Our rail directors from the Tetra Tech High Performance Buildings Group share their insights on how rail stations can be designed to meet the diverse and evolving needs of communities.
Gone are the days of stations with nothing more than a shed and a bench. Stations are now city landmarks—vibrant hubs that actively connect communities through transportation, retail, housing, and tourism.
Creating safe and accessible spaces
Stations need to work for the people who use them. Travelers need to be able to get on and off their train easily and they expect accessible, intuitive, and safe environments.
Designing for accessibility
Federal and state governments are investing heavily in safe and accessible transportation programs, including the Safe Accessible Transport program in New South Wales, Australia, and Transport for London’s Equity in Motion strategy in the United Kingdom.
In practice, this means upgrading stations to enable equitable access to trains and minimizing risk. As many stations were built decades ago, we follow the so far as is reasonably practicable (SFARP) approach, upgrading platforms and infrastructure to make them as compliant as possible.
The rail sector has a unique and very complex process in design and construction. Understanding this, and the extensive number of stakeholders involved in decision-making, helps to minimize risk, get the job done to a higher standard, and reduce delays.
Improvements we’ve recommended across regional and city center locations globally include:
- Construction of lifts and footbridges to enable a traveler to move between platforms without using the stairs
- Installation of emergency lighting and exits to allow for safe egress and deter crime
- Improved wayfinding to make the station easier to navigate
- Displays and speaker systems to enable accessible updates and announcements
- Review of mechanical systems to provide an adequate service following expansion
- Structural strengthening so the station maintains the structural integrity in the event of a fire or to protect it from an adjacent building
- Alternative materials, like lightweight construction for a footbridge, that can enable faster build and minimize disruption
Fire life safety
Fire life safety is also critical. The interface points between the different parts of the station precinct, as well as the areas above and below ground, can be tricky to resolve. These issues are complex and include:
- Designing for minimal impact to the building above in the case of a fire
- Minimizing the effect of exhaust and draft relief shafts on pedestrians and surrounding buildings in a congested central city area
- Ensuring safe egress in all spaces, with particular focus on underground areas
Reliable and efficient services
The primary goal of any rail station is to deliver reliable connections for all types of travelers. This improves liveability by enabling large numbers of people to travel to and from work and leisure, without the stress of heavy congestion.
Crows Nest Station in Sydney, Australia, has enabled travelers to cross the harbor in three minutes on a train that comes every four minutes. Even if you miss one of these trains, it’s going to take you no longer than ten minutes to get from one side of the harbor to another. This is having a huge impact on communities and economies.
The primary goal of any rail station is to deliver reliable connections for all types of traveler. This improves liveability by enabling large numbers of people to travel to and from work and leisure, without the stress of heavy congestion.
A comfortable space to be in
Building services are integral to the success of the transportation asset. If you don’t like being in a place, you’re not likely to return. This means designing ventilation systems for peak hour, lighting for comfort, and maximizing use of natural resources. Building services teams should:
- Prioritize comfort with the right level of ventilation and air conditioning, particularly in underground stations
- Minimize unwanted sounds and reverberation to make announcements easy to hear
- Maintain good air quality in underground stations
In the video below, John Versace, transportation market sector leader, explains how rail stations—both underground and above ground—are increasingly designed with a focus on comfort, safety, and accessibility to create welcoming, people-friendly spaces that attract more users.
Designing for the peak
Rail infrastructure needs to manage vastly different usage profiles without overbuilding. For example, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems must perform effectively during peak hours, on hot days, and at large events while also operating efficiently during quieter times. Managing energy use and cost requires precision. Oversizing is expensive, while undersizing impacts the passenger experience.
For the Olympics, cities often plan to decentralize events across a region to spread the load. Energy recovery systems and adaptable zoning become important tools to manage both comfort and sustainability during crowd surges. As temporary infrastructure often becomes permanent, it needs to be designed with this in mind.
