Making visionary rail a reality

Progressing ambitious rail projects

Transformative rail projects open up new opportunities. Technical excellence brings the biggest, most complex and innovative ideas to life and helps communities to access and enjoy them. 

Achieving rail excellence

When world-class rail projects succeed, they create new economic and social opportunities for regions, spur on new development, reinvigorate urban landscapes, and establish and improve connectivity for generations to come. From the earliest lines to today's networks, Mott MacDonald’s technical excellence makes this possible. 

A shared passion for delivering outstanding rail solutions means projects everywhere benefit from a culture of innovation, problem solving, knowledge-sharing and a commitment to high standards.

Guilherme Pereira, who plays a leading role in fostering Mott MacDonald’s networks, knowledge and professional practices for rail across North America, has contributed to rail engineering for projects across the world – from Jakarta’s metro system to Transport for London’s work on the Elizabeth Line.  

In recent years, this has included bringing his technical excellence to Sound Transit’s ST2 programme, which is improving and expanding commuter rail and mobility for Seattle and the wider Puget Sound region. This includes significant accomplishments such as Seattle’s first floating rail bridge, part of its East Link Extension. Guilherme sees Mott MacDonald’s approach to technical excellence as essential for making client’s ambitious projects become a reality, and engaging with emerging opportunities for rail.

“By applying innovative solutions, by applying the lessons we've learned from the past, we're able to save the client time or money or both with our solutions, so that it helps them get more with the resources that they have available to them. And I think that's a win for everybody,” says Guil.

“We want to build something at that scale that is resilient, that is worthy of the investment that is made. From a systematic perspective, you're able to consider the impact of different factors, including weather, environment, utilisation, changes in condition, and making it future-proof,” he says.

Guil adds that technical excellence enables Mott MacDonald to shape systems that translate vision into longer-term legacy and outcomes – so technical accomplishments today can continue to achieve benefit into the future too. 

“The requirements that we design and build to today might not be what the client needs and the public needs in 50 years... by making certain decisions, and using the experience we have and from projects we helped build, we have that ability to predict and future-proof it as much as possible within the constraints we have, so that these systems can withstand that and be healthy and functional for a century or more.” 

Based in Melbourne in Australia, Monica Dryden, technical director, agrees that an emphasis on technical excellence across the holistic requirements of rail projects enables Mott MacDonald’s teams to bring innovation to life and deliver results that build trusted relationships over time. 

“We want to be the first point of call for clients to say, hey, I've got this brand-new thing. Help us get it into service, help us realise what it's supposed to do. 

Things grow over time. Systems engineering wasn't something that really existed within rail within Australia 10 years ago, but it’s come through uplifting clients, delivering projects, bit by bit, piece by piece.” 

Michael Barron, Mott MacDonald’s lead technical officer for Asia-Pacific and Australasia, and Stephen Spacey, technical director, played significant roles in Sydney Metro’s projects, such as Sydney Metro City & Southwest.  

The growth of Sydney Metro has improved and established entirely new ways to travel around Sydney, with world-class ‘turn-up-and-go' services and accessible station environments that better connect the city’s business, culture and leisure hubs with growing suburbs.  

Michael sees the ability to access and integrate global rail expertise across different disciplines throughout Mott MacDonald as key to elevating the work delivered in the rail sector.  

“We connect together and integrate our people well. We are much better able to connect with people outside of our discipline or outside of our region to understand how to get the best ideas,” he says. 

Working alongside Mike and based in Sydney, Stephen adds that the combination of local expertise and access to a shared global network enabled Mott MacDonald to help Sydney Metro find the right approaches needed for the project. 

“Let's take Sydney Metro... Its solution is probably quite specific to Sydney because of its nature, the sandstone that it has, the cultural approach of Sydneysiders.  

It's probably still different to other parts of Australia, and it's certainly different to other countries. But it hadn't delivered a metro before, where other countries around the world have. We can draw out local experience and understanding, but you also need the global expertise and insight,” says Stephen.