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ABSTRACT
This document sets out to record Crossrail’s experience of the use of Geotechnical Baseline Reports
(GBRs) in its construction contracts. In reading this report it is important to remember that in all of the
major Crossrail Civil Engineering contracts Contractor design activities were limited to temporary works
only. There were no Contractor design and build aspects to the permanent works. This greatly
simplifies the production of Geotechnical Baseline Reports.
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This report briefly sets out what a GBR is; why and where Crossrail used them, how GBRs were
implemented and then provides some analysis and commentary on how successful or otherwise they
were in practice. In this report example extracts from GBRs are presented in italic Times New Roman,
with example Baseline Statements specifically being presented in bold italic Times New Roman.
The purpose of a GBR is to establish the allocation of risk between the Employer and the Contractor in
relation to the ground. It does this by including contractual statements (Baseline Statements) that define
the relevant geotechnical conditions that the contractor can expect to find during construction. If
conditions are found to be equal to or better than a baseline the target cost is unaltered. If conditions
are found to be worse than a baseline and the contractor can demonstrate a loss, a compensation
event is triggered.
At tender the intention is that the GBR is used as a common basis for pricing geotechnical and
geological risk by the tenderers. Post contract award the GBR is used to judge the validity of
compensation events for those issues covered by the GBR.
The Baseline Statements establish what is ‘foreseen’ & ‘unforeseen’ in relation to the ground conditions
as they affect construction. They should only cover issues which could adversely impact on
construction (and hence be the subject of a compensation event).
Baseline Statements must be concise, measurable and clearly defined. They are not necessarily
geotechnical ‘facts’ and can be used to position risk boundaries wherever the Employer wishes. In
practice Crossrail Baseline Statements are almost all based on what the Employer considered to be a
reasonable and realistic view of what was likely to be encountered during the works.
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The Crossrail GBRs were NOT the basis for the tender design or any contractor design, nor were they
interpretative reports. Post contract award the GBR exists solely to determine whether a compensation
event has arisen.
In the UK in 2003 the Association of British Insurers and the British Tunnelling Society jointly produced
‘The Joint Code of Practice for Risk Management of Tunnel Works in the UK’ (the ‘JCoP’). This code
states:
The JCoP defines ‘Tunnel Works’ as the following: “Tunnels, caverns, shafts and associated
underground structures howsoever constructed and including the renovation of existing underground
structures.”
In practice all Crossrail civils contracts that have significant ‘in ground’ works incorporate GBRs even
where their scopes do not contain ‘Tunnel Works’ as defined by the JCoP.
The JCoP ‘Tunnel Works’ scope was found in the following contracts:
Stations
• C405 Paddington
• C412 Bond Street
• C422 Tottenham Court Road
• C435 Farringdon
• C502 Liverpool Street
• C512 Whitechapel
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Running Tunnels
Portals
Shafts
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GBRs were incorporated into Crossrail tenders by amending this to state (changes in bold):
This establishes two classes of ‘unforeseen ground condition’ compensation events. One is ‘of a type
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referred to in the GBR’ and one is where the ‘conditions’ are not ‘of a type referred to in the GBR’.
In the 60.1(12) ‘non GBR’ case another clause sets the following test:
This clause only applies to 60.1(12) and not to the ‘GBR conditions’ in 60.1(12A).
This arrangement means there is no hierarchy associated with the GBR in relation to the Site
Information in the Contract as there are no situations where 60.1(12) and (12A) can both apply. It also
means that there are two completely separate sources of information for assessing an ‘unforeseen
ground condition’ depending on whether (12) or (12A) applies.
In other words the Site Information and the GBR cannot be used together in support of a compensation
event claim. The Site Information clearly contains ‘facts’ about the ground whereas the Baseline
Statements in a Crossrail GBR cannot be presumed to be factually correct.
60.1(12) and (12A) also provide an opportunity for the Client to deliberately choose whether a specific
‘type’ of condition will be addressed using the GBR or addressed by using the Site or other Information.
1. The contractual context and the purpose of the GBR and the Baseline Statements
2. That the Baseline Statements are aligned with the tender design. Alongside this is a very brief
statement of the main forms of in-ground construction for that contract.
