Sweco Belgium is working together with Arcadis on a partial assignment to raise 31 bridges across the Albert Canal to a height of 9.10 m above the canal level.

Fifteen bridges were rebuilt via DBFM PPP (Design, Build, Finance, Maintain Public-Private Partnership); the other sixteen are being regularly tendered out. We are providing the preliminary study for all 31 bridges and monitoring the bridges’ PPP-DBFM in execution.

Situation
De Vlaamse Waterweg nv is raising all bridges across the Albert Canal, so that container ships can load four layers of containers and still gain access on the Antwerp-Luik route. With the raising of the bridges, the general mobility in the surroundings of the Albert Canal will improve and this will indirectly provide less traffic congestion on the E313. The shipping traffic efficiency can increase by 33 percent as a result of this.

Assignment
The raising of fifteen bridges will be done according to DBFM procedures (Design, Build, Finance, Maintain). Sweco and Arcadis are responsible for developing and specifying the Programme of Requirements (PoR) which also includes measures for Less Disruption. The contract consists of the preparation of the tender documents to accompany the tender, award and implementation phase. The remaining sixteen bridges will be modified through a regular tender. For this, we are assisting with the formulation of the ‘Less Disruption’ story. This includes the phasing of the work, the associated diversions and the smooth organization of traffic flows.

Results
With the raising of the bridges, the general mobility in the surroundings of the Albert Canal will improve. Commercially speaking, this makes water transport more attractive, so that more companies are encouraged to give up road freight.