Crossrail is currently Europe’s biggest infrastructure project with an overall project cost of £14.8 billion, which involves construction of a new line that will link areas to the east and west of London includes 22.5km of tunnels under central London, and 7 new stations in the major business areas. A major challenge for the design is to ensure the complicated tunnel construction has minimum impact for minimum time on the existing facilities and surrounding areas of London. C121 covered the mined SCL underground structures for the excavated beneath and alongside existing London Underground stations at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel, as well as various intermediate crossover caverns at such as the cross-over cavern at Stepney Green and large diameter construction shaft at Fisher Street.

Dr Bedi was involved in the detailed design of the SCL works as a specialist sub-consultant. Dr Bedi was responsible for setting up numerical modelling procedures, methodologies and guidelines that would form the basis of the design for the various design teams with members working from various offices around Europe and the UK. Dr Bedi’s role included undertaking, critically reviewing and leading back analysis and calibration studies using monitoring data from past London projects to ensure robust input data and an assured approach was adopted by the design team members. He was also engaged as a specialist consultant to advise on, and assist with, production of the SCL specification for the project. Finally, Dr Bedi was consulted as a key member of the SCL innovations team, working together with other industry experts to facilitate optimisation and sustainable linings. This work led to various advances in SCL approach and technology in London.