3. That the Baseline Statements are not ‘geotechnical fact’ and that they do not constitute a
warranty that those conditions will be found.
4. That nothing in the GBR changes the Contractors responsibility for the safe execution of the
works or for providing the works in accordance with the contract
5. That the GBR isn’t Site Information
In general the Crossrail Civils tender documentation provided a fully engineered permanent works
design and typically did not show any temporary works.
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One of the consequences of 2) is that temporary works are not covered by the GBR unless they are
specifically indicated within the tender documentation. An example of this might be where a tender
drawing indicates the minimum extent of ‘ground improvement’ above a shallow tunnel.
The statements in 3) and 5) are very important as they draw a clear distinction between the non-factual
(in contract terms) GBR and the factual Site Information. They are also important as the purpose of the
GBR was commonly misunderstood once works were underway. A typical misunderstanding would
result in the GBR being used by a Contractor as an interpretative report in temporary works design.
For this reason it is worth repeating the point on the purpose of the GBR made above. “The Crossrail
GBRs were NOT the basis for the tender design or any contractor design, nor were they interpretative
reports. Post contract award the GBR exists solely to determine whether a compensation event has
arisen”.
None of this text forms part of a ‘condition’ as described in clause 60.1(12A). The 60.1(12A) ‘conditions’
are set out in Baseline Statements in Section 3 onwards. The Baseline Statements themselves are
differentiated from the rest of the contextual text in the GBR by being formatted in a particular way. The
Baseline Statements are set out in bold italic text.
The only text in the GBR that applies in assessing the merits of a particular 60.1(12A) compensation
event is the text in bold italics, the rest is merely context.
Here is an example:
For the purpose described in the Introduction to this GBR, for the
Works at **** Station, the Baseline Statements relating to existing
boreholes are:
This is a simple Baseline Statement, it tells the contractor which boreholes will be encountered (in his
SCL works), it tells the contractor where these boreholes are (via the Site Information), what form the
boreholes will take (grouted, <300mm diameter) and that only those boreholes listed will be found.
Points to note:
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The contractor has to encounter an exceedance of the baselined condition during the construction of
the works to have a valid compensation event.
The second baseline statement in this example doesn’t add much from a commercial standpoint (there
were more boreholes in the Site Information than in the Table) but it does indicate to the tenderer that
all the Crossrail boreholes, whether or not they are expected to be encountered, have been rendered
relatively safe with respect to any SCL works should the tunnel layout be varied from the Tender
arrangements.
Unconfined
Uniaxial Compressive Strength
Compressive
– (UCS) testing in accordance with the
Strength of Hard
ISRM Suggested Methods.
Bands and Claystone.
In-situ permeability
of a block of ground, Variable head permeability testing in
minimum accordance with BS5930:1999 or
Mass Permeability
dimensions 10m Pumping tests in accordance with
x10m plan and 0.5m BS ISO 14686:2003
thick
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In practice applying these statements did not cause any difficulties, but it is recognised that in many
circumstances it would not have been practicable to rigidly apply these methods of measurement. It
would have been better to add the option of ‘any other method of measurement agreed by the Project
Manager’.
Man-made features
• Existing foundations
• Existing Tunnels
• Underground Utilities
• Excavations or filled ground
• The presence of boreholes
• The presence of wells or other shafts
Unexploded Ordnance
Geological features
• Strata Occurrence
• Strata Boundaries
• Strata Description
• Faults
• Hard strata
• Other anomalous features (e.g. ‘drift filled hollows’)
• Ground gas
• Ground Behaviour
Groundwater
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Where individual contracts contained several significantly different forms of structure and forms of
construction, Baseline Statements for each of these would be collected together in different chapters
within the GBR. For example a major tunnelling contract might have different chapters containing
Baseline Statements for running tunnels, shafts, cross passages, SCL works and so on. Similar splits
would also apply to similar types of structures built in different ways, such as SCL and SGI cross
passages. Running tunnel baseline statements would also tend to be grouped by chainage where
changes in geological conditions varied along the alignment.
