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INFRASTRUCTURE OPTIMISATION With Christian Berg, Hafslund; Giovanni Bisignani, IATA; Ben Swagerman, KLM; Nico Westpalm van Hoorn, Port of Rotterdam; Magnus Norrström, Skanska

www.euinfrastructure.com • Vol 5 Issue 2

John Stanion, CEO of Vinci PLC: “We have to re-engineer our whole infrastructure for the future” BUILDING VALUE With Mott MacDonald’s Managing Director Mike Barker Page 36

TRACK STAR Richard Brown on Eurostar’s expansion Page 56

AIRPORT PLANNING Fraport CEO Wilhelm Bender outlines the challenge Page 84

VINCI’S GRAND

VISION

Inside the world’s largest construction firm, with chief executive JOHN STANION Page 28

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FROM THE EDITOR

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Navigating the perfect storm Credit crunch, housing bubble, energy crisis: the infrastructure industry faces its fair share of challenges over the short-term.

U

– Wilhelm Bender, CEO, Fraport (page 84)

nless you’ve been living in a cocoon for the past 18 months, you can’t have missed a sea change in the global financial markets. Businesses across all industry verticals are under serious pressure due to a perfect storm of rising oil prices, high raw materials costs and fallout from the US subprime meltdown – and the infrastructure sector is no exception.

Across the globe, governments are turning to the private sector to fund critical infrastructure developments. Growth in private lending has increased almost fivefold in the last 10 years, yet when governments should be turning to the private sector to meet the infrastructure funding gap, potential investors are in turmoil due to uncertainty in the global liquidity markets. Selling project value has never been so important. While we’re not at the crisis stage yet, we can expect to experience a tougher short-term outlook than we’ve experienced in recent years. It’s time to tighten our belts and emphasise the positives.

The idea of sustainable development will be key in the months (and years) ahead.

Improving the energy efficiency of our buildings and structures – as well as the construction process itself – is an increasingly attractive way to build value into any project.

It’s not just about bowing to the eco-lobbyists, either – cutting down on waste and rethinking attitudes towards the consumption of raw materials makes good business sense as well.

Mike Barker, MD at construction heavyweight Mott MacDonald, believes that only a concerted focus on making sustainability an industry best practice will suffice. In fact, he believes it won’t be too long before the implementation of environmentally sound business practices will move from corporate hot topic to just business-as-usual.

“Sustainability is going to become second nature, because it has to,” he says. “It’s going to become more and more central to everything we do, and is going to be totally embedded in the fabric of our culture as an industry.”

For this to happen, of course, requires top-down leadership – and nobody is more committed to the value of sustainability than Vinci, the world’s largest construction and engineering firm. “This is a huge area for us,” says CEO John Stanion. “We’re measuring our waste production, we’re measuring our power consumption, our fuel consumption, and we’re setting targets to reduce in every area.”

As Stanion points out, the infrastructure decisions we take now will influence the lives of Europeans for years to come. “The revolution we face today is just as great as the revolution they faced 200 years ago with the invention of the steam engine. Now we have to re-engineer our whole infrastructure for the future.”

It may be hard to think long-term under such short-term pressure, but it is essential to our success as an industry – and as a well-balanced, fully functioning society.

“Working with infrastructure is a longterm investment and represents a contract with society”

Ben Thompson Senior Editor

“Each new link in an infrastructure network contributes to the performance of existing links” – Richard Brown, CEO, Eurostar (page 56)

“The major challenge will be to organise construction activities in a way that minimises negative effects”

– Christian Berg, CEO, Hafslund (page 116)

HOFFMANN MINERAL GmbH & Co. KG • P.O. Box 14 60 • D-86619 Neuburg (Donau) • Germany • Phone +49 (0) 84 31-53-0 • Fax +49 (0) 84 31-53-3 30 • http://www.hoffmann-mineral.com or info@hoffmann-mineral.com hm_738_AZ_213x276_Schloss_FL_UK.indd 8

SOME BUILDINGS HAVE A GREAT PAST. WE CAN ALSO GIVE THEM A GREAT FUTURE. FUNCTIONAL FILLERS FOR PAINTS AND VARNISHES Sillitin and activated Aktisil open up a vast number of applications for you. For example, in the form of façade paint for the protection of historical buildings. Neuburg Siliceous Earth is a natural mixture of corpuscular, cryptocrystalline and amorphous silica and lamellar kaolinite.

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We have the know-how. Use it.

We supply material for good ideas

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CONTENTS

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LEAD FEATURES VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2 Q3 2008 www.euinfrastructure.com

28

The Vinci code At the start of the year, Vinci’s order book stood at an impressive €21.5 billion – enough to make it the world’s largest construction and concession firm. In this exclusive interview, Chief Executive John Stanion explains the key principles behind the company’s success.

56 Track star

116 Harnessing hydropower After a huge leap forward in 2007, Hafslund is focusing on environmental responsibility and the profitable development of renewable energy. President and CEO Christian Berg explains how he plans to keep up the current momentum.

Richard Brown is a central figure in one of the most exciting periods in the history of European railways. In an exclusive interview, he discusses the future of rail in Europe and why expanding the network is crucial.

36 Getting the job done EU Infrastructure meets Mott MacDonald’s MD of Buildings and Structures, Mike Barker, to talk about why managing large projects requires a unique blend of vision and experience.

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CONTENTS

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EU INFRASTRUCTURE VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2 Q3 2008 www.euinfrastructure.com

42 Poland switches on The value of contemporary architecture

36

48 A stronger year ahead Reports of the demise of infrastructure have been greatly exaggerated

50 A whole range of cranes

By Christian Schorr-Golsong

52 Intelligent technology New technology for road building wins cost and energy savings

The design for the Africarium at Wroclaw Zoo, Poland

54 Project watch Stadium development in the EU

Mott MacDonald’s award-winning Manchester Civil Justice Centre

64 Customer centricity for London’s public transport With Phil Pavitt, CIO Transport for London

68 Sustainable transport

42

By Eskil Sellgren

74 On the right track With Weidmüller’s Detmar Saalmann

76 Urban transport UK scheme shows the way

78 The road to success Ingemar Skogö on the challenges of managing a national road network Fraport’s forecast of air traffic demand at Frankfurt airport

80 Central and Eastern Europe

84

The next logistics hotspot?

82 Techno-tolling in Eastern Europe Malavika Srinath on road user charging

ASK THE EXPERT 66 Frank Walenberg, KEMA Rail Transport Certification 100 Johan Öhgren, Acquris 114 Anna Squires, Etherstack

66 Frank Walenberg

68 Eskil Sellgren

70 Roger-André Dirksmeier

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CONTENTS

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EU INFRASTRUCTURE VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2 Q3 2008 www.euinfrastructure.com

Artist’s impression of London’s Olympic Stadium for the 2012 games

84 Leading the way With Fraport’s Dr Wilhelm Bender

88 Technology to the rescue Why IT is crucial to the aviation industry

95 Airport IT The beating heart of a modern airport

96 Securing air travel With Ben Swagerman, SVP of KLM

98 Executive interview Security solutions for infrastructure

102 Airport screening Market set to take off

104 Protecting against terrorists

54

By Dr Jurek Tolloczko

110 Technology at the top 105 Industry insight

With Ailsa Beaton, CIO, Metropolitan Police

132 Environment and innovation projects With Fulvio Conti, CEO of Enel

So where exactly are my assets?

112 Building the future 106 The shipping news

With Skanska’s Magnus Norrström

134 Reaching for success

122 Case study

EU Infrastructure takes a look at new chemicals legislation

Operations at the Port of Rotterdam

IN THE BACK 138 In focus 140 In review 142 Column 144 Final word

74 Detmar Saalmann

Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farm

124 Wind turbine global demand The wind turbine industry races to catch up with soaring demand

98 Eric Bergeron

100 Johan Öhgren

ROUNDTABLES 70 Rail protection 126 Wind power

126 Andreas Reuter

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Europe 2008

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UPFRONT

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P18 The Burning Issue P20 Top 10: Countries Producing Bioethanol Energy P22 The Five-Minute Executive P24 From the Vault P26 Around the World in 80 Days

CAN INFRASTRUCTURE ESCAPE THE CREDIT CRUNCH?

A

t a time when governments are, or should be, looking for private finance to help fill the gap left by government underinvestment, the world’s financial markets have been hit by the credit crunch. The collapse of confidence in the banking sector that followed the crisis in the US subprime property market sent shock waves across the entire global financial community,

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with total losses estimated to reach over US$500 billion. So how will the crisis impact on the infrastructure sector?

