Tunnelling activity in Germany is reasonable at the moment, according to Stuva’s managing director Roland Leucker, but it could be better. The German tunnelling research organisation – which has a powerful voice in the industry was founded in 1960 and in that time there has been a lot of change in the tunnelling landscape.
Looking back across those 58 years, at that time the only cities in Germany with metro lines were Berlin and Hamburg, both of which have now been in operation for more than 100 years. There were no lines in other cities, and so began a major programme of metro works in Munich, the Ruhr area, Cologne, Düsseldorf and elsewhere.
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“But nowadays cities are realising that it is not cheap to run metro lines,” says Leucker, bringing an end to the reverie. “The Federal Republic of Germany will pay approximately 90% of the cost for a new metro line, with the remaining 10% paid by local government.
“However, once the line is in operation, no central funding is available. Everything must be paid for by the city. And some of the older stations are expensive to run and in need of heavy refurbishment. I read an article, for example, that Mülheim at the Ruhr area has been considering closing a metro line due to operational costs.”
HAMBURG AND MUNICH
Germany is also a mature country infrastructure-wise, and many of its larger cities are already well-equipped for transportation and the country also faces population decline outside of the major cities, meaning that any metro tunnelling is likely to be in one or two predictable locations.
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By GlobalData“Hamburg is growing, and they are planning at least two new metro lines,” says Leucker. “On the U5, which is in planning, STUVA is looking at the fire safety concept. If it goes beyond a certain stage, the city will apply for federal money. Maybe five years from now construction works will begin. An extension to the U4 is also being planned.”
Also growing, and closer to realisation, is work on the east-west line for Munich (“second core S-Bahn route”). The city has been planning this new S-Bahn for nearly 20 years and some work to remove cabling and divert pipes has been undertaken, but no actual tunnelling yet. Serious progress is at least a year away and, according to Leucker, there is still the possibility of public unrest around the project. The current Stuttgart-Ulm long distance railway line lost two years while the client explained the necessity of the project to the public.
LOOKING FOR A VISION
In Germany, Leucker laments, the Munich project is the closest they have to a big visionary project such as London’s Crossrail, or any city’s metro project in India or China. He thinks that this is the biggest challenge facing the domestic industry.
“There are a lot of projects coming to an end and the pipeline is weak. Deutsche Bahn has just finished the new line from Berlin to Munich (including 25 tunnels totalling 56km) and is concentrating on Stuttgart-Ulm but there are no other very big tunnels in the queue.
“However, it might change a little bit. Just at the moment the economic situation in Germany is really good. The Minister of Transport said there is a lot of money available at the moment because of low interest rates, they are talking about EUR 270bn [USD 320bn] of investment to be spent on transportation Germany-wide. Not just tunnelling, but refurbishment of bridges and rail and motorways.
“If they are really putting this money into construction, the big problem will be to do the design and planning, and then ask for the building permits which would last at least five years. If you want to spend money immediately it will be very complicated.
“And then it might be a problem to get enough construction companies. The work comes in waves, and companies have to concentrate on other businesses when there is less tunnelling work, but then scramble for staff when there is a suddenly lot of work. It would be nice to have a steady stream of projects.” In summary, Leucker sees a bright future for tunnelling in Germany, but not in the immediate future due to a lull in the business cycle.
HOPES FOR THE FUTURE
In terms of other changes Leucker hopes for the industry, Leucker points towards BIM, which now has its own ITA Working Group and on which DAUB is currently putting together a set of recommendations.
“I can remember the time when engineers did drawings by pencil and I remember some colleagues who are a little bit older who said CAD is of no use, I am still faster using a pencil, doing the drawing by hand. Nowadays everyone is using CAD, and I think the same will come about with BIM. At the moment there are some projects where the BIM design is being done alongside the conventional design and I think it will take five years before it is the standard. And that would also be a chance to make tunnelling a more effective.
“Take the automotive industry. They use a lot of robots in their production lines. In construction and tunnelling – setting aside sprayers, TBMs and other machinery – the degree of mechanisation as well as the output/efficiency improvements in the last 20 years are much lower than in automotive.
“I hope and expect that this will improve. In construction we have the problem that we are always building prototypes. With a TBM and a segment factory, there is some similarity, but every tunnel is unique.
“In the auto industry they make a prototype, but once the factory is up and running then you are building the same thing a million times over. It makes it hard to compare the two.”
