A new road tunnel will improve connections in Finnish city Tampere

Plans are in hand in Finland’s second largest city Tampere for a new road tunnel to boost transport connections. An agreement has been made between a consortium headed by contractor 3064 Lemminkäinen, the City of Tampere and Finnish Transport Agency. The alliance agreement is for the first stage of the VT12 Tampere tunnel project, which is expcted to cost in the region of €185 million. The consortium comprises Lemminkäinen, A-Insinöörit Suunnittelu and Saanio & Riekkola. The project will be divided into development and implementation phases. During the 12 month development phase, plans, costs and various project requirements will be established. Construction is scheduled to begin in the autumn 2013 and will be based on a separate contract. The contract will be carried out under a new shared risk alliance model, based on a joint agreement between the respective parties on the costs and key objectives. During the project, the Finnish Transport Agency will act as the customer's representative. Connecting Tampereen Rantaväylä to a tunnel running between Santalahti and Naistenlahti will improve links into Tampere’s city centre, allowing for  more efficient traffic flow on VT12 Tampereen Rantaväylä and better control over congestion. Tampere is an important industrial centre for Finland. The headquarters of crushing equipment firm 6934 Metso situated within the city while there are extensive production facilities for construction and mining equipment firm 325 Sandvik located on the outskirts of Tampere. The drill and blast tunnelling technology offered by Sandvik is manufactured in Tampere. As Lemminkäinen is a regular customer of Sandvik, there is a strong likelihood much of the equipment that will be used to construct the tunnel will itself have originated in the city.

"This project bears testimony to the strong expertise and cost-efficiency of our consortium with respect to challenging infra projects. Our consortium has strong specialist expertise in both the planning and execution of tunnel and road construction," said Harri Kailasalo, executive vice president for Infrastructure Construction at Lemminkäinen.