“Infrastructure finance has shown itself to be more resilient to the credit crunch than many other markets, boasting a good track record of well-structured deals supported by stable assets,” argues Richard Abadie, global head of

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Infrastructure Finance Advisory business. “Fundamentally, the appetite for infrastructure finance remains strong, especially for core, stable operating infrastructure.” As evidence of this trend, he points to a growing pipeline of new projects (especially in emerging markets) and a rise in the number of infrastructure funds.

Nonetheless, he concedes that the credit crunch and global economic slowdown will continue to dampen activity in all financial markets, and warns that the infrastructure sector will be no exception.

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FAST FACTS AIRPORT RETAIL The infrastructure sector saw record deal volumes last year, with a total value of

€217

billion

The industry also witnessed a

90% increase in the average deal size A recent OECD study estimates that by 2030, around

€36

trillion will be required to meet global investment needs in roads, rail, telecommunications, electricity and water

TO SOAR

W

hile many retailers around the world are suffering from deteriorating consumer confidence, there is one channel of retail that will continue to boom. According to the latest report from Verdict Research, a Datamonitor company, retail sales at airports will grow by 11 percent in 2008 to US$30billion, making it the fastest growing channel of retail after the internet. Indeed, rather than slow, retail sales are set to continue to grow strongly over the next five years, particularly in emerging markets, driven by the rapid increase in air travel and major investment in new airports and retail facilities.

UK LEAST EFFICIENT ENERGY USERS

A

report by the Energy Saving Trust saw the UK crowned as the least efficient energy users in Europe. The population were less likely to turn off standby on appliances, but more likely to get in the car for a short journey than European counterparts.

90,000 Construction jobs will be needed in the UK alone every year between now and 2012 to replace those leaving the industry and to fill new vacancies “The financial risk of the infrastructure business is largely driven by the borrower; it is therefore reasonable to expect short-term reductions in profitability and possible debt restructuring where borrowers have overlaid excessive financial risk over the long-term fundamental business risk,” he says.

The long-term health of the infrastructure finance markets is, he continues, dependent on the return of the institutional debt markets to the infrastructure sector. Until then borrowers, and consequently users and taxpayers, will continue to pay higher prices for private finance.

And while good deals with appropriate risk apportionment and strong commercial structures will continue to find finance, it is unreasonable to expect a quick return to the peaks of recent years.

“While some borrowers as well as many government procurers refer to terms reverting back to the height of the market, it is a naïve notion to expect the markets to revert to the low pricing obtained in the first half of 2007,” concludes Abadie. “Such conditions are unlikely to be seen again, or at least not in the average career-span of most infrastructure financiers.”

www.euinfrastructure.com

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THE BURNING ISSUE

18

18

Greener transport The EU Commission recently announced a new set of measures aimed at greening the transport sector, in part through charging heavy goods vehicles for infrastructure use. What does the industry think?

Sustainable transport

Playing catch-up

Polluter must pay

Antonio Tajani, European Commissioner for Transport

Jos Dings, Director of the European Federation for Transport and the Environment

Michael Robson, Secretary General of the European Rail Infrastructure Managers

Transport policy reflects the dynamism of the sector it represents – it is always on the move. It has developed greatly over the years and delivered excellent results. However, more still needs to be done. That is why I want to promote transport that is competitive and of high quality, safe and sustainable, within a comprehensive framework. The Lisbon Strategy shows the way: efficient, high quality transport at affordable prices and based on infrastructure that binds Europe together. This package is about tackling pollution and climate change, and making sure the polluter and not the taxpayer pays for environmental damage. Among the results will be greener transport, fewer emissions, up to eight percent less fuel consumption by lorries and fewer hold-ups for all road users. Delays, unnecessary emissions and soaring costs are bad for transport companies, for their clients and for all of us. A more efficient and sustainable transport system will, in the long run, be a more user-friendly and cheaper transport system.

Making road users pay for the negative impacts of their operations is critical to a sustainable transport policy in Europe. The EU has certainly taken its time. Seven years after Switzerland started charging road freight operators for the environmental and health impacts of their journeys, EU transport policy is finally catching up. Unfortunately, this proposal seems to take EU transport policy two steps forward and one step back. Member states will no longer be banned from charging trucks for the negative environmental and health impacts of their journeys. But the charges will be capped to such a degree that the areas that suffer the worst environmental impacts will be unable to set charges that reflect the real costs. In particular, the decision to set a cap on charges makes no sense economically or environmentally, and should be scrapped. The Parliament and Council have their work cut out to make sure the proposal will really make transport greener.

This marks an important milestone in the drive to internalise the external costs of road transport, which will put the ‘polluter pays’ principle into practice. The rail sector is in favour of internalising the external costs of all transport modes and has long argued that EU member states should be able to apply internalisation to road freight transport as they currently can do for rail transport. The industry thus welcomes the Commission’s proposal to revise the Eurovignette Directive, including the suggestion to promote the development of more sustainable mobility through the earmarking of revenues. Track charges are the rule in Europe, while road charging is the exception. The rail industry is fully accountable for its environmental impact, while the road industry produces pollutants that it is never charged for. It is now time to act to ensure that we secure a level playing field in the transport market. We believe in the principle that the polluter must pay.

www.euinfrastructure.com

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20 1

GERMANY

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 T

TOP 10

SLOVENIAN TUNNEL INTELLIGENCE

Top 10 countries producing Bioethanol energy.

W

Iskra Sistemi is equipping the 1060m long tunnel with the control and management system (i.e. the most intelligent part of the tunnel safety equipment).

The basic elements of the system are local stations built in the emergency call niches and sub-control tunnel centres, and the system is completed by control computers and software in the Smodinovec Control Centre from which the Šentvid tunnel is managed.

431mL

402mL

FRANCE

250mL

SWEDEN

140mL

ITALY

128mL

POLAND

120mL

HUNGARY

34mL

18mL

Clear and reliable Iskra Sistemi uses a functionally clear and reliable concept of tunnel control. The concept used is incomparably more adaptable than systems that have autonomous controllers, for individual subsystems with a single data concentration point. In the event of a failure or interruption of communication with a local controller, the entire control system continues to operate normally except for the small part of the tunnel covered by the failed local controller.

Safety first

20%

of the EU’s energy consumption will be renewable energy by 2020

NETHERLANDS 15mL

CZECH REPUBLIC 15mL

he EU is working to reduce the effects of climate change and establish a common energy policy. By 2020, renewable energy should account for 20

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orks have been completed in another of the Slovenian tunnels – the Šentvid tunnel. Its final opening has been eagerly anticipated and the completion times were very short.

Control and monitoring system

SPAIN

LITHUANIA

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percent of the EU’s final energy consumption. A study was conducted

by EBIO about bioethanol production in the European Union (all figures are in million litres).

There is actually a lot of equipment in the tunnel, although you only notice traffic signs, illumination and fans when passing through, while the most important system taking care of tunnel control and safety is hidden from the eyes of the drivers. Yet it depends on the tunnel control system whether the equipment installed will detect any hazard in the tunnel in time – and react properly. The safety of the Šentvid tunnel depends on the speed and accuracy of reaction. If the installed system saves human lives, our job has been done well.

And this is just what happened on the first day of the tunnel’s operation.

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BOEING DELIVERS TWO 777 MODELS TO EMIRATES

B

oeing and Dubai-based airline Emirates celebrated the delivery of a 777-300ER (Extended Range) and a 777-200LR (Longer Range) in August, marking the first double 777 delivery to a Middle East airline.

These new 777s are the 62nd and 63rd delivered to Emirates, one of the world’s biggest operators of the most successful large twin-engine aircraft flying today. To date, 56 customers from around the world have ordered 1092 777s. Boeing has more than 355 unfilled orders for the 777, worth more than US$91 billion at current list prices.

COUNTING CARBON irports are caught in the middle of two opposite dynamics: growing global demand for capacity and reducing the carbon footprint of operations. Combibox Systems, the pioneer of in-ground support systems, is devoted to prove the benefits of using direct electricity as a way to progress.

Combibox Systems has recently carried out an environmental impact analysis of different support solutions to provide aircraft parked at the gate with ground power, pre conditioned air and potable water.

“We have increasingly devoted time and energy to research and talk about the environmental benefits of our concept of in-ground supply of ground support,” says Leif Lindh, President of Combibox Systems.