All this variation might mean similar conditions (eg strength of particular strata) could be baselined in
different ways in different places or for different construction techniques. This is perfectly reasonably in
a GBR as there is no overarching requirement for consistency. Remember that Baseline Statements
are not ‘geotechnical fact’.
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Where details of existing foundations were not known then Baseline Statements were typically drafted
on the basis of experience and/or best estimates.
In some cases the Crossrail Employer wished to have the tenderers make an allowance for as yet
unknown obstructions. These statements typically took this form:
Note the exact location of the individual piles is not baselined, even though this may well have been
known and that information included within the site information.
This was to avoid tenderers pricing for X encounters then being able to claim for X+1 encounters purely
because the one of the X number of piles was not in the anticipated location. Of course if the location of
particular obstructions is significant then baselining the specific locations may be desirable.
Non-baseline contextual text would typically be used to flag up the presence of nearby tunnels in this
part of the GBR as a backup to the site information. This Baseline Statement merely confirms that these
tunnels are not expected to be encountered.
It is plausible that Works under a contract could knowingly encounter pre-existing tunnels and if so this
could be identified and baselined here, however it is also highly likely that such an expected (foreseen)
encounter would be dealt with elsewhere in the tender documentation.
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• The difficulty of describing/defining the nature of the utilities in measurable ways when the
physical nature of the utilities was often unknown. Different types of utilities are often recorded on
drawings only by varying line styles.
• The inevitable uncertainty as to the actual location of underground utilities.
These points applied to both live utilities and disused or diverted utilities including those diverted by
Crossrail.
The clearest way to Baseline utilities is to refer to specific drawings in the Site Information. However
drawings often only record a location in plan, often don’t describe the physical nature of the utility or
describe whether it is in use or not.
Ideally tender documentation would include details of all pre-existing utilities and any as-built diverted
locations. On Crossrail this information was not always available at the time of tendering (because
enabling works contracts were incomplete). The Crossrail GBRs would certainly have been easier to
write if they had explicitly excluded encounters with some types of underground utilities and moved
these issues to a 60.1(12) approach. However on Crossrail this would probably have led to more
compensation events and less cost/programme certainty.
Baseline statements made under ‘Man-made features – Excavations or filled ground’ tended to cover
only filled/excavated ground deliberately created by neighbouring or preceding Crossrail contracts, i.e.
encounters that were probably not recorded in borehole logs in the Site Information.
As with other conditions these Baseline Statements need to define the number, nature and perhaps
location of the encounters. A typical example for a tunnelling contract would be:
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Crossrail considered the risk of finding UXO to be effectively un-priceable and as a result took on the
risk of UXO discovery for every GBR contract via this baseline statement:
Wallasea Island is the site of a land reclamation project that took a large proportion of Crossrail’s
excavated material. Excavated materials (‘Waste’) were accepted at Wallasea under a Waste Recovery
Permit. The processes within the Wallasea Waste Recovery Permit meant that at the point of
placement at Wallasea the excavated material was no longer ‘Waste’.
For Crossrail contracts that were to deliver spoil to Wallasea the ideal scenario would have been to
define proportions of excavated material that would or wouldn’t meet the Wallasea waste recovery
criteria in Baseline Statements.
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When selecting the best approach for Baselining disposal of spoil much depends on whether the final
destination for the spoil is known at the time of tender. If the site(s) are known then the acceptance
criteria applicable to those sites can be used to develop Baseline Statements. Clearly different
acceptance criteria at several pre-determined sites could cause difficulty.
The status of the spoil in ‘Waste’ terms and whether or not the contractor is incentivised to minimise
disposal of ‘Waste’ is also an important consideration and the nature of any incentives may need to be
reflected in any Baseline Statements.
Any acceptance criteria used in Baseline Statements might need to incorporate the impact of any
additives that might necessarily be contained within the spoil (e.g. conditioners, bentonite or SCL / SCL
fibres). Since this is moving outside the normal experience of a Geotechnical Engineer advice should
be sought on these matters when writing a GBR.
