A year after the start of construction, the Czech Republic’s first and only road public-private partnership is on schedule for opening in early 2025.
Since 2021, VINCI Highways has led ViA SALis, the consortium for constructing and operating the 32km-long D4 Via Salis. The motorway will link Příbram in central Bohemia to Písek, southern Bohemia. ViA SALis is a 50/50 venture between VINCI and Meridiam.
VINCI Highways, a VINCI Concessions subsidiary, is a major player in road concessions, operations and mobility services. It designs, finances, builds and operates motorways, bridges, tunnels, urban roads and mobility services covering more than 4,000km in 16 countries. Meridiam is an independent investment benefit corporation and an asset manager based in Paris, specialising in the development, financing and management of long-term public infrastructure projects.
The Via Salis – Latin for Salt Trail - follows one of the oldest trade routes in the country, dating back to the 14th century. Also known as the Golden or Passau Trail, it was the south-western link between Prague and the Pošumavi region, where the trail split to cross the Šumava forests and led to Passau, an important medieval transport hub on the Danube
The contract is for designing, financing, building, operating and maintaining a 32km motorway and converting 17km of existing infrastructure into a dual two-lane carriageway. The new highway will provide an improved road connection between rural southern Bohemia and the capital city Prague. The D4 Via Salis will also contribute to improving traffic conditions along the country’s major commercial routes, particularly towards neighbouring Germany and Austria.
The contractor for construction work is DIVia stavební, a Czech company of the EUROVIA Group which is part of VINCI Highways, in turn a subsidiary of VINCI Concessions. is DIVia stavební has finalised the marking out of the route, carried out the preparatory studies and begun foundation work prior. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2024 and the route to be open in early 2025. VINCI Highways will operate the motorway for the next 24 years, ending in 2049. The project cost is around US$704 million.
From an environmental standpoint, the project includes the recycling and reuse of up to 1.9 million cubic metres of excavated materials, as well as a commitment to recycle up to 60% of the total volume of asphalt mix. New storm water retention ponds, wildlife crossings and a “zero-pesticide commitment” will contribute to preserving biodiversity.
VINCI Highways plans to equip the D4 with a video surveillance system along the entire route and install variable traffic signs.
Construction is divided into five sections, but they will all be built at once. Importantly, the D4 is also the first project in the Czech Republic to be carried out using full Building Information Modelling – BIM (see box).
According to the construction and operating consortium ViA SALis, unlike neighbouring countries, no large project based on public-private partnerships has been completed in the Czech Republic. Although the state signed a contract with an Israeli group in 2002 for construction of the D47 motorway in the Ostrava region without a tender, a year later the ministry of transport cancelled it because of a lack of transparency in the deal. In the past, it was considered that parts of the D3 and D7 motorways could be built using PPP, but in the end, the state chose conventional construction methods. This, then, makes the D4 Via Salis project an important milestone in the PPP method for the Czech Republic.
A recent VIP visit to the site included the Czech minister of transport Martin Kupka as well as Nicolas Notebaert, chief executive of VINCI Concessions.
“The D4 motorway will be a reference project for the state when deciding whether to use PPP for other infrastructure investments,” said Kupka. “PPP could be considered, for example, for the D35 or the rail corridors.”
"VINCI Highways successfully builds and operates more than 4,000 km of highways, notably in Slovakia and Germany,” said Notebaert. “We are bringing all this experience to the D4 project with the conviction that it will become a reference project in the Czech Republic.”
The Czech state will start paying for the motorway only after it has been opened. After 25 years, the state will take over its administration. The motorway will be tolled in the same way as other roads in the Czech Republic with income going into the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure; it will not be in any way linked to the payment to the concessionaire, which is paid exclusively on the basis of the principle of compliance with the quality of services.
In January, the project won the prestigious international PFI (Project Finance International) Awards 2021 for the best European Public Private Partnership project. The PFI Awards annually recognise the world’s most outstanding achievements in project finance.
Structural highlights
- Full use of BIM
- Video coverage for all the motorway using 112 cameras
- Ten weather stations
- Nearly 50 emergency telephones
- Construction of 20 wildlife crossings
- Installation of 16km of amphibian protection barriers
- Installation of 8 ultra-fast charging stations for electric vehicles
- Installation of around 4.5km of noise barriers
- Around 30 variable message signs on portal structures
- Construction of a photovoltaic farm to power the highway operations centre
- Maintenance of green spaces without pesticides
- Recycling of materials and reuse of asphalt
BIM for D4
Architects and engineers use BIM to create 3D models of a complete structure using software such as Revit (Autodesk), MicroStation (Bentley) as well as Graphisoft Archicad, Allplan and Vectorworks (Nemetschek Group). BIM enables the creation of a shared data model, available for all the players involved in the construction and maintenance of the project – from designers and the construction company to the property owners and managers. BIM models can also contain information related to a structure’s life cycle including planned and unexpected maintenance.