Using direct electricity with an in-ground system to provide 400Hz power reduces the environmental impact equivalent to 32 tons of CO2 per year for a typical narrow body gate, according to the study

by Combibox. If an aircraft parked at a gate uses only its own APU (jet fuel driven power generator) for the complete turn around, this results in yearly emissions of 520 tons of CO2 for just one gate. Using diesel powered GSE yields approximately 95 tons of CO2 yearly for just one gate and for the supply of ground power alone.

Similar results can be found for PCA, potable water and lavatory servicing in terms of substantial CO2 savings per year. Combibox Systems reduces the number of diesel powered mobile units on the apron and minimises the use of the aircrafts own APU per turnaround. This is achieved by the centralised generation of support media and in-ground distribution to pits installed in the apron close to the aircraft.

“In this day and age every source of emission associated with air traffic must be considered and minimised by airports to create the eco-friendly airport for the future,” says Leif Lindh. “And we aim to be part of this process by reducing emissions from ground support activities while also increasing profitability and efficiency to meet the growing global demand for air traffic.”

A

ISSUE IN NUM8ERS

6

8 23

€2.9 billion

is allocated to bring world-class architecture to life in Poland to 2012 (p40)

Rotterdam’s entire port and industrial complex covers 10,500 hectares (p106) There are

There are

1250 31,000

takeoffs and landings daily at Frankfurt Airport (p84)

Police Officers in the Metropolitan Police Service (p108)

Total Vinci Group revenues were

€30.4 billion in 2007 (p28)

The EU’s chemical industry produces 31% of the world’s chemicals (p134)

www.euinfrastructure.com

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THE FIVE-MINUTE EXECUTIVE

22

Eastern promise Across the Middle East, construction is booming, and nowhere is this more evident than in Dubai. Issam Galadari, Emaar Properties’ Managing Director, explains the region’s ongoing transformation.

In the past five years, the construction sector here grew 37 percent. In addition, the real estate sector contribution to Dubai’s GDP grew 86 percent at an annual rate of 16.7 percent. Property construction is now a key part of Dubai’s continued economic growth.

The aim is to evolve as a global lifestyle provider and contribute to the various nonoil growth sectors of the economy. The company has already diversified its business interests to six key sectors including property, healthcare, education, malls, hospitality and leisure, and finance.

The Dubai property market has evolved as a direct response to market demand.

The population of the city is growing, both in terms of residents and tourists. The additional residential units that are being added on can only meet part of the burgeoning demand.

We have unveiled several prestigious properties. Our flagship project, being completed on schedule, is the US$20 billion Downtown Burj Dubai. This is a mixeduse, 22 million square foot development spread over 500 acres. The project combines commercial, residential, hotel, entertainment, shopping and leisure outlets in open green spaces dotted with lakes and other water features.

Located at its centre is the Burj Dubai, the tallest freestanding structure in the world.

This will stand at well over 700 metres once completed in 2009. Housing office space, luxury accommodation, restaurants, shopping and one of the first Giorgio Armani hotels, it is a clear symbol of Dubai’s new found confidence.

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Burj Dubai is a successful result of international teamwork, where over 5000 professionals from around the world worked together. Our projects push the conventional architectural and engineering parameters, but the bottom line of our development philosophy is to have world-class residences and commercial space that enhances the lifestyles of our customers.

Emaar’s portfolio features landmark architecture developments. Projects such as Burj Dubai are also a proclamation to the world about the capabilities of Dubai and the global climate of growth the city provides.

The performance of the property market will be in direct correlation to demand. Dubai has several ambitious growth plans that consolidate its position as a global investment hub, and although there are several projects in the pipeline, a stronger demand for residential and commercial space is anticipated.

We are also widening our focus. Replicating the successful business model in Dubai, Emaar is extending its expertise in creating masterplanned communities to international markets.

The company’s diversification initiatives have been evolved from its integrated approach to customer service and property development.

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FROM THE VAULT Q4 2007

24

EU Infrastructure: issue five Archie Robertson, Chief Executive, UK Highways Agency

Back in issue five of EU Infrastructure, Archie Robertson discussed how an expanding economy has placed evergreater demands on the transportation infrastructure and how safeguarding the reliability of the network has become increasingly challenging.

To read more, go to the past issues section of www.euinfrastructure.com and click on ‘Traffic warden’ within issue five.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10

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Hong Kong Singapore Changi Seoul Incheon Kuala Lumpur KLIA Munich Kansai Copenhagen Zurich Helsinki Cape Town

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TOP 10 BEST AIRPORT 2008 AWARDS

H

ong Kong International Airport has been named the World’s Best Airport for 2008, in the worldwide passenger survey results released

by Skytrax. Representing a notable achievement, this is the seventh time in 10 years that the accolade has been won by Hong Kong International Airport.

Of the European airports, Munich is the only one to crack the top five and disturb the Asian monopoly on the top spots, placing fifth. Copenhagen, Zurich and Helsinki all feature in the list, taking the seventh, eighth and ninth positions. No US airports featured in the top 10.

“We congratulate Hong Kong for their repeated success in winning the World’s Best Airport title,” said Skytrax CEO, Edward Plaisted. “In recent years, the whole air travel experience has become much more focused on the time customers spend in the airport environment, and Hong Kong has established itself as a clear passenger favourite in this respect.

“The World Airport Survey evaluates a broad spectrum of product and service touchpoints across the airport experience, covering a wide spectrum of passenger types. Hong

Kong was particularly notable for gaining highest satisfaction ratings in such a diverse market. Like any other business, an airport is striving to deliver world-class standards that will make a customer want to use it again, and achieving this level of loyalty requires the highest levels of quality consistency – something where Hong Kong was singled out again and again during the survey.”

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DEPLOYING PUBLIC SAFETY NETWORKS

SOLAR ENERGY DEMAND

networks vary greatly when being rolled out. irwave has now deployed the Factors such as geography, regulation, planworld’s most advanced public ning law and spectrum allocation can all play safety network. This is no mean a role in informing the design of a feat and was only achieved with network. This complexity can be costly if a great deal of hard work. What is perhaps not managed effectively. Lessons from premost impressive is that this huge project vious rollouts need to be learned in order was delivered both on time and on budget to minimise the potential pitfalls of – two very rare achievements these days. It deployment and it is here that the experiis not an overstatement to say that this was ences of Airwave can prove one of the most complex We have to be invaluable. and pressurised rollouts in deployed the world’s Airwave has deployed telecommunications histothe world’s largest and most ry. Airwave was sailing in most advanced public complex public safety netunchartered waters and inwork and can use this knowlnovating every step of the edge to help others wishing way. These experiences to deploy similar systems. have provided the compaThis leads to a quicker proviny with a wealth of knowlsioning timeframe and brings about cost edge, which can be used to the benefit of savings. This experience can also be used to other countries planning to deploy similar give customers the peace of mind that networks. The pioneering has been done, comes with knowing the deployment will be and in its place is a clear map of how to problem-free. When it comes to public safebuild and manage a similar infrastructure to ty networks, mistakes really cannot be made the Airwave network. and the ability to learn from industry best Each stage of the process brings its practice is instrumental in ensuring this is so. own set of challenges. Communications

In 2007, worldwide photovoltaic installation increased by

A

safety network

1 2 3

INSTANT SOA An integration and rapid deployment software product to allow enterprises to realise the power of service-orientedarchitecture.

PERISCOPE A database virtualisation tool that enables businesses to bring together multiple disparate databases and create a single view of the information on which to base queries and reports.

ONPOINT A tool that revolutionises the visualisation of data through geospatial referencing, providing the platform to integrate database content into industry and global mapping products, creating meaningful presentation of consolidated information sources.

2826MW Up from

1744MW installed during the previous year In 1985, the annual solar installation demand was just

21MW Source: www.solarbuzz.com

GROWING FAST As a part of its systematic and aggressive growth plans, Rolta, a leading global provider and developer of IT-based services in GIS, EDS, EICT, ERP and business intelligence, has adopted a clear acquisition strategy to develop and expand its extensive capabilities in service delivery, technical skills and products. In February of this year, Rolta acquired the US-based Oracle consultancy, TUSC – one of the key Oracle Certified Advantage Partners in both the Database and Applications fields. In addition to these core skills, Rolta has also acquired a leading Hyperion practice (WhittmanHart Consulting, a division of WhittmanHart Inc) and is consolidating its skills in this leading edge financial and business intelligence application. In Europe, Rolta is now creating a parallel consulting organisation focusing on the most experienced and capable consultants to tackle and resolve the requirements of the Oracle Group user base.

With the convergence of the above skills, Rolta is now in the position to bring to the market some ground-breaking technical solutions for information access and presentation and has three exciting products.