Before going on to Baseline the relevant properties of geological materials it is necessary to Baseline
the geological materials that the works will encounter. This is not always straightforward. Construction
works for a Crossrail Station typically take place in a minimum volume of ground 400m x 70m x 40m so
there are always variations in the strata encountered. In London these variations are significantly
amplified when the works extend below the base of the London Clay into the laterally variable Lambeth
Group.
One way to simplify this process is to sub-divide a GBR for strata boundary Baseline purposes, e.g.
boxes/shafts and tunnels would have separate sets of Baselines. This approach would also neatly
match the differing Baseline requirements for strata properties needed for different forms of
construction (see below).
For contracts with below ground construction in relatively low volumes of ground, like shafts or small
plan area boxes where there is little variation in strata, a simple table like this usually suffices for both
strata occurrence and strata boundary Baselines:
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For more the complex geology found at Farringdon a slightly more sophisticated approach was adopted
to account for differences either side a particular fault. Here Strata Boundaries were separated from
Strata Occurrence. The Strata Boundary Statements took this form:
For the purposes described in the Introduction to this GBR, for the
C435 Tunnelling Works at Farringdon Station, the Baseline Statement
relating to strata boundaries is:
Table x.y – Baseline stratigraphy to the west of the Smithfield (or Bh F10) Fault
Alluvium 104 98
Thanet Sand 74 69
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Table x.z – Baseline stratigraphy to the east of the Smithfield (or Bh F10) Fault
Thanet Sand 70 62
The location of the “Smithfield (or Bh F10) Fault” was defined by references to particular drawings in the
Site Information in the contextual text preceding this Baseline Statement.
The Strata Occurrence statements set out to Baseline additional points about each geological unit and
their relationships to the 3D network of tunnels at Farringdon. In particular they Baselined the possibility
of not encountering certain Strata within the limits set out above. Such a possibility might arise because
of natural variability, the effects of faulting or historic removal or addition by Man.
For the purposes described in the Introduction to this GBR, for the C435 Tunnelling Works at
Farringdon Station, the Baseline Statements relating to strata occurrence are:
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• The SCL Works for ES1/CH1 will encounter the strata listed in
Table x.y.
An alternative approach to these issues that also deals with a complex network of tunnels and less
complex ground was adopted at Liverpool Street Station. Here a strata boundary table was baselined
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After this the Strata encountered by individual elements of the tunnel network were tabulated in another
Baseline Statement (only an extract from this particular table is shown below).
The names and codes for each tunnel element matched those defined in the Works Information.
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A different approach to these conditions was adopted for running tunnels. For the EPB TBMs, which
mined mainly in clay, sand or mixed clay sand strata, contextual text was used to list areas of common
geology using tunnel chainage. A Baseline Statement was then used to set out three different classes
of face condition is this way:
Baselined tables were then used to set out face conditions on a chainage basis in this way:
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Additional Baseline Statements were also used to add further detail as required. Examples include:
• The sands are defined as less than 35% (by weight) passing the
0.063mm sieve and more than 65% (by weight) passing the 2mm
sieve.
Portal approaches
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• Within the 15m prior to entering Pudding Mill Lane Portal, River
Terrace Deposits will be encountered within the crown
Strata expected at individual running tunnel cross passages was separately Baselined.
The contract for Crossrail’s Thames Tunnel used slurry TBMs to mine a weak Limestone (Chalk) with
some overlying sands and gravels for short distances at the portals. The GBR also used contextual text
to list areas of common geology along the tunnel chainage but did not include Baseline Statements on
strata boundaries as the encounters with these were very limited in extent, and they were very well
defined in the Site Information. As a result the risks associated with TBM operation and unexpected
variations were low.
An alternative approach for strata boundaries and strata occurrence Baselines would have been to
reference strata boundaries drawn on Geological sections + or – a value. This approach was not
adopted in any Crossrail GBR because:
• Boundaries on geological sections are almost always broad approximations based on off-set
boreholes (especially so in the case of tunnels where boreholes deliberately avoid the tunnel
alignments). This uncertainty and the fact that a single line has to represent the full width of the
works means any reasonable + or – element is likely to end up being relatively large. This means it
is hard to fine tune any element of risk transfer.
