Main South Road (at grade) surface roads along both sides of the lowered motorway to provide connections to Flinders Drive, Sturt Road and most local roads
  • Full free flow interchange at the Southern Expressway/Main South Road with dedicated ramps providing direct access to the new motorway and Main South Road.

Project Highlights

• The project is being delivered by Gateway South, a joint venture between Fulton Hogan and Laing O'Rourke.
• KBR, in a joint venture with SMEC and Jacobs, delivered the design services for the complex project, which included the design of eight bridges.
• A focus on digital engineering delivered outputs which supported complex construction planning.
• An innovative construction methodology for the three largest bridges delivered significant community and traffic benefits.
• To minimise disruption to the 73,000 vehicles per day using the corridor, the decks of these three steel box girder bridges were constructed off-line in adjacent yards and transported over weekend road closures to their permanent positions using Self Propelled Modular Transports (SPMTs).  The use of this innovative method heralded an Australian-first for a civil construction project of this scale.
• A focus on Digital Engineering to deliver a federated 3D design incorporating 12D, MX and Revit models, provided a design output which has enabled stakeholder visualisation and construction planning in a highly constrained environment.