Bringing women into the loop

The underground construction sector has historically had a significant lack of female representation, which is why Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop is undertaking an initiative to create an all-women tunnel boring machine crew.

Aproject the size and scale of Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) offers a rare opportunity to bring new people into the industry, helping to train the next generation of highly skilled Victorian workers.

The world’s first all-women tunnel boring machine (TBM) crew will help break down barriers and attract more women into the construction and tunnelling industry.

The team will be one of several TBM crews helping to carve the SRL East twin tunnels and will include around 25 highly skilled roles – including the TBM operator, gantry and segment crane operators, grouters and support roles.

The team will be led by SRL East Tunnels South Construction Manager, Isolde Piet, who has decades of experience in underground construction and managing tunnelling projects in Australia and around the world.

World’s first

Mrs Piet was the first female TBM pilot in the world and explained that she began her career in underground construction in the Netherlands.

“I was working with a French company at the time, who was in charge of that tunnelling project,” Mrs Piet said.

“On that project I basically started off as an engineer involved in the building of the shaft, so where the TBM was going to start from.

“I did a lot of the works around the tunnelling but wasn’t really involved in the actual tunnelling itself, but that’s where my interest was really at the time. I wanted to go on a machine, I wanted to understand how it works.”

Mrs Piet said that the company offered her the opportunity to become a TBM operator, although there were some concerns.

“There was a bit of back and forth at the time, ‘okay you’re really sure you want to do this?’ because there were a number of barriers, some really basic things which seem trivial now.

“But back then it was things like, ‘we don’t have a change room for you’. I actually had to go find a room to get changed in, because everything was set up for male teams only.

“Things like ‘we only have one toilet on the TBM, so you’ve got to share it with 40 other blokes. Are you happy with that?’

“It was all these little bits that we sort of just had to tick off one at a time. But ultimately, they gave me the opportunity to do it, which was great.

“I wasn’t actually aware that I was the first female TBM operator at the time. I was merely a tunnel engineer who was really interested in understanding how it works, becoming a better engineer off the back of it, and working in a team and becoming a better team player.”

Mrs Piet said that she felt that she was under quite a lot of pressure to do well.

“Because ultimately you want to make it work and you want to make sure that you’re not going to get that ‘told you so’ type of response.

“After a few weeks though, that wore off and obviously I can say now, looking back, I did a good job.”

All women crew

The all women TBM crew is also a world’s first, and Mrs Piet explained that it was put forward as an initiative to further women in underground construction, as there are very few women in that sector.

“We had to win the contract first of course to be able to move forward with the initiative, but ultimately, we did.”

Mrs Piet said that the reasons there are so few women in underground construction, are two-fold.

“One is that women don’t see it as an opportunity because there aren’t many role models. It’s sort of like the chicken and the egg. If you don’t bring women into the industry, then there are no role models or leaders that you can look up to.

“I think the expression that you might hear often is, ‘you’ve got to see it to be it’ or something like that.

“There are, of course, a few females out there. It’s a bit like me.

“People who are really interested will find a way or make a way. But there are also people who just need to see that there are opportunities and that’s exactly what this is.”

Mrs Piet said that the second primary reason is that there are very few opportunities designed to encourage women into the industry.

“This initiative is creating an opportunity for females to actually go underground and actually bringing them into a field of industry where there’s not a lot of female representation to date.”

Building the team

In a remarkable result, almost 870 applications were received for the all-women crew through the Expressions of Interest process that closed in October 2024. This is an extraordinary response for roles women do not typically perform across Australia.

Mrs Piet said that she was pleased to see the number of applications, because it shows that there is a lot of interest in the sector from women.

“The process is taking a bit longer than we imagined because we weren’t expecting to get almost 900 applicants.”

The applicants have come from a variety of disciplines including those with tunnelling and construction backgrounds, as well as 62 applicants with no construction experience, who come from diverse sectors including admin, human resources, corporate sales, hospitality, beauty therapy and customer service.

Applications are now being considered, and with such a strong response, women not selected for the TBM crew roles may also be considered for other suitable roles on the project as part of the assessment process.

The all-women crew will have a range of roles – each of which requires a specific skill set. Some of the crew members will require previous tunnelling experience, but women not currently working in this field will undertake training to give them the necessary skills and experience to succeed.

“We’ve gone through all the CVs and identified the range of women, from zero experience to a lot of experience. We’re separating them into categories and certain categories will get additional training before we bring them on site.”

A comprehensive training program is being developed, and SRL will be working with the Victorian Tunnelling Centre (VTC) where it can support their training. The selected women will also receive hands on experience from other tunnelling projects – including North East Link – to ensure all aspects of safely and efficiently operating TBMs are developed.

An industry defining project

Following this comprehensive training, SRL will launch the world-first All-Women TBM crew of certified, qualified, trained and experienced women to operate one of its TBMs.

Four TBMs will be digging the southern section of the SRL East twin tunnels under works by contractor Suburban Connect. Each of the TBMs requires two crews to manage their operations over a shift cycle. Across the four machines, SRL will have eight crews. The all-women crew will be one of these eight.

Additional TBMs will be used for the northern section of the SRL East twin tunnels.

Tunnelling for SRL East starts in 2026, with the first tunnel boring machines arriving on site in late 2025, and the all-women TBM crew is expected to be operating by 2027. Following the completion of the tunnelling program, members of the all-women crew will be supported with identifying the next tunnelling or construction project opportunity for them.

Mrs Piet said that she believes one of the truly unique aspects of this initiative is the amount of time it has dedicated to participants.

“The whole project will run all the way until 2029.

“That is a decent amount of time that we can use to train these women and bring them into this career path and have them gain all this experience.

“Ultimately, what I hope it does is leave a legacy so that these women actually will continue their careers in other projects post-SRL.”