The table below summarises the typical properties baselined for different classes of ground and
construction methods used on Crossrail. Sections on baselining more anomalous geological conditions
(in a London context) follow this section, e.g. hard strata, faulting.
TBM tunnelling
Piling / Deep Bulk SCL (including
Strata / Parameter
Foundations excavation tunnelling Cross
Passages)
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TBM tunnelling
Piling / Deep Bulk SCL (including
Strata / Parameter
Foundations excavation tunnelling Cross
Passages)
Made Ground
Yes Yes N/A N/A
Heterogeneity
Made ground
Yes Yes N/A N/A
Max particle size
Made Ground
Yes or No Yes or No N/A N/A
Water Bearing*
Alluvium
Yes Yes N/A N/A
Organic content
Alluvium
Plasticity
Yes Yes N/A N/A
Opportunity to Opportunity to
baseline baseline
Alluvium significant significant
high K (e.g. high K (e.g. N/A N/A
Lithology variation sand) or low sand) or low
strength strength
(e.g.peat) (e.g.peat)
River Terrace
Deposits – N Max Max Yes Yes
value**
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TBM tunnelling
Piling / Deep Bulk SCL (including
Strata / Parameter
Foundations excavation tunnelling Cross
Passages)
Fines content
Fines content Fines content and max Fines content
River Terrace
and max and max particle size and max
Deposits – grading
particle size particle size (prior to particle size
grouting)
River Terrace
Deposits – Water Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No
Bearing*
London Clay & fine Max & Min Max & Min Max & Min
grained Harwich
Max & Min Max, excludes Max, excludes Max, excludes
Fm / Lambeth Gp –
Su** Claystones Claystones Claystones
London Clay
–seepages * Yes. Vary near
Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No
especially near known faults ?
Claystones
Coarse grained
Harwich Fm,
Yes
Lambeth Group Max & Min N
and Thanet Sand Max & Min N Max & Min N Vary near
Min Ø’
Fm – strength** known faults ?
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TBM tunnelling
Piling / Deep Bulk SCL (including
Strata / Parameter
Foundations excavation tunnelling Cross
Passages)
Coarse grained
Harwich Fm,
Lambeth Group Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No
and Thanet Sand
Fm – water bearing
Yes
Harwich Fm –
Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No Vary near
water bearing
known faults ?
Lambeth Gp sand
See below
channels
Thanet Sand –
Fines content Fines content Fines content Fines content
grading
Chalk – Strength** Max UCS Max UCS Max UCS Max UCS
Chalk – Water
Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No Yes or No
bearing
*Ground water levels, pore pressures and permeabilities are baselined elsewhere – see below.
** Max/Min strengths were typically given reasonable and realistic values rather than values that
repeated the maximum and minimum strengths indicated by the Site Information. Specific instances of
hard strata (e.g. Claystones) were baselined separately (see below).
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The following is a typical set of Sand Channel Baseline Statements, in this case from Farringdon, where
there were many faults, many sand channels and very few boreholes within the station footprint
because of the layout of buildings above:
• Sand Channels will be present within the clay and silt units of the
Lambeth Group.
• 25% of the length of the tunnels listed in Table 3.1 that are
excavated in the Lambeth Group clay and silt units will encounter
Sand Channels up to 3m deep and up to the full width of the
tunnel during construction of the Tunnel Works. The length of
tunnel that encounters any single Sand Channel will vary
according to the geometries of the Sand Channel and the tunnel.
For the purposes of this document the length of tunnel that
encounters a Sand Channel will be taken to be the average length
of tunnel where that Sand Channel is encountered.
The second bullet point refers to 25% of the total length of SCL tunnels “within the clay and silt units
of the Lambeth Group”. If there had been more confidence in the location of sand channels within the
Station this statement could have said 25% of the length of each of the tunnels listed in Table 3…
Note “will encounter Sand Channels up to 3m deep”, this means 3m deep in the encounter, (i.e. in
the tunnel), it doesn’t mean the total channel depth will be no more than 3m.
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• Firm Ground – A heading may be advanced up to a metre or more without immediate support.