By innovatively blending the capabilities of OnPoint, Periscope and other business intelligence tools, Rolta has launched Geospatial Fusion, that enables instantaneous fusion of various disparate geospatial and non-spatial databases and software applications for generating real-time reports and immediate decision-making.

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COMPANY INDEX Q3 2008

26 Acquris 100 Airborne Hydrography AB 119 Airbus 82 Airwave Solutions 25, 63 American Superconductor 4 Aquasys 70 Association of Chief Police Officers on Information Management 110 Bellona 116 Bentley 105 BOMAG 52 BP Bitumen 35 Cactus Automation 77 Case Construction 31 Central Networks 105 China Classification Society 126 Combibox Systems 21, 92 Corus Bi-Steel 104 Datamonitor 80 Deerns 13, 87 DNV Wind Energy 126

Companies in this issue are indexed to the first page of the article in which each is mentioned.

Ekahau 81 Emerging Energy Research (EER) 124 Endesa 132 Enel 132 Etherstack 114 European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) 134 Eurostar 56 Filter Clear Ltd 141 Fogtec 70, IBC Frankfurt Airport 84 Fraport AG 84 Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer 46 Frost & Sulivan 82, 102 GE 105 Hafslund 116 Hoffmann Mineral 8 Honeywell 6 HYUNDAI 45 Hyperion 25 ICX Technologies 103 Intergraph 105

International Air Transport Association (IATA) 88 Iskra Sistemi 20, 49 ITS 105 KEMA Rail Transport Certification 66 Kenersys Europe GmbH IFC, 126 KLM Security Services 94 KPMG 76 LG Iris 137 Lufthansa 82 Medecins Sans Frontiers 116 Metropolitan Police Service 110 Mott MacDonald 36 Moxa Europe GmbH 58 MT Højgaard 122 NACO 91 National Police Improvement Agency 110 Nynas 39 Optosecurity 10, 99 Oracle 25, 105 Port of Rotterdam 106

AROUND THE WORLD IN

Rolta 25, 105, 108 Romax Technology 126 RSE 116 SemMaterials 15 Sharp 132 SITA 94 Skanska 112 StarrPort Corp 89 Swedish Road Administration 78 Telindus 139 Terex Comedil 50 Transport for London 64 TUSC 25 Valerenga Fotball 116 Vinci 28 VNE 19 Weidmüller 74 WhittmanHart Consulting 25 WhittmanHart Inc. 25 WIWA 23 WSP 2, 68, 144, OBC

EMPLOYMENT LOOKING BLEAK

80DAYS

The US economy has lost 463,000 jobs so far this year, with jobs shed consistently for every month in 2008.

California’s unemployment rate is at a 12-year high of 7.3 percent after losing 54,000 jobs. The biggest losses have been in construction, manufacturing and financial services.

Expect the troubled job picture to continue into next year.

Our guide to the last quarter’s global events – and their impact on your business.

EUI IMPACT RATING:

CHANGE IN CLIMATE STANCE

EUROPEAN CONSTRUCTION COOLS Expansion in Europe’s construction sector is cooling after mild weather increased building in the first quarter. The Euro-region economy contracted in the second quarter for the first time in almost a decade, led by declines in Germany, the region’s largest economy, and Spain, where a 14-year real-estate boom has collapsed. Expect further slow down as we head into 2009.

EUI IMPACT RATING:

INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCING INITIATIVE Three Middle Eastern financial institutions propose to put up US$6 billion in authorised capital to set up a new investment bank to focus on the financing of infrastructure investments in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region. The banks plan US$1.5 billion in paid up capital, allowing packages to finance transport, power generation, water, energy, education and social infrastructure projects. A glimmer of hope to keep the infrastructure industry moving.

EUI IMPACT RATING: 26

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At the recent G8 summit in Japan, leaders agreed on the need to cut carbon emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 and for each nation to set its own target for a nearer term. The statement is a step forward from last year’s call to ‘consider seriously’ such longterm cuts, but environmentalists denounced the deal as toothless.

Either way, expect climate change to be a key economic driver in the years ahead.

EUI IMPACT RATING:

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80% SATISFIED WITH RAIL JOURNEYS he latest National Passenger satisfied with their rail travel experience.

Survey (Spring 2008) finds 80 perA major investment programme to benecent of passengers in the UK are fit passengers is underway and this should satisfied with their continue to drive up passenrail journey – up from 79 perger satisfaction in a number cent in the same survey last of important categories. year, reflecting train opera“Across the network, tors’ success in improving there are more than 20,000 train services.

CCTV cameras protecting Michael Roberts, Chief has been spent over passengers, and train operExecutive of the Associathe past few years on ators annually invest well tion of Train Operating 5500 new &and refurover UK£100 million to Companies (ATOC), comfund the British Transport bished carriages mented: “With rail travel up Police. Over the past few by over 60 million journeys in the past years, more than UK£5 billion has been year to one of its highest levels ever spent on 5500 new and refurbished achieved, more and more people are train carriages.”

T

UK£5

billion

According to the National Passenger Survey, the following significant improvements were achieved at stations:

Ticket buying facilities

UP4% to 71 percent Overall station environment

UP3% to 63 percent

NEWSBITES • French utility group GDF Suezis to buy US electricity provider FirstLight Power Enterprises, in a deal thought to be worth €1.3 billion • Richard Branson is considering a bid for BAA’s Gatwick Airport. The proposals are at an early stage as the airport is not yet formally for sales but the deal could be worth more than UK£2 billion • Greek real estate company Babis Vovos International Construction SA has said that it has received the building permit to allow it to complete construction work for the shopping mall being developed in down town Athens at Votanikos

Personal security

UP4% to 61 percent Connections to other train services

UP2% to 70 percent The amount of room available for passengers to sit/stand

UP3% to 62 percent

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COVER STORY A construction worker looks out over the Stade de France, one of VINCI’s most high-profile projects. VINCI companies and their partners completed the €285 million project in 31 months, using innovative civil engineering and construction techniques and meeting a wide variety of architectural challenges

The VINCI At the start of the year, VINCI’s order book stood at an impressive €21.5 billion – enough to make it the world’s largest concession and construction firm. In this exclusive interview, chairman and chief executive of VINCI PLC, John Stanion, explains the key principles behind the company’s success.

By Ben Thompson

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’ve just arrived at the VINCI PLC offices in Watford after what feels like the longest train journey ever. I’ve only travelled about 100 miles from the EU Infrastructure headquarters in Bristol, but it’s still involved a gruelling 6am start, a journey time of three-hours and four separate train rides – including one across London during rush hour that didn’t involve a seat – all for the bargain price of UK£152. I wasn’t even travelling first-class. For John Stanion, my ordeal speaks volumes as to the current state of Britain’s public transport infrastructure. “The UK rail system has to be improved,” he nods, acknowledging my rather frazzled appearance.

And Stanion is not one to miss an opportunity. The CEO of VINCI PLC, part of the construction arm of the world’s largest company in concessions and construction, has a refreshingly no-nonsense approach that is completely appropriate given that the projects his company are involved in are fundamental to the way modern society operates. Transport, energy, waste disposal, sanitation: providing such infrastructural building blocks is second nature to a firm such as VINCI, and something the company’s businesslike chief executive is passionate about developing.

“Major construction projects are exciting,” he admits. “When you see some of the projects that we undertake – the Charilaos Trikoupis bridge (Rion-Antirion) in Greece or the Vasco de Gama bridge in Lisbon, for example – there is a certain thrill in doing them. We’re involved in roads and tolls and bridges and stadiums. We’re building and improving the motorway network in Greece between Athens and Corinth. We’re doing the Coentunnel in Amsterdam, the Athens Metro and the European Investment Bank build-

ing in Luxembourg, which was inaugurated at the beginning of June. So we’ve got active and exciting projects all over Europe.”

It’s an impressive order backlog that has helped propel VINCI to the top of the Fortune rankings in the construction sector, and take it to 168th in the Global 500 list of the world’s biggest corporations. Clearly, business is booming. “Our order book is the highest it’s ever been,” acknowledges Stanion. Revenue results for 2007 show growth of 16.9 percent to €30.4 billion, with a large proportion of that growth coming outside the home market of France; international business increased by 21.6 percent. “The reason for that I suppose is that we are a business of choice for customers. They’ll come to us because we are a benchmark for major project capabilities around the world.”

