Now that the Brenner Base Tunnel has reached the border of Austria, works will need to be continued on this territory. Three contracts have been awarded for the remaining construction lots in the Austrian project.

As a project company of the railway tunnel between Italy and Austria, BBT SE has now awarded the contract for other important engineering services related to the construction of the Brenner Base Tunnel. The “local building supervision” (ÖBA) as well as the contract management for the remaining construction lots in the Austrian project area were commissioned.

The contracts

The contracts do not all involve construction works, but technical supervision and contract processing services for the execution of the construction work. The so-called ÖBA and the contract management on the North Tyrolean side went to a working group consisting of four engineering companies: Bernard Gruppe, Pini Swiss, Geoconsult and IGT.

Specifically, the on-site construction supervision involves monitoring the tunnel construction work during the advance as well as the interior work. As part of the ÖBA, it is checked whether the work is carried out according to plan, in accordance with the current state of the art and in accordance with the specifications according to the tender.

The ÖBA does not carry out any construction work, but acts as a representative of the client’s interests. The awarded service concerns the ÖBA for the construction lot H41 “Sillschlucht-Pfons”, for which the contract was recently awarded to carry out the construction work, as well as for the construction lot H52 “Hochstegen” (tender for the construction work in progress) and H53 “Pfons-Brenner “(The tender for the construction work will be published shortly).

Brenner Base Tunnel reaches Austria

After 14 kilometers and 3.5 years of tunneling, ‘Serena’, a 300-meter Tunnel Boring Machine, reached the Brenner Pass under the Alps in Austria end of November. It was the first time the excavation works arrived at a state border. In May 2018, the machine started its work on an exploratory tunnel, going from Italy towards Austria.

The Brenner Base Tunnel is a straight and flat railway tunnel connecting Innsbruck in Austria and Fortezza in Italy in 55 kilometres. In May 1994, a railway bypass was opened south of Innsbruck, known as the Inn valley tunnel, which links to the Brenner Base Tunnel. Passenger and freight trains along this stretch will therefore not only travel through the Brenner Base Tunnel, but for a few kilometres, through the Inn valley tunnel as well. This line, totalling 64 kilometres, will become the longest underground railway connection in the world.

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Brenner Base Tunnel reaches the Italian-Austrian border