Hard clays and cemented sand or gravel generally fall into this category.
• Ravelling Ground – After excavation, material above the tunnel or in the upper part of the working
face tends to flake off and fall into the heading. Slightly cohesive sands, silts, and fine sands
gaining their strength from apparent cohesion typically exhibit this type of behaviour. Stiff fissured
clays may be ravelling also. In fast ravelling ground the process starts within a few minutes,
otherwise the ground is slow ravelling.
• Squeezing Ground – Ground squeezes or extrudes plastically into tunnel without visible fracturing
or loss of continuity and without perceptible increase in water content.
• Running Ground – Granular materials without cohesion or unstable at a slope greater than their
angle of repose. When exposed at steeper slopes they run like sugar or dune sand until the slope
flattens to the angle of repose. Clean, dry granular materials generally fall into this category.
Apparent cohesion in moist sand or weak cementation in any granular soil may allow the material
to stand for a brief period of ravelling before it breaks down and runs. Such behaviour is cohesive-
running.
• Flowing Ground – A mixture of soil and water flows into the tunnel like a viscous fluid.
For TBM contracts the locations of these encounters were defined by chainage. For station contracts
(including boxes and shafts) the locations were baselined according to geological and layout complexity
and this could include both elevation limits, and plan limits, either by chainage or tunnel reference
names. Baseline statements would typically include thicknesses, maximum strengths (usually defined
as a UCS) and in the case of Claystones the number of layers present.
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Where Lambeth Group hard strata were thought to be in the form of discrete nodules maximum size
and maximum strength were baselined together (as only large and strong nodules were considered to
be problematic).
4.5 Groundwater
Groundwater levels, permeability and pore pressures were baselined for every contract with a GBR.
These baseline statements were in addition to those in the strata description statements which
addressed the presence or absence of water in each strata unit. Typical examples of baseline
statements are: (Note these are not a ‘set’ of Baseline Statements and they are not necessarily
internally consistent with each other):
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Ranges for permeability values would normally be baselined for all strata expected to be encountered,
including superficial deposits such as Made Ground, Alluvium and River Terrace Deposits.
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An analysis of most of the clause 60.1.12A compensation events (CEs) arising from these contracts
has been undertaken. The dataset analysed covered the period from the start of construction to the end
of January 2016. Almost all civils contracts were either complete or substantially complete at this point,
although some excavation works continued until spring 2017. Despite this the dataset is considered to
be representative of the overall Crossrail experience of GBRs.
Of these 182 were rejected* and 7 had no outcome recorded at the time the data was captured. This
leaves 132 valid CE notifications.
However a number of these were repeat occurrences of a single issue within a contract. If these are
taken together as single incidents the total reduces to 102 valid CE notifications.
The total value of these 132 CEs was £15.25M** (or 0.36% of the approximate value of the ‘GBR’
scope). Six of the CEs had values >£1M, the highest being £1.6M. The mean and median values of a
CE were £159K and £25K respectively.
*There are dispute resolution arrangements by which a contractor can continue to pursue a rejected CE
if he wishes.
**Some significant GBR type issues were resolved as part of wider supplemental agreements between
Crossrail and Contractors and the value of these is not included here, if they were it is considered to be
unlikely the proportional value of GBR NCE’s would be significantly greater than 0.5% of the total ‘GBR
contract value’.
• 72 related to obstructions, with almost all of these being man-made obstructions. This figure
includes unforeseen obstructions and known obstructions with greater than baselined dimensions
or strengths. The 72 included 1 CE with a value of >£1M
• 23 related to bentonite loss during Dwall construction. All these CEs occurred on one contract
with each CE relating to a single wall panel.
• 16 related to the discovery of contaminated material, mostly relating to the discovery and
subsequent disposal of buried asbestos.
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5.3 Discussion
Internally within in Crossrail the subjective view is that the GBRs have been a success in three ways:
3. The cost outcomes struck a reasonable balance between cost certainty & risk transfer.
Comments made by senior figures from a number of Crossrail major civils contractors suggest the form
of the GBRs provided a clear guide to the assumptions that the Client presumed would be taken in
during the pricing of the tenders.