One of those projects is the design and construction of a causeway between Qatar and Bahrain that consists of 44km of road over water, the longest stretch of bridge in the world. Elsewhere in the Middle East, VINCI is involved in great projetcts such as the Naga Hammadi dam in Egypt, and the compaction works on the second palm tree in Dubai, baptised Jebel Ali. And while the company’s involvement in the construction of the massive Soyuz launcher site in French Guiana for the European Space Agency provides further evidence of the international nature of the France-based firm, Stanion insists that the market closer to home is just as interesting.

“We have major subsidiaries in most Eastern European countries and we’re involved in civil engineering infrastructures, building and concessions in those countries,” he says, “Motorways and highways are a major part of our focus in this region, railways are another, and the other area is power

code €30.4 billion Total Vinci Group revenues for 2007 158,000 Total employees worldwide €21.5 billion Current value of order book www.euinfrastructure.com

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production and power distribution. CEE is a big market for VINCI, and growing very rapidly.”

He points to Spain, Greece and Ireland as examples of countries that have made huge strides in terms of their infrastructure development in recent years, and expects the new EU members further east to undergo a similar transformation over the next few decades. “There’s a significant amount of development that’s going to happen in this region,” he continues. “If you think back 30 years ago, Spain was a backward country in terms of its infrastructure. Only 15 years ago Ireland had no motorways. But look at Ireland or Spain today and they have world-leading infrastructures, and because of that their economies have also done exceedingly well. Spain is now the European leader in wind power. It’s got one of the best motorways in Europe. It’s got high-speed rail. And there’s no reason whatsoever that countries in the CEE region cannot make similar advances.

Countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and

IN HIS OWN WORDS John Stanion provides his thoughts on current industry hot topics.

ON THE CREDIT CRUNCH: “I don’t think it is going to have an effect on the funding of infrastructure. However, I do think that a world economic downturn will affect everybody. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in. But we’re not that susceptible to market sentiments. Our projects are long-term so we’re pretty robust.

VINCI has hardly any involvement in the property sector in the US, UK or Spain; in France, which is VINCI’s primary market, VINCI is only number seven in this sector.”

ON RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT: “There are economic benefits, and there are human benefits. CSR is not just about the environment. It’s about the whole social agenda – health and safety, human resources and training. It’s about the environment. It’s about energy use, carbon footprints. There’s a whole series of things.”

ON CLIMATE CHANGE: “Industrialisation is about power production and energy, and the key to solving the carbon dioxide problem is the way that we use our energy. That’s the thing that we have to change. We are going in the right direction – the question is whether we’re going in the right direction quickly enough.”

ON TALENT RECRUITMENT: “As an industry we have not attracted enough of the best graduate talent to construction, and there’s a general shortage of young people coming forward in technical disciplines such as civil engineering. It’s important to raise the profile of the industry, because it’s actually a really exciting industry to work in.”

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“The Middle East is really exciting because there’s a huge amount of money being spent, and there are almost no limits to what those countries are prepared to do from a construction perspective” Hungary are more established members now and there’s lots of investment going in, but Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia are also expected to see enormous growth. And the development of their infrastructure will play a big part in this.”

Key challenges But while prospects for individual markets look good, Stanion concedes that the industry as a whole faces a number of key challenges over the next few years. The first is the question of attracting and managing top talent. “The construction industry is primarily about human resources and it’s the most important component of the business,” he says. “VINCI consists of 158,000 employees and in 2008 we recruited 27,000 new ones, so we’re one of the largest employers in the world – but just imagine the HR challenges that recruiting 27,000 new employees each year poses from a management perspective.”

According to Stanion, developing the people element of the business is key to VINCI’s financial success. “At the end of 2007, our employee savings scheme held 8.2 percent of VINCI’s capital, so the employees are actually the

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largest shareholder in the group,” he explains. “This links them directly with the company’s success, makes them feel part of it, and gives them a sense of ownership.” And to help nurture this close relationship between employer and employee, VINCI puts significant emphasis on personal development and training. “In 2007, we notched up no fewer than 2.5 million training hours, which was an increase of 28 percent on 2005. So I think it’s right to say the primary challenge for us is human resources.”

One of the ways the industry, and VINCI in particular, is addressing this concern is through so-called early contractor involvement. Rather than going through the traditional process of designing everything upfront with a designer, getting a series of contractors to put a price on the work, awarding the contract, having someone build it and then somebody else operate and maintain the finished build, early contractor involvement uses a system whereby a number of preferred contractors are ‘pre-qualified’ for participation. “This pre-qualification process allows project managers to identify and choose a preferred contractor who then becomes involved in the concept development right at the beginning, long before anything gets designed – the idea being that as a team you design it more efficiently so you can build it more efficiently,” explains Stanion.

The final major industry challenge he identifies is the sheer size of the projects currently being undertaken. The Qatar-Bahrain causeway project, for instance, is worth over €2 billion – a sizeable piece of business. “The Middle East is really exciting because there’s a huge amount of money being spent, and there are almost no limits to what those countries are prepared to do from a construction perspective,” he says. “Even in the UK, you see the M25 motorway-widening project is now being managed as a single contract, where if you go back to the 1970s when that motorway was first built there were

“We have to re-engineer our whole infrastructure for the future and get away from our dependence on fossil fuels. I think it’s really fundamental” The second major challenge for the industry is the increasing intricacy of projects. “They have become extremely complex,” he says. “Not only do you have to build them, you have to design them, you have to work out the impact on the environment, you have to finance them and you have to do it all within a framework that’s agreed upon upfront. So they’re very, very complex.”

EIB headquarters, Luxembourg Environmental and energy concerns were key to the design of the €135 million European Investment Bank headquarters in Luxembourg, inaugurated in June 2008.

The glass shell enveloping the whole building makes maximum use of natural light; winter gardens and atria provide thermal insulation and natural ventilation, keeping energy consumption and emissions to a minimum; and the building complies with the most stringent environmental standards. The building is 170 metres long, 50 metres wide and 22 metres high, and has a total floor space of 72,500m2.

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countless contracts involved. And so it’s not just the financial size but the actual scope of the construction work itself that is growing. The projects are getting bigger, we’re getting involved earlier and we’re taking greater responsibility for the financial side of things as well.”

In terms of advantages, Stanion sees this offering a number of key business benefits from a project management perspective. “I think it brings the opportunity to better manage risk,” he says. “The greatest issue is when you have the whole project divided up between different parties and something goes wrong in one section and it has a knock-on effect on everything else. That’s the way these projects used to be run, with no real sense of control, whereas now we can hold all the different elements in one hand – coming up with a concept, designing it, working out how to construct it, industrialising the process to improve the productivity, building in lifecycle costs to the design process, and working out what the best ways are to ensure that the costs of the use are minimised.

“I think having that managed as a single contract brings greater certainty to the process,” he continues. “It gives you an opportunity to manage risk better, and I think customers at large institutions realise that. It does bring complexity, and it does mean you have to have a very high level of skill, but at least you are able to trust to your own competencies.”

need to improve stations. We need to make platforms longer so they can accommodate longer trains. We need to make stations and travel safer in terms of the use of stations at night. And a massive upgrade of the underground network is needed. It’s going on but there’s still a long way to go. So there’s a lot of investment required on the basic mainline network and the basic underground network here in the UK and also in other parts of the continent such as Central and Eastern Europe, and there’s significant investment needed in Europe to complete the high-speed networks and extend them further east. So I think rail is going to be a key market for the construction industry.”

Greek motorway concession

Market opportunities

In Greece, VINCI is leading a consortium to finance, design and build/upgrade the Athens-Tsakona motorway, the country’s biggest motorway concession project.

The project calls for the construction and modernisation of 365km of toll motorway between Athens and Tsakona in the southwest of the Peloponnese, via Corinth and Patras. The project also involves operating the motorway for 30 years, and means VINCI now operates 600km of motorway in Greece.

And, as we all know, big challenges offer great opportunities for those companies with the right competencies. In this respect, Stanion sees potential for future growth in four key markets: energy, waste management, new motorway construction and, of course, improvements to the rail network. He thinks the sector holds immense promise.

“We’re in the beginnings of a new golden age for the railways,” he asserts. “As a means for transportation – mass transportation over short distances, national transportation over longer distances and even continent-wide transportation – rail makes a lot more sense than air. It’s a much more comfortable, pleasant experience to get on a fast train from London to Paris, and it’s actually quicker by the time you’ve driven your car to the airport, parked it, gone through all the security precautions, and got off at the other end.”

