Procurement of a 10km four-lane road between Pärnu and the village of Uulu in Estonia has attracted six bids, according to the Estonian Transport Administration.
The six companies - Verston, Nordecon, GRK, TREV-2, KMG and TREF Nord – submitted bids averaging €33.5 million for the work which is expected to start in the third quarter this year.
Pärnu, with a population of around 40,000, is the fourth largest city in Estonia and sits around 130km south of the capital city Tallinn. Pärnu is a popular summer holiday many hotels, restaurants and beaches and is served by Pärnu Airport. The village of Uulu has a population of less than 1,000.
“Next, the correctness of the submitted calculations and the compliance of the tenderers with the qualification and compliance conditions of the public procurement must be checked. After performing the described operations, we can announce with whom the contract will be signed. The latter will be revealed in the next few months. We plan to start construction work in the third quarter of this year, "said
Janar Tükk, head of the infrastructure construction and maintenance at the administration, noted that traffic survey shows the section will have around 15,000 vehicles per day with heavy goods vehicles making up about 20% of the volume.
Work will include two traffic junctions, several pedestrian tunnels and wildlife crossings.
The administration went out to tender late last year and expected bids of around €38.4 million, with construction to start by this month. "This is one of the biggest investments into highway infrastructure in the coming years," Hannes Vaidla, head of the administration's western infrastructure department, said at the time.
Design work for the project has been done by infrastructure consulting engineers Skepast & Puhkim, based in Tallinn, and construction should take around 30 months. The project is funded with resources from the European Cohesion Fund.
The Estonian Transport Administration was created on 1 January 2021 by merging the Civil Aviation Administration, the Road Administration and the Maritime Administration.