Objective views of the success or otherwise of the Crossrail GBRs are difficult to make in the absence
of other published data for similar schemes in broadly similar ground.
Whilst this report focusses on the content and format of the Crossrail GBRs a significant contributor to
any success the GBRs achieved is the quantity and quality of the information gleaned from the ground
investigations carried out for the project.
In practice the ground presented very few surprises, despite much of the work being in the variable
strata below the traditional tunnelling medium of London Clay. The few ‘surprises’ that were uncovered
were in small volumes of ground in locations where the drilling of ground investigation boreholes etc.
was impracticable.
This is reflected in the statistics on the nature of the successful CEs presented above. Very few of
these were geological or geotechnical. However those that were geological or geotechnical in nature
tended to be the higher value CEs.
Appendix A
Notes on writing GBRs and baseline statements
These notes are based on the Crossrail experience of GBR’s, i.e. no contractor permanent works
design and no contractor involvement in the writing of the GBRs. They are however expected to be
generally valid.
General points
When writing baseline statements you are attempting to foresee the unforeseen and in doing so you are
setting boundaries for what the contractor can claim additional time or money for.
In order to be able to do this you need to understand the client’s views on risk taking versus price
certainty. These views will depend on many things including the quality and quantity of the geological
and geotechnical data available to the project and the level of the client’s technical knowledge.
1. Have in depth knowledge of the design, the ground conditions and the required construction
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methods.
2. Understand broad geological setting for the project and any possible variation that might arise
over and above that indicated by the ground investigation data.
3. Understand the limitations of the factual information provided by the ground investigation data.
4. Understand the GBR applicable construction scope and the circumstances in which the GBR
would be applied.
5. Understand the GBR related compensation event mechanisms set out in the contract.
It is unlikely that any individual or group of individuals from a single organisation (client, designer etc.)
will be able to meet all these criteria. In addition on a large project like Crossrail there are likely to be
many separate contracts that require GBRs (thirty four on Crossrail). So consistency of approach
across several contracts could become a problem for a client if consistency was required.
Crossrail’s approach to this conundrum was to provide the designers with a skeleton GBR format and
ask them to complete the GBR in draft. This dealt with items 1 to 3 (or 4) above.
This draft GBR would then be reviewed, revised (often substantially) and issued by a very small group
of Crossrail technical staff such that items 2 to 7 above were covered.
In finalising the GBR the Crossrail technical staff would be liaising closely with both the designers and
Crossrail’s specialist contract formulation teams.
• Where contracts include several significant construction techniques Baseline Statements should
be divided up into chapters specific to each construction technique. This is to avoid confusion
arising from irrelevant or misleading conditions being inadvertently baselined for some techniques.
For example problematic strengths may be vary across different construction techniques. This
division also allows greater flexibility in setting risk boundaries as Baseline Statements do not
necessarily have to be factually correct.
• In deciding which conditions to baseline start from a consideration of how each construction
technique could be compromised or constrained by an encounter with an ‘unforeseen’ condition.
Then baseline these conditions. This is attempting to forsee the unforeseen. E.g. piling – high
strengths, hard bands etc; bulk excavation – excessively high and excessively low strengths (plant
support).
• Encounters #1. Remember when drafting Baseline Statements to consider the works the GBR is
intended to cover (e.g. permanent or temporary and permanent) together with the content of
Clause 60.1.12, which says:
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• are more adverse than the conditions set out in the GBR
The introduction to a Crossrail GBR says the Baseline Statements are aligned with the tender
design, which in Crossrail’s case was a fully engineered design which typically did not include any
specified temporary works.
This meant for Crossrail that the GBR only applied to encounters with conditions within the space
occupied by the permanent works (if no specific temporary works were prescribed in the tender
design). So it was not possible for a 60.1.12A CE to be raised against an exceeded baselined
condition where the location of the exceedance cannot be encountered within the permanent
works, e.g. in a temporary shaft, not shown in the tender design that was outside the envelope of
the permanent works.