But while he acknowledges the potential for further expansion of the high-speed network across the continent, he maintains that the priority – for the UK, at least – must be to improve the existing network and transport the people who currently use it more comfortably, more efficiently and less expensively than we do at present. “There’s a huge amount of work that’s needed to improve what we’ve got now,” he says.

“We need to improve signalling. That’s happening slowly but surely. We

The second key area will be meeting the increased demand for energy. “It’s a very interesting subject. How are we going to replace fossil fuels, and how are we going to do that in a way that doesn’t add to the global pollution problem? I think greener generation such as wind power can play a role, but nuclear power will also be important. At the end of the day, you need to produce high levels of base power generation and the best way of doing that, in my opinion, is nuclear.”

He concedes that nuclear is an energy source that has proved deeply unfashionable in the past, but points to France (where nuclear accounts for over 40 percent of the country’s primary energy supply) as an example of how it can be used successfully. “The French made a conscious choice to go nuclear in the 1970s and how many French people have actually been harmed by nuclear pollution? Very few that I’m aware of, if any.” According to Stanion, VINCI’s interest in the nuclear industry is twofold. “Firstly, we’re heavily involved in decommissioning and cleaning up the mistakes of the past. There’s a big task there. And that’s quite separate from the issue of new nuclear generation, which is much cleaner and more sophisticated

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Dutch tunnel project Earlier this year, a VINCI-led consortium signed the concession contract for the Coentunnel in Amsterdam.

The project, worth over €500 million, requires the financing, design and construction of a submerged, eightlane road tunnel, as well as renovating the existing tunnel there and maintaining both tunnels for a period of 30 years. The tunnel will connect the centre of Amsterdam with the northern part of the Netherlands, and should take five years to complete.

than it was when people were pioneering it. We’re involved in both and will be very much involved in the construction of new nuclear power stations should they come – and we think they should.”

As with any such policy decision, the final determination will come down to two key drivers. “Economics is one; until you can say what the real cost of burning coal is, it’s tough to make an informed decision. But if you actually cost a carbon emission and create a level playing field, the economics become a little clearer. The other driver is politics, and it’s about security. Do we really want other countries to have the gas tap on their side of the wall?”

The third area of opportunity is that of waste management. “The issue of waste will be critical,” Stanion says. “We can no longer tip all our waste into holes in the ground. That’s no longer possible for a host of reasons, from lack of space to the need to be more environmentally responsible. To reduce the amount of waste we need to recycle much more, and that which we can’t recycle we’ve got to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way, so every city and every town in Europe needs better waste treatment facilities. The required investment is huge, but it will come – it’s coming now. We’re getting to see the first projects, and I predict that’s going to be a really rewarding market.”

Finally, Stanion pinpoints motorway construction as a key market for VINCI, although stops short of recommending more roads for developed countries such as the UK. “Motorways are important in countries that don’t have them,” he explains. “I question whether we need more motorways in a country like Britain. I think we just need to use them more efficiently; the issue in the UK is making the motorways work bet-

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ter, maybe some widening, traffic management and so forth. Really, we should be concentrating our efforts on making public transport systems better. I think if you want to make public transport work properly, you have to have the guts to back it and invest in it. It has to be sustainable.”

And it is here that Stanion’s real passion shines through – his belief in the importance of corporate social responsibility. Stanion himself oversaw the production of the company’s first CSR report earlier this year, and the value of sustainable development that encompasses environmental and social considerations as well as economic and engineering ones remains a subject close to his heart. “This is a huge area for us,” he says. “VINCI already has a policy of sustainability that measures all sorts of areas of activity. We’re measuring our waste production, we’re measuring our power consumption, our fuel consumption, and we’re setting targets to reduce in every area.”

For Stanion, such an approach is critical given the societal impact of the projects his firm undertakes. “I think this whole question of European infrastructure in the wider sense – not just the construction of it, but the funding of it, the operation of it, the choices of what we do – involves big issues that concern everyone, not just the construction industry,” he concludes. “They impact the man on the street. They’re going to have a dramatic effect on the way people live in the future, and the revolution we face today is just as great as the revolution they faced 200 years ago with the invention of the steam engine. Now we have to re-engineer our whole infrastructure for the future and get away from our dependence on fossil fuels. I think it’s really fundamental. I think it’s the most important issue we face as a race.”

Chernobyl containment shelter The €432 million contract comprises the design and construction of a confinement shelter in the form of an arch of exceptional dimensions, designed to permit the future dismantling of the old sarcophagus and the wreckage of the reactor that exploded on 26 April 1986.

The arch will consist of an 18,000-tonne metal framework spanning the existing sarcophagus, and will be 105 metres high, 150 metres long, with a 257-metre span.

Work started at the end of 2007 and will take 53 months.

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CONSTRUCTION FOCUS

GETTING THE JOB DONE EU infrastructure meets Mott MacDonald’s MD of Buildings and Structures, Mike Barker, to talk about why managing large projects requires a unique blend of vision and experience.

M

ike Barker rolls his eyes and looks to the heavens. “Patience is Such ambition is typical of a firm that has a long history of pioneering crucial in our line of business,” he sighs with mock exasperation, design and construction, most recently on the groundbreaking Wembley waving his hand over yet another set of revised plans. It’s a sentistadium project in the UK. From its early work in delivering the world’s first ment most project managers would agree with. Revision of designs is typical underground railway in London to more recent efforts such as the Channel on iconic projects, and a case in point is one of Mott MacDonald’s newest (and Tunnel linking England and France, the spectacular Dubai Marina developmost controversial) projects, the proposed Maze Stadium ment in the Middle East and Heathrow’s revolutionary in Northern Ireland. The build aims to bring together Gaelic Terminal 5 building, Mott MacDonald has established athletics, soccer and rugby in one world-class 21st centua reputation for delivering innovative designs and prory shared facility and put Northern Ireland on the map for ject management excellence around the world. For hosting major international events; as lead consultant, Barker, it’s all about teamwork and communicating Mott MacDonald is expected to project manage the build good ideas well. from start to finish. But as Barker is only too aware, man“Modern design teams are really all about colaging projects of such public and political interest can be laboration, and the edges of the disciplines can get Mott MacDonald’s a challenging experience. quite blurred at times,” he says. “This is especially imannual revenues “To date, we have made good progress but it has portant in a global economy. What we try and do is not exactly been straightforward,” he says. Quite apart bring a fresh approach into the design and developfrom the problems inherent in dealing with three differment process that isn’t blinkered by what we’ve done ent sporting administrations and multiple clients, there have also been isbefore as industry specialists, by having people from different disciplines sues regarding the proposed site for the stadium: that of Northern Ireland’s working closely together and sharing ideas and maybe incorporating best notorious former Maze Prison, where 10 hunger strikers died in 1981 durpractices or ways of working from other areas of the business. It allows us ing the Troubles. Nonetheless, Barker remains enthused by the project and to innovate without taking unnecessary risks.” the opportunities it offers. “It’s hit some problems at the moment due to Indeed, in an industry in which great design is the bedrock for success, affordability, which is often the case on major public infrastructure prohaving the freedom to incorporate innovative ideas is critical. But as Barker jects,” he admits. “It’s quite a challenge from a design perspective to please is quick to point out, achieving the balance is easier said than done. “Our all stakeholders, but it’s one we are excited about.” environment is becoming increasingly litigious, and that can provide a cap

€1.04 BILLION

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HAGUE WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT PPP n the €362 million Hague wastewater treatment plant – the first PPP deal in the Dutch water management sector – Mott MacDonald is providing technical advice to the commercial lending group, including the European Investment Bank (EIB).

This landmark project comprises a 30-year concession for the design, construction and operation of a new wastewater treatment plant at Harnaschpolder (capacity 1.3 million population equivalent) and the refurbishment and operation of the existing Hague wastewater treatment plant at Houtrust (capacity 0.4

O

on innovation as people are less willing to take unknown risks,” he concedes. “Nonetheless, we always try and provide added value, and innovation plays a key role in this. For instance, we have a professional excellence programme across the group that we use to bring the latest thinking into

million population equivalent). The combined plants will meet stringent EU standards for removing nitrogen and phosphorous before the effluent is discharged to the North Sea. Mott MacDonald’s role involved serving as technical advisor to the lenders throughout the bid and negotiation phases and then reviewing and monitoring of the project during the construction and operation periods. The two plants are scheduled to be fully operational by November 2008 to meet the European regulations on wastewater quality.

the workplace. I suppose if I were really honest about it, you’d ideally like to use ideas that have already been successfully trialled in the market, where somebody else has had a go and made them work, so you’ve got a precedent. And so really we’re looking at refining existing ideas and making them more accurate, and bringing more certainty into what we’re doing.

