Shortlisted nominations for the ITA 2017 Awards 03 Aug 2017

Projects and developments of outstanding achievement are shortlisted from more than 100 entries for the 2017 ITA Awards. From these finalists, the winners in each of the nine categories will be announced and presented with the Brunel Trophy at a gala dinner during the 2017 AFTES Tunnelling Congress in Paris in November. The shortlisted projects will be presented form the technical sessions of a day-long programme that will culminate with the awards presentation dinner.

Finalists for each of the nine Award categories represent countries, projects, developments and achievements from across the globe.

SME/NATM excavation for the Ottawa Confederation Line LRT

Final breakthrough after excavation of 111km of running tunnels in 24 months using 21 TBMs for the Doha Metro

Fig 1. Route of the Hong Kong Shatin-Central MRT rail line

Major Project of the Year of more than
€500 million
Ottawa LRT, Confederation Line (Canada)
Delhi Metro Phase 3 expansion networks (India)
Tehran Metro Line 6 (Iran)
Doha Metro and rail lines (Qatar)

Project of the Year of between €50 million and €500 million
Stockholm Citybanan Norrströmstunnel (Sweden)
Blue Plains CSO sewer and drainage tunnel (USA)
Hong Kong MTR Shatin to Central Link - Hin Keng to Diamond Hill Tunnel (China – Fig 1)
Tùnel Emisor Poniente wastewater conveyance (Mexico)

Project of the Year of up to €50 million
Fjaerland hydropower plants (Norway)
Kennedy Tunnel (Chile)
Southwark to City of London deep cable tunnel (UK)

Technical Innovation Project
of the Year
Implementing BIM concepts for the Karavanke Tunnel (Slovenia)
Trenchless construction of pedestrian underpasses using a rectangular box-jack TBM at Havelock MRT Station (Singapore)
Enlargement of a TBM tunnel to create an underground expressway junction beneath a residential area - a first in global tunnelling (Japan)

Technical Innovation Product or Equipment of the Year
Strength monitoring using thermal imaging (UK)
Automatic drilling jumbo (Finland)
RowaTrain self-driving trackless supply logistic system (Austria)

Sustainability Initiative of the Year
ITO Metro Station (India)
Anacostia River CSO and drainage tunnel (USA)

Safety Initiative of the Year
Telemach cutterhead-disc robotic changing system (Hong Kong, China)
BSCU SCL radial joint design (UK)
MineARC GuardIAN remote monitoring and diagnostics for refuge chambers (Australia)

Innovative Underground Space Concept
of the Year
Bostanci transit intermodal hub (Turkey)
Cavern masterplan to unlock hidden resources for sustainable city development (Hong Kong, China)
Underground cemetery in tunnels (Israel)

Young Tunneller of the Year:
Juan David Herrera (Colombia)
Roberto Schuerch (Switzerland)
Tobias Andersson (Norway)
Michele Janutolo Barlet (France)
Anthony Bauer (USA)

Also to be awarded and presented will be the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award with the recipient of the prestigious accolade from among international and industry peers to be announced on the night

The host city of the Awards this year is Paris. Following on from a successful event in Singapore last year and the event in the Haggerbach Test Gallery in Switzerland the year before, Paris will stage the Awards finalists’ conference and winners’ presentation gala dinner event in conjunction with the international congress of AFTES, the tunnelling society of France. Held every two years, the AFTES Congress this year will be held at the Palais des Congrès convention centre at Porte Maillot and from 13 to 16 November 2017.

Winners of the 2016 ITA Awards celebrate after being presented with their Award Brunel Trophy (right)

One of the major underground infrastructure projects in France at present is Le Grand Paris Express which is substantial expansion of the Paris Metro to transform the urban landscape and composition of the city. With about 170km of new underground infrastructure in total, the 205km Grand Paris Express will comprise four new lines, Lines 15, 16, 17 and 18 (Fig 2). Work on the project started in 2016 with a ground-breaking ceremony on Line 15 which runs 75km underground following a loop around the edge of downtown Paris. The 26km-long Line 16 provides access to suburbs in the north-east of the city and the 28km long Line 17 will branch off Line 16 to connect with the Charles de Gaulle Airport to the north. The 35km-long Line 18 will connect Orly Airport and suburbs to the south-west. In addition to the new lines, which are planned to open in stages between 2022 and 2030, the existing Metro Lines 11 and 14 are to be extended.

Fig 2. Expansion routes of the Grand Paris Express project

By the end of 2017, 41 construction sites will have been established along the 33km route of the first Line 15 South start of the project, 4,000 people will be working on this first new metro line of the Paris Grand Express programme, and the first of the 10 TBMs to be used on Line 15 South will have started excavation from the Champigny Station working access.

In addition to the Paris Metro expansion works, the AFTES Congress will also present other French tunnelling projects including the €8.6 billion Lyon-Turin railway, which features a 57.5km twin-tube base tunnel under Mont-Cenis with 45km in France and 12.5km in Italy, and 27km Line 3 for the Toulouse Metro with a total 60% aligned underground.

The ITA Awards conference day for presentation by the shortlisted finalists will take place on Wednesday 15 November with the winners presentation banquet in the evening.

Registration for the AFTES Congress and to the ITA Awards as either a combined or separate event is now open at the official AFTES Congress website and the ITA Awards website.