The Challenge
A suburban rail station needed accessibility upgrades under Transport for NSW’s Safe Accessible Transport Program. The security question was one of proportionality: Bardwell Park sits in a low-incident environment dominated by youth-driven trespass and graffiti, yet it still required a defensible security assessment that satisfied TfNSW’s standards, integrated with the design process, and stood up to assurance scrutiny. The risk was over-specification — applying controls designed for major interchange stations to a Category D Minor asset, inflating cost without proportionate risk reduction.
Our Approach
Core42 applied a structured crowded places assessment to establish that the station fell below the threshold warranting higher-consequence attack scenarios — an evidence-based determination that avoided disproportionate protective measures. We drew on crime statistics, demographic profiles, and socio-economic data to contextualise the risk environment, identifying emerging trends that informed specific design attention even where the station’s own incident history was low. We built on a prior concept-stage assessment by another consultant, extending it through two design stages while maintaining analytical continuity.
What We Delivered
A security risk assessment covering 23 risks with SFAIRP justification, and a security requirements report containing 107 individually tracked requirements issued to the design team — each mapped to a security zone, assigned to a responsible discipline, and tracked with documented designer responses. Security zoning layouts were produced at site, platform, and building levels.
Why It Matters
This project demonstrates proportionate security for lower-classification assets — calibrating controls to actual risk rather than defaulting to maximum specification. The requirements traceability model, linking risk identification through to documented design compliance, applies to any infrastructure project where security recommendations need to land in drawings, not sit in a standalone report.