On the construction side, it’s a case of refining what we’ve got, and the innovations are probably going to come when looking at how to improve the energy efficiency of the build and the build process, that sort of thing.”

Mike Barker

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HEATHROW TERMINAL 5 As one of BAA’s first-tier integrated suppliers, Mott MacDonald has been design engineer for all the UK£4.3 billion project’s sub-structures and foundations. It also provided rail assurance and integration services, risk and safety management, project and programme management, tunnelling advice and the design of rail, road, wastewater and passenger transfer tunnels.

Making Terminal 5 accessible is vital to its success, and Mott MacDonald has been instrumental in bringing people to this new development. Among the tasks undertaken is the 1.7km long Piccadilly Line extension, which connects into the existing Piccadilly Line near the central terminal area. Similarly, the Heathrow Express Extension (HexEx) now takes the Heathrow Express rail link from the existing rail station at the central terminal area to the new rail station located beneath the new T5 terminal building.

Mott MacDonald has also been the leader of the task team responsible for development, co-ordination and design of all substructures, including the multilevel basements beneath the main terminal, concourse A and B, over and outside roads and all geotechnical design associated with the close proximity of underground tunnels.

Other substructures worked on include taxiway bridges for aircraft over airside roads, concrete underground structures for the track transit and baggage systems as well as underground service tunnels and airside roads.

Recently, Mott MacDonald successfully completed work on the airside road tunnel, a complex job involving working under one of the world’s busiest airports. The company was responsible for the design of the tunnel bores, the approach structures, highway design, mechanical and electrical definition design and instrumentation and monitoring of this prestigious project. Completed on time, under budget and with no impact on the airport’s day-to-day operations, the dualpurpose tunnel will provide road access from Terminal 1, 2 and 3 to Terminal 5. It will also serve the remote aircraft stands on the western edge of the airport from the central terminal area.

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As Barker explains, a major part of this innovation process comes from the organisational culture at Mott MacDonald. “We believe that the best innovation happens when it becomes a by-product of your company culture,” he says. “In Mott MacDonald, we try to make sure that each of our teams are adopting the same working discipline and values in different locations, and it’s like that across Europe and everywhere we work. There is a strong culture of working together across geographical and technical boundaries to provide best practice solutions to problems, so that people can benefit from being part of a larger organisation that is able to provide better direction, better training and a greater understanding of what current needs are and what cutting-edge thinking is all about. You wouldn’t necessarily get this if you were sitting by yourself in an office of three people. But by having a com-

“Modern design teams are really all about collaboration, and the edges of the disciplines can get quite blurred at times” munity of best practice across the group, it enables those three people to feel part of, for example, a 200-strong team who all do the same thing but are remote from each other. And that 200-strong team has a critical mass that enables each of those smaller teams to bring current thinking and the expertise of the whole group into whatever projects they are working on.”

Innovation breeds sustainability One of the things Barker is most excited by is the idea of channelling innovation to help promote concepts such as sustainability and energy efficiency. So how is Mott MacDonald building a greener focus into its design and construction processes and reducing the environmental impact of large projects? “As much as possible, we try to build sustainability into our designs from the beginning,” he explains. “It’s much easier to do this from the beginning than it is to try and add sustainable features or greener practices halfway through the build. You’ve got to have it in right from the beginning, because it affects the whole aspect of the building and the way it is put together.”

It’s an area that has increasingly moved up the corporate agenda for everyone involved in the infrastructure sector over the last few years, but Barker sees it as much more than just a fashionable buzzword. “In a cou-

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ple of years’ time I think that we’ll start to see less of a focus on sustainabiliWorking across most market sectors in this capacity is the strength behind ty and environmental issues – not because they’ll become any less important, our diversification strategy; as we are active in many different industry secbut because they’ll become so ingrained into everything we do,” he says. tors, not all of them are going to trough at the same time. Some will be “Sustainability is going to become second nature, because it has to. It’s going peaking. For example, energy is a very strong market at the moment for us, to become more and more central to every single thing we do, and is going to because there’s such demand for new energy provision.” be totally embedded in the very fabric of our culture as an industry.”

From that point of view, he thinks his firm will be able to ride out the And with the construction industry being one of the largest consumers storm better than most. “I do know that some of our competitors are hurtof natural resources in Europe, an essential starting point is to re-examine ing quite badly at the moment, particularly those who haven’t got that the basic materials that are wasted each year. Barker reels off a few rebreadth of exposure into different markets that we have. I suppose it realvealing – and shocking – statistics. “The construction industry is the UK’s ly depends on how deep and for how long the recession bites – and that’s largest consumer of natural resources,” he says. “Around 400 million tons anyone’s guess. I was talking to a friend of mine who’s a fund manager, and of material gets delivered to site every year, and 60 million tons of that go he was saying how even within the financial sector there are numerous difstraight to the tip. It’s absolutely staggering – brand-new materials just get ferent opinions about what’s going to happen.” junked because of poor ordering, poor storage or over-ordering.”

The good news – for those farsighted enough to get involved in those In addition, the UK construction industry accounted for approximately markets – is that China and India are still displaying a huge appetite for raw 8.5 percent of GDP, but churned out a third of the nation’s total waste. So materials. “If you’re exporting to that part of the world, then there’s a good what can the industry do to reduce its consumption of energy, water and chance that you haven’t even started to feel the effects of the recession raw materials, and what opportunities are there for yet,” continues Barker. “In Australia, for example, better waste management in the construction secthey’re still booming along like you wouldn’t betor? According to Barker, the UK has already made a lieve in relation to exporting raw materials and “Sustainability is going start in addressing the problem, but other countries minerals into China. For them it’s like, recession? to become more and need to follow suit. “In the UK now, every project What recession? Similarly, we’re working on a more central to every that’s over UK£300,000 capital value has got to have huge project down in South Africa at the moment a waste plan, and that waste plan has got to deterproviding railway and port access for the raw masingle thing we do, and mine how misuse is going to be dealt with, and how terials export business – because there’s also a is going to be totally waste is going to be minimised,” he says. “It’s called huge demand for natural resources out of South embedded in the very a site waste management plan, and it’s an attempt Africa, to meet the ever-increasing appetite for raw fabric of our culture as to try and bring this appalling waste of materials materials in the Far East.” an industry” under control. It really is quite amazing how badly And on the domestic front, he points to the huge the construction industry has been faring in relation amount of homes that still need to be built to meet risto waste reduction.” ing demand as evidence that all is not doom and The next step is to try and implement similar initiatives across Europe. gloom for the sector. “There’s still a demand for housing, certainly in this coun“I imagine the EU will start to implement something quite shortly – it’s going try,” he says. “I think people would still like to have their own house and garto be a bit more difficult because of the diversity of the countries in Europe, den and things like that, and there’s a huge deficit there. So there’s plenty for but I believe it’s necessary. And I think everybody’s in a similar situation – some the sector to feel optimistic about.” are more advanced than we are, of course, but I think there’s a desire to adMarket opportunities dress this issue across the EU, particularly given the prospect of a potential As there is for Mott MacDonald, too. The company recently completed recession.” its role on an award-winning project as design engineer for a new civil justice centre in Manchester, and is hoping to use the lessons learned from Defeating the downturn that as a means of benchmarking future projects. “The whole of the design The possibility of tough economic times is, of course, the elephant in is actually based around its sustainability performance,” explains Barker. the room as far as the industry is concerned. So has Barker witnessed any The UK£113 million centre, which provides 47 courtrooms in a sustainable evidence of this so far, and does he anticipate any potential downturn to 16-storey building designed by architect Denton Corker Marshall, features have much impact on the construction sector in general? “It has already an 11-storey atrium and a spectacular 60m by 60m glass facade along the started to impact on us in certain instances,” he admits. “We were doing a western edge. Meeting the requirement for natural ventilation means that the lot of work on larger housing schemes, and that’s all dried up now. All the structure had to be designed to accommodate a complex web of ductwork to contractors who are dealing with housing developments are finding it realallow air taken in at the sides of the atrium – through wind scoops facing the ly hard going.” direction of the prevailing wind – to circulate through the building. The naturSo rough times ahead, then? Not necessarily. “This is where our stratal ventilation system is designed to maximise free-cooling potential and comegy is paying off, because we’re very diverse,” explains Barker. “Mott fort in mid-season. An intelligent building management system brings in a MacDonald has around 13,500 people worldwide, and we deliberately back-up forced ventilation system if the wind speed is too low to achieve this. made the decision to limit our work to technical, professional and strategic Other features include an ‘environmental veil’ on the east façade to control services, rather than going into the traditional domain of contractors.

