Gifford cleans up on FRC design work

Gifford and parent company Ramboll are part of the international design team working for FCBC (Forth Crossing Bridge Constructors), the consortium that won the project to build the new bridge earlier this year.

Now Gifford’s gantry specialists are to design a total of 57 portal and cantilever gantries for the FRC itself, for the Fife Intelligent Transport System (ITS) scheme north of the bridge with contractor Graham Construction, and for a major upgrade to Junction 1a of the M9 to the south of the FRC with contractors SRB Civil Engineering. Gifford has also won the lead design role on the Junction 1a upgrade scheme.

The gantry team will design full access portal and cantilever steel gantries capable of carrying the complete range of the latest traffic control and signalling equipment. They will be designed with a view to ensuring maintenance tasks can be carried out safely without the need for road closures. The first new gantries are due to be erected at the turn of the year.

The Gifford team has designed more than 800 gantries in the last 10 years, accouting for 90% of all portal gantries on the UK’s motorway and trunk road system.

Gifford is designing the major upgrade of Junction 1a on the M9 motorway for SRB Civil Engineering, a joint venture between John Sisk & Son and Roadbridge. This will become a fully unrestricted junction, with new and widened slip roads and several bridge widening and replacement schemes to be designed along with water runoff management measures. This project is due for completion at the end of next year.

Gifford technical director Simon Benfield said: “Working on all three of these related projects gives us an unparalleled view over all the schemes and a unique opportunity to provide a seamless ‘one project’ look across the piece. It is also a testament to the breadth and depth of our engineering skills in transport infrastructure and ITS design.”

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