The world's longest road/rail tunnel

Scandinavia and Europe may in the foreseeable future be linked by the world's longest combined road and railway tunnel. In cooperation with Arup from the United Kingdom and Tunnel Engineering Consultants from the Netherlands, Ramboll will design an immersed tunnel to link the Danish and German sides of Fehmarnbelt.

Femern Bælt A/S under the Danish Ministry of Transport has chosen to sign contracts with two consortiums of consultants which over the next years will be planning and designing a bridge as well as a tunnel across Fehmarnbelt. When this work has been completed, one of the two proposals will be chosen to be carried out. This assessment will among other things be based on which solution benefits environmental concerns as well as which solution is technically feasible to complete.

In joint venture with Ove Arup & Partners Ltd. from the United Kingdom and Tunnel Engineering Consultants (TEC) from the Netherlands, Ramboll will be designing the immersed tunnel and identifying the consequences of a tunnel.

Challenges all current frameworks for tunnel design

Between Germany and Denmark there is an agreement that a fixed link across Fehmarnbelt will consist of a twin-track railway and a four-lane motorway between Puttgarden and Rødbyhavn. If a tunnel solution is chosen, the 19 kilometres long Fehmarnbelt tunnel will be more than five times the length of the tunnel under Øresund and more than three times the length of the Trans-Bay Tube Bart Tunnel in San Francisco in California, the current world record holder.

"The Fehmarnbelt tunnel may become a role model for how tunnels are designed while new standards are set for how road and railway traffic may be integrated in the European road and railway network. As consulting engineers, we are excited about the challenge of designing one of the worlds' longest and deepest positioned tunnels which at the same time will become one of the safest and user friendly tunnels to date. We will be challenging all current frameworks for tunnel design," says Axel Emil Christensen, Director of Transport and Infrastructure in Ramboll in Denmark.

More than 30,000 experts

Combined, Ramboll, Arup and TEC have the know-how of more than 30,000 experts which have provided consultancy services for some of the worlds' major infrastructure projects, including the tunnel under Oresund linking Denmark and Sweden, the Citytunnel in Malmø, the Medway tunnel in the United Kingdom and the metro systems in Amsterdam and Copenhagen.
  
Sub consultants for Ramboll, Arup & TEC are: WTM Engineers GmbH (D), HTG Ingenieurbüro für Bauwesen GmbH (D), Wilkinson Eyre Architects (UK), Schønherr Landskab (DK) and Oriental Consultants (JA).