In the video below Scott Ceasar, vice president, explains how train stations are evolving into vibrant community hubs, with retail, dining, and modern amenities requiring upgraded systems like climate control and future-ready infrastructure to support growing capacity and comfort.
Part of the local fabric
Railway stations need to integrate seamlessly with the local area. As the interface between other modes of transportation—including buses, taxis, rideshare, and planes—they serve as a central hub where people meet and gather. Passenger flow is vitally important to enable movement through transportation nodes. Wayfinding, signage, and lighting are key enablers.
A catalyst for the local economy
This dynamic hub extends into mixed-use arrangements where station developments include retail spaces, offices, and other amenities. These business centers contribute to their local economies and bring in visitors.
Local authorities are responding by developing urban planning and zoning around stations to enable increased density and interconnectivity between nodes of transportation.
Architectural creativity
With the evolution of a railway station into a station precinct, we’re seeing increasing architectural significance. This requires a flexible and innovative approach to building services, enabling creative architectural intent while providing an exceptional customer experience.
We also need to work closely with the community and architects to preserve heritage and promote the cultural significance of the area. This may include incorporating art into transitional areas, using recycled materials, or creating a space that honors the indigenous peoples who lived on the land before us.
In the video below, John Versace explains how rail stations are shifting from purely functional assets to architecturally designed, people-focused hubs that integrate residential, retail, and commercial spaces to create vibrant, connected communities.
Future-ready precincts
Rail assets need to integrate with the surrounding area, both at project completion and over the long-term. This means planning any future development into station design from the start, including services routing, fire compartmentation, and spatial allowances.
The rise in underground travel
As cities grow in population and density, putting lines underground provides greater connectivity while having less impact on people’s lives. It also reduces pressure on land and grows the efficacy of a rail system. Underground metro stations are becoming seamlessly integrated with over station developments, creating a continuous experience above and below ground.
Positive environmental impact
Sustainable design is essential as we reduce carbon emissions and transition to net zero. Goals include eliminating fossil fuels, electrification, and improving efficiency in the rail system itself.
With the design of these projects often spanning decades, solutions can be complex.
Design considerations include:
- Designing glazing and canopies to manage thermal comfort and minimize heat gain and its environmental impact
- Reusing water where possible, such as for irrigation
- Maintaining air quality through separating intake and exhaust louvres, specifying air filters, and making ductwork easy to clean
- Using computational fluid dynamics to predict air flow, smoke exhaust behavior, and platform conditions
Built to last
A station demands deep pockets. There will be supporters and critics, but if a station is well-planned, designed, and built, criticism will fade over time.
Future flexibility
Designing plant and equipment to serve the needs of the building and operations teams, while also accommodating future upgrades, is critical. Developments need to be planned so individual services can be maintained and replaced without impacting other areas, especially rail services.
In some cases, stations are designed and built years before over station tenants arrive, yet they must work for tenants from day one. Enabling flexibility without compromising safety or maintenance requires a delicate balance of technical expertise and industry know-how.
Modular design
All sectors are looking for a modular approach to design, so that we can fabricate off-site and fast-track construction. From a services perspective, we look for design components that can be replicated—such as ductwork and pipes—to speed up delivery and construction.
Giving everyone a voice
Rail involves one of the most complex stakeholder environments in infrastructure. Projects need to satisfy the community, transportation agencies, operators, certifiers, fire brigades, local councils, and often separate tunnel and infrastructure teams.
Fire life safety requirements in particular, involve high demand stakeholder engagement. In some cases, developing a safety case is as much effort as completing the design.
Designing services to align with the community’s needs and expectations makes consultation with the various stakeholders much easier. This work needs to be done through close collaboration with the project team and wider interest group. It must include specialists from the rail sector’s niche disciplines, including fire life safety, acoustics, audiovisual, and sustainability.
It’s vital to have engineers familiar with different project stages, from early concept development to relationship building, value-managing design, and delivery. Projects succeed when technical quality is matched by practical experience and real-time collaboration across specialisms.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you need a team that goes beyond code. Your team needs to have experience, legacy, and adaptability front of mind.