HEATHROW AIRPORT TERMINAL 5, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
The construction of the Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (T5) in London was approved by the Secretary of State on 20 November 2001, after the longest public inquiry in British history (46 months). The planning process itself cost nearly $120 million over a period of 14 years. This cost was borne mostly by the British Airports Authority (BAA) and British Airways, the two main proponents of the project.

Construction of the new terminal started in September 2002; phase one of the project is scheduled to be completed and opened by April 2008 with the second phase opening in 2011. The project is requiring an estimated investment (mostly from BAA) of over £4.2 billion.

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in Europe and passenger numbers are expected to grow by 27 million per year as a result of phase one, and then by a further 3 million per year after phase two. The airport currently employs 68,000 personnel and expects to increase this by 16,500 as a result of the expansion.

CONTRACTORS

Terminal 5 is a large infrastructure project involving over 60 contractors, 16 major projects and 147 sub-projects on a 260ha site. With such a project BAA realised that if the projects were to be built on time and within budget that a unique approach would be required. The T5 Agreement is the result and is a legally binding contract between BAA and its key suppliers. Through the agreement BAA accepts that it carries all of the risk for the construction project. This allows the contractors to concentrate on the project and solving problems rather than avoiding possible litigation for problems arising and time delays.

For a full list of contractors please see the Specifications page.

TERMINAL AND CONTROL TOWER
The T5 terminal construction is currently 46% completed (November 2004). Already ten new aircraft stands have been delivered (four capable of handling the new A380 'Super' jumbo) along with 120,000m² of taxiway.

Two of the major projects in an advanced stage are the new terminal building itself and the new aircraft control tower. In April 2004 the first section of the 'single wave' roof (2,500t) of the T5 terminal building was lifted into position. The final roof will weigh a total of 18,500t and will contain 22 steel box section rafters supported by 11 pairs of supporting abutments.

The main terminal building (housing concourse A) will be 396m long, 176m wide and 39m high and contain 80,000t of structural steel, while a satellite building (housing concourse B) adjoining this will be 442m long, 42m wide and 19.5m high. The terminal will contain 175 lifts, 131 escalators and 18km of conveyor belts for baggage handling. A strict ban has been placed on any construction activity over 43m high without prior arrangement in case it interferes with Heathrow radar.

Phase one of the project will provide 47 aircraft stands when completed and phase two will provide a further 13 to make a total of 60.

In October 2004 the 900t, 32m-high top 'cone' section of the control tower was transported 2km to the installation site following its construction within the Heathrow site. The cone, which contains the control room, will eventually be supported on top of an 85m-high, 4.6m-diameter triangular steel mast anchored to the ground with three pairs of cable stays. The steel mast will contain two lifts (one internal and one external) to provide access to the control room. The control tower will be built in 12m-high sections (the cone being raised by special jacks 12m at a time) and will become operational in summer 2006.

RAIL AND ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
Beyond the construction of the terminal itself, investment has been required in order to improve the transport infrastructure between the centre of London and Heathrow Airport. Some of the major projects currently ongoing (2004) are the construction of tunnels for the extension of both the Heathrow Express (HexEx) and the Piccadilly Line (PiccEx).

In September 2004 the HexEx tunnel was connected with T5 for the first time after four and half months of tunnelling with a tunnel boring machine (TBM). The tunnel connection was made with a spur tunnel (headshunt) connected to the existing Heathrow Express. The tunnel was lined with 1,419 pre-cast concrete rings containing polypropylene fibre for fire resistance. There will be two 1.7km tunnels for the HexEx and two 1.9 km tunnels for the PiccEx.

Terminal 5 will have its own modern rail station that will be located in the basement of Concourse A. The station will have six rail platforms: two for the London Underground Piccadilly Line extension; two for the Heathrow Express extension, and a third pair built for potential future rail expansion links to the west.

The T5 expansion will also require additional and improved road infrastructure including internal airside roads and also connecting roads from the current road transport network. A spur road from the M25 is to be constructed in the coming months and the road around the western perimeter of the Heathrow site realigned to provide improved access. In addition to a growth in the transport capacity servicing Heathrow Airport, BAA plans to develop a 4,000-space multi-storey car park.

ROAD VEHICLE ACCESS
An Airside Road Tunnel (ART) will provide road vehicle access from the Central Terminal Area to aircraft stands at the western end of the airfield and T5 campus. It is an airside road and so will not be accessible by the general public. The 6.2km ART will consist of two parallel single carriageways with a hard shoulder in two separate tunnel bores. Each tunnel will have an internal diameter of 8.2m, which is the equivalent width of two fire engines. Each tunnel will be connected via a series of cross passages designed to ensure the safe evacuation of vehicles or people in the event of a vehicle accident in either tunnel.

AUTOMATED PEOPLE MOVER
The new T5 will also incorporate a Track Transit System. This is an automated transportation system that will transfer passengers between the main terminal and its satellite buildings. Transportation is provided by an automated people mover (APM). These are driverless trains which will run on a dedicated subsurface guideway.

STORM WATER OUTFALL TUNNEL (SWOT)
The Storm Water Outfall Tunnel (SWOT) forms the drainage and pollution control system for surface water run-off from the T5 campus, to a reservoir 2km to the south of the airport. At the southern end of the tunnel the run-off water passes through facilities that 'clean' it before it is discharged.

The SWOT is also a fundamental component in enabling BAA to recycle the run off water and re-use it in T5's non-potable water system. The tunnel and infrastructure has been designed so that in T5's operational phase, clean water will be pumped back up the tunnel and used in systems such as toilet flushes and heating systems. The SWOT comprises a single bore tunnel, 4.1km in length. Water course modification at the Heathrow site has also involved the diversion of two man made 'rivers' (built during the reign of both Henry VIII and Charles I to supply water to various Palaces) (twin rivers diversion scheme) into new channels.

CONGESTION, NOISE, AIR POLLUTION
The number of people using cars, taxis, buses and coaches in and out of Heathrow will more than double once T5 is operational. This does not take into account extra lorries and other heavy goods vehicles travelling in and out to service the airport on roads that are already three times busier than the national average.

In 1991, approximately 13.8 million people travelled to Heathrow by car and 5.8 million by taxi. By the year 2016, when BAA expects T5 to be fully operational, the figures are estimated to increase to 28.1 million by car and 11.9 million by taxi. Another obvious problem associated with the increase in traffic in the area is a worsening of noise and air pollution.

Advocates of T5 counter that the increase in the capacity of Heathrow will make best use of airport's existing infrastructure and land (nearly 3,000 acres). They claim that a failure to develop the site would lose Britain £600 million PER year in export earnings by 2005. Once lost, that trade is unlikely to return, and it is thought that the UK economy will feel the impact as foreign investment drifts to Europe. Additionally, the noise climate around Heathrow Airport has been improving for many years, even though the number of aircraft movements has increased considerably. This improvement is continuing, but is inevitably slowing down as older, noisy aircraft have now been phased out. Advocates claim that even with Terminal 5, the noise climate would be similar to today because it would not require any increase in night flights or in the night noise quota at Heathrow. The reason why these extra passengers can be accommodated with so few additional flights is that the number of passengers per flight is increasing all the time. The development of aircraft such as the Airbus 'Super' Jumbo, a 555-seater, double-decker aircraft, will reinforce this trend.