Page 8 - TunnelTalk Annual Review 2013

Table 2. A comparison of world high speed rail networks
Project
Opening year
Route length
Cost/km (US$ million)
Tunnel %
TGV Sud Est, France
1983
410 km
13.7
6
TGV Atlantique, France
1990
320 km
5.9
6
TGV Mediterenee, France
2001
250 km
26.1
5
Channel Tunnel Rail Link UK
Phase 1 Phase 2
2003 2006
109 km
75.8
25
Shinkansen-Tokaido, Japan
1964
515 km
6.9
13
Shinkansen-Sanyo, Japan
1975
562 km
13.3
50
Shinkansen-Thoku, Japan
1991
501 km
39
23
Shinkansen-Joetsu, Japan
1982
275 km
29
39
Shinkansen-Hokuriku, Japan
1998
126 km
45.2
50
TGV Seoul to Pusan, Korea
Phase 1 Phase 2
2004 2010
412 km
46
46
TGV Taiwan
2005
345 km
52.6
14
TAV Brazil
2020
511 km
30.6
18
UK High Speed 2 (proposed)
Phase 1 Phase 2
2026 2033
540 km
59.3
10
California HSR (proposed)
Unknown
1,280 km
78
4-6%
Transport Minister announces delay
high-cost venture will ultimately be worth it. He points out that the country’s airports are stretched to capacity while urban roads suffer from chronic congestion. “We need to create alternatives to air and vehicle transportation. High speed rail is necessary for Brazil and this is just the first step.” He also argues that the civil engineering challenges are less onerous than those that faced high speed rail systems in Korea and Japan as examples (Table 2).
Unfortunately, plans in Brazil were delayed for the fourth time in October 2013. Only one group presented a bid for the right to operate the concession in 55%/45% partnership with the Brazilian government in time for the August deadline. The bid from the SNCF and Alstrom partnership from France was to be matched with one from a German consortium headed by Siemens which had requested more time to prepare its bid, while a Spanish team, led by Renfe/CAF, wanted time to clarify its right to participate following the catastrophic rail crash near Santiago de Compostela on July 24 in which 79 people died. The Spanish
accident is believed to have taken place on a stretch of line where the speed limit is 240km/h, 10km/h below the threshold of what is defined as high speed. This rule concerning safety effectively ruled out the China Railways Corporation as a result of a July 2011 accident that claimed 40 lives in the suburbs of Wenzhou.
“This is still an important project for the country,” said Transport Minister César Borges, “but it is better to have a competitive process with the greatest number of bidders possible.” He said
plans to begin a separate process of construction procurement in 2014 remained unaffected.
With a six-year construction phase, completion of Brazil’s first high speed rail link is scheduled for 2020. n
References
• Reviving the Saudi trans-peninsular rail link - TunnelTalk, September 2013
• Extreme tunnel planned for Andes rail link - TunnelTalk, November 2012
• Crossing the Himalayas by rail - TunnelTalk, May 2012
RFQ call for Colombian highway drives
Peter Kenyon, TunnelTalk
The Colombian Government has issued
a request for qualifiers for the first
phase of a huge road infrastructure investment programme that requires construction of more than 120km of tunnels.
The prequalification process, announced in early 2013, covers the first four of 30 projects that together make up the country’s ambitious Fourth Generation of Road Concessions Program.
Total construction costs for the rehabilitation and widening of existing roads and for the construction of tunnels, viaducts, bridges and new stretches of road totalling 8,170km are estimated at US$24.4 billion.
The concessions will cover seven different geographical corridors, each broken down into a number of smaller packages.
The first four projects, valued at US$2.24 billion, include construction of a brand new 32km single lane mountain road connecting Mulalo and Loboguerrero. Project scope includes 12km of tunnelling, with two major alignments of 5.4km and 3.2km (Fig 1). This project alone is valued at US$525 million.
A second request for prequalifers is for one of the world’s largest ever road tunnelling projects, the Autopistas Para La Prosperidad (The Prosperity Highway). Formerly known as the Austopistas de la Montana (The Mountain Highway), and centred around Colombia’s second city,
Medellin, total project scope includes 90km of high altitude tunnels and 63km of bridges and viaducts. Construction costs of this 1,160km technically challenging high-altitude Andean road network, are estimated at US$13 billion, with the first wave of construction investment for about 268km packaged at US$2 billion.
“With the launch of the prequalification process, we are starting an investment program of about COP44 trillion (USD$24.5 billion) split between 30 projects,” said Luis Fernando Andrade, President of the Colombian National Infrastructure Department (ANI) in a press statement.
“Interested parties have two months (until 6 April 2013) to submit expressions of interest in the first four projects and from these we will draw up a list of prequalifiers who will be invited to a bidding stage.” Award of the first four projects and of a further five concessions for The Prosperity Highway were scheduled to be let by December 2013.
ANI said it will prequalify a maximum of 10 national and/or international consortia for the bidding phase. n
References
• Tunnels key to Colombia’s Mountain Highway - TunnelTalk, November 2011
Fig 1. US$525 million Mulalo-Loboguerrero alignment; Challenging Andean terrain
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