Ideas Limited are privileged to have been involved in one of Europe’s major infrastructure projects, the Crossrail Programme.
We were invited by Network Rail in 2013 to get involved with the installation of our inclusively designed ticket office at Paddington Station. This was the start of the review and approval process of the ‘all new ticket facilities’ for the Crossrail development with visitors from Network Rail, TfL, TOC’s, architects, disability groups, human-factors and project managers. Since 2009, the Crossrail programme has had over 15,000 people working on the project with over 120 million working hours having been accomplished. The sheer scale of this infrastructural marvel is unrivalled, being the largest single investments ever undertaken in the UK, connecting two of the major rail lines that end in London. We at Ideas have been stuck in with the project since day one and are consistently blown away by the development and continued success of this project, station by station. The hard work and commitment from all involved are something to be incredibly proud of!
As of the first two quarters of 2021, Ideas Ltd made a series of site visits to the completed Ealing Broadway, Acton Mainline and West Ealing stations to see the final installations of our inclusively designed ticket offices, alongside continuing our work over at Hayes and Harlington. We collaborated with the likes of John Graham Construction, Arcadis and MTR Elizabeth Line on these installations and seeing their finalisation exemplified the benefits of getting Ideas Limited involved at an early stage, incorporating the ‘right specialist design skills relevant to the specialism at the start of the project’, enabling us to guarantee a high-quality design standard from start to finish. It also enabled the Ideas team the ability to spot any potential issues early on, giving us room to use our skills and award-winning design ethos to iron them out at the start of the project. This fundamentally helped to remove any uncertainties and oversights further downstream and is what has allowed these office installations to finish up so smoothly.
It is perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to be involved in such a prestigious project and our appreciation goes out to Network Rail for including Ideas Limited from an early stage, as the saying goes ‘the proof in the pudding’ we truly believe that the success of this project from an Ideas Ltd point of view really does come down to early-stage involvement, we feel this is key to the successful delivery of station developments, an ethos we stand by and very much advocate!
We would like to give a dedicated special thanks to the following collaborators who were also working with us from the start, including: Boaz Yariv, Peter Hume, Andy Parrett, Robert Thornton, Michael Carey, members of BEAP, Southeastern Railway, Great Western Railway (GWR), Greater Anglia, Crossrail Ltd and not forgetting the late Margaret Hickish and Nick Shaw who were both a great inspiration.
About Ideas Limited
@IdeasLimited
- We are the UK’s leading authority in ergonomics, inclusive design and manufacture of customer counters and security windows for applications such as ticket offices.
- As the industry experts, we set the industry standard. In fact, IDEAS are responsible for the ticket office guidelines adopted by Network Rail, for use across the network, and to be adopted by all projects.
- Our pay windows and counters and associated products have been reviewed by Network Rail’s – Built Environment and Accessibility Panel (BEAP) and we have been awarded the Furniture Industry Research Association’s (FIRA), Ergonomic Excellence Award.
- Our Principal has been a Committee Member of British Standard Institute (BSI) for BSI Standard: BS 8300:2018 ‘Design of an accessible and inclusive built environment’.