• Encounters #2. Consider the pros and cons of being very specific about the locations of
encounters when drafting Baseline Statements. In some cases being specific can be very cost
effective as the tenderer can price for just the specified location. In other cases it can be
counterproductive. For instance if the GBR baselines X number piles as man-made obstructions at
specific positions A , B and C and X number are encountered, but at locations A, B and D, an
opportunity for a CE is provided even though the number of piles is as defined in the GBR. An
alternative approach could be to be less specific by saying ‘in this particular part of the site X
number of piles will be encountered’.
Good practice would be to include any relevant location information on obstructions in the Site
Information to give the tenderers the opportunity to provide the best price. Much will depend on the
quality of the information available.
• Encounters #3 Baselining continuously variable locations, such as strata boundaries. The advice
here is to never baseline strata boundary lines drawn on geological sections, as this effectively
says the location is exactly this single value at this specific location. In almost all cases this single
value will be not be the actual value in practice. The recommended approach is to tabulate ranges
of locations, if necessary appropriately sub-dividing the site into sub-units based on the structures
being built or variations in the ground conditions or both.
• If the contract has a similar arrangement to Crossrail re. Clauses 60.1.12 and 12A then
remember GBR does not have to baseline every ‘type’ of condition. It is possible for the GBR to
remain deliberately silent on a ‘type’ of condition so as to only use Clause 60.12 for any CEs that
arise. Take care if this approach is adopted because any mention of a ‘type’ of condition anywhere
in a Baseline Statement could allow a 60.1.12A CE to be presented.
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• Take care to check that any terms defined elsewhere in the contract have the exactly the same
meanings in the GBR. An example might be the terms ‘works’ or ‘site’. This should be reinforced
by adopting the formatting set out in the contract for any defined terms (e.g. Capitalisation or
italics)
• Take care with the use of contractual, technical or geological ‘shorthand’ in Baseline Statements.
If this is unavoidable then define the terms fully within the GBR in a contextual section.
• Geological terminology #1. Always use proper strata names rather than shorthand versions. For
example use ‘London Clay Formation’ rather than ‘London Clay’. This helps to avoid assumptions
being made about the nature of the strata based on the shorthand name, e.g. River Terrace
Deposits rather than Thames Gravels.
• Geological terminology #2. Ensure the terminology used in the GBR is compatible with that used
in the Site Information borehole logs. This could be challenging as desk study sourced historic logs
may use outdated terminology. This can be dealt with by adding a ‘bridging’ contextual section in
the GBR.
• Consider carefully how the term ‘and’ is used (or not used) in Baseline Statements. Some
encounters require two or more conditions to be met to be problematic, for example hard nodules
in SCL excavation need to be both excessively strong and excessively large to be a problem. In a
Baseline Statement these two parameters need to be linked with and for the Baseline Statement to
be effective. Where no linkage is required the use of ‘and’ could inadvertently invalidate the
intention of individual statements. Best practice would be to keep Baseline Statements as short
and simple as possible with the use of formatting to separate them (bullet points for instance).
• Within any group of specific construction technique Baseline Statements avoid inadvertently
baselining the same condition more than once as this can lead to errors. This situation could arise
when tabulating strata boundary elevations for one Baseline Statement and for another, separately
listing strata units to be encountered within specific sub-units of a structure.
• When baselining the groundwater levels or pore pressures that will be encountered consider the
values adopted in the Baseline Statement in relation to abstraction or depressurisation activities of
third parties and their timing.
AUTHORS
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Within the Chief Engineers Group John was responsible for all Crossrail geotechnical matters
east of Farringdon. Whilst at Crossrail John was also closely involved with the production of
Geotechnical Baseline Reports for all the major Civils contracts. Prior to Crossrail John spent
20+ years as a geotechnical designer working on a diverse range of structures across the world,
these included deep basements, embankments, tunnels, slopes and retaining walls. John was
seconded to London Underground for a couple of years in the mid 90’s where he led a research
programme on the impact of rising groundwater on the tube network.
http://www.gcg.co.uk
ICE Publishing
Free access sponsored by ICE Publishing
http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com
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MOVING
LONDON
FORWARD
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