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EUROPEAN FOCUS Mott MacDonald’s activities across Europe cover every sector and every professional technical discipline of expertise. Just the briefest snapshot includes: • Education, urban regeneration, building and transportation developments in the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Denmark and Greece • Health advances and power stations in Spain, Poland, Turkey and Italy • Water and wastewater projects in the Netherlands, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and the Czech Republic • Environmental and water assignments in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan • Transport projects in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Russia

Manchester’s UK£113 million Civil Justice Centre has become a benchmark for sustainable development

solar gain but also maximise natural daylight, and groundwater cooling, which alone reduces cooling load energy consumption by around 15-20 percent.

Barker and his team already aim to better these performance figures on a similar courts building they are working on in Birmingham.

And as governments increasingly call on the private sector to take part in infrastructure development, Mott MacDonald is also sharing its expertise in public private partnerships (PPPs) in all areas, from transport to health throughout Europe. In the Slovak Republic the firm examined the feasibility of using PPP to fund 90km of D1 motorway in the north of the country, while in Poland the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development asked the company to study the introduction of municipal road PPPs in Lodz, Krakow and Poznan. At the same time, the Mott MacDonald team is helping deliver nationally strategic mainline rail upgrades in various countries including Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands and the UK. Clearly, the European market is an important area of future growth.

“We operate a global company, and one challenge is trying to make sure that we uphold our high standards and bring a sense of commonality across the whole group at all our diverse geographic locations,” says Barker. And in terms of opportunity, he has no doubt as to where the main potential lies.

“Eastern Europe is going to bring the most significant changes into the region. I don’t think we’ve really tapped or fully understand the market yet.

They’ve got lots of natural resources, therefore they’ve got lots of potential for wealth creation and it’s understandable that people in Eastern Europe will want the same sort of standard of living as others have elsewhere around the world.”

He sees similar potential in Russia. “It’s such a huge country, and there’s loads of natural resources there. I think that’s actually going to have a big impact on the whole of the European construction industry. It’s going to be focused more and more on the development of those countries. We’ve already got projects and offices there, and we’re pushing forward on that basis. And there’s a huge amount of development that needs to happen there. The construction industry is already gearing itself up. The natural resources, minerals and oil-related development will fuel huge opportunities for us all. I’ve seen it. I’m in and out of Russia all the time. I’ve seen the opportunities going on there. Kazakhstan’s the same; there are amazing opportunities there.”

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COUNTRY FOCUS

In the last couple of years there has been a significant surge of interest in high-class contemporary architecture among investors in Poland.

Bartlomiej Sosna and Anna Bedkowska report. o the end of 2012, over €2.9 billion will be allocated in Poland to bring the designs of world-famous architects to life. A number of factors have influenced the present situation. A key factor is the availability and rising attractiveness of the Polish market to foreign investors who, unlike Polish companies, are familiar with investing in high-class architecture.

Until recently, Poland was home to only a few designs developed in the studios of world-class architects, such as the Metropolitan office building in Pilsudski Square in Warsaw, designed by Norman Foster, and the Centre of Japanese Art and Technology by Arata Isozaki in Krakow. In recent times, however, the situation has changed considerably. In Warsaw and Poznan, new apartment buildings by Daniel Libeskind are being erected; a high-rise building by Zaha Hadid will be built in the immediate vicinity of the capital’s Marriott Hotel; Frank O. Gehry is to design Lodz’s congress centre; and Tadao Ando, commissioned by Grazyna Kulczyk, is working on a concept for an underground gallery of contemporary art.

T

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Not only does the name of a well-known architect guarantee unconventional solutions, high quality and prestige, it is also an ingenious marketing tactic. Evidence of the efficiency of such an approach is the construction of the Guggenheim Museum affiliate in Bilbao by Frank O. Gehry, which has contributed to the development of the whole city (the so-called ‘Bilbao effect’).

The Frankfurt headquarters of Commerzbank, designed by Norman Foster, can serve as another example. Since Commerzbank Tower was the tallest high-rise building in Europe for a long time, its name has appeared in the media, publications and discussions far more frequently than the seats of 10s of other banks also located in Frankfurt.

The fact that architects are regarded as professionals is also important.

Although the death of Andy Warhol marked the passing of an era in which accomplished creators of the fine arts enjoyed the status of stars, the world’s top architects today are media personalities, sometimes with political influence as well. Inundated with offers of co-operation, the designers decide to take on merely a few percent of their potential commissions.

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The design for the Africarium at Wroclaw Zoo is estimated to cost €29 million Hence, the investors whose projects have been accepted by the most famous architects feel deeply honoured and it pays to bear the enormous costs of such endeavours, since the name of the architect is a brand in itself. Buildings start being famous long before they are erected; their attractiveness along with the price rise for future customers and users. This phenomenon can be clearly observed on the basis of the above-mentioned Warsaw and Poznan-based projects by Hadid and Libeskind.

Luxury buildings

tially estimated at €285 million. Another high-rise office building, which is bound to stand out thanks to its eyebrow-rising look, is Pro Urba’s investment in the Kaleidoscope, located at the junction of Prosta and Towarowa streets in Warsaw. The oval shape building will stand 170m tall; its glass façades will be covered with special cladding, thanks to which it will sparkle with a multitude of colours from the outside.

One of the most talented young Polish architectural studios, Medusa Group Architects, have agreed to design four 11-storey office buildings in the emergent Silesia Business Park on the border of Katowice and Chorzow. The high-rise buildings will be covered with irregular slabs of coloured concrete, to evoke the pattern of geological strata.

An interesting idea that stands a good chance of being realised in Krakow – if it can overcome the resistance of Krakow’s conservators – is the completion of the high-rise building known as ‘Skeletor’. The renowned German architect and constructor of the characteristic buildings in Potsdam Square in Berlin, Hans Kollhoff, put a proposition to the present owners of the building (GD&K Group and Verity Development) to transform it into a tower by means of stone slab facing and a copper cupola, to make the structure resemble Krakow’s other Gothic basilica towers.

Cultural investments A number of public investments, primarily ones to house cultural institutions and entertainment facilities, have been made possible thanks to EU funding. Every single design competition for a new museum brings hope for a Bilbao mini-effect, although the designers

€2.9

A luxury apartment building designed by an Iranian architect, commissioned by Lilium, is to rise by the year 2012 in the vicinity of Warsaw’s Central Railway Station. With its height (250m) and its characteristic blue glass oval mass, the building is supposed to outshine not only the neighAmount allocated to bring bouring Marriott Hotel, but also the Palace of Culture and world-class architecture to Science. The building plot alone cost Lilium €12 million; the life in Poland to 2012 construction works will eat up another €200 million.

On the other side of the future Lilium Tower, the construction of a 45-storey apartment building created by Daniel Libeskind, Zlota 44, is to begin immediately. More than a half of the 251 luxury apartments, priced up to €10,000/m2, have been already sold.

The investor, Luxembourg-based Orco Property Group, paid an additional €10 million to incorporate into the design such energy efficient and ecological solutions as heat-recovery ventilation and rainwater toilet-flush systems. The building is to be built primarily with recycled materials. This, as well as the name of the designer, is meant to attract environmentally aware customers.

Libeskind’s second project, the Korona Tower – currently awaiting the final building permit – will have a slightly smaller scale (31 floors, 105m height); its overall cost has been assessed at €105 million. Thanks to the name of its architect and its deconstructive structure, the building is bound to become Poznan’s great attraction and, as a consequence, an advertisement for the investor, Wechta.

Kulczyk Holding intends to follow in the footsteps of Commerzbank and will reside in Europe’s tallest building. Designed by the MWH Architekci studio, the building is to be erected at the corner of Chmielna and Miedziana streets in Warsaw by the year 2012. The cost of the building has been ini-

BILLION

Kaleidoscope’s specially designed glass façade will sparkle with a multitude of colours

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Warsaw’s National Stadium, designed by JSK Architekten, will cost €343 million and is set to replace the Stadion Dziesieciolecia

RESHAPING WARSAW may not yet be stars of world architecture. Buildings like the Parisian Pompidou Centre (Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, 1977) and the Jewish Museum in Berlin (Daniel Libeskind, 1999) – nowadays considered most important to their cities – made their creators stars of the global architecture scene. It seems it pays to invest in pioneering, even if sometimes slightly bizarre and controversial, buildings.

The most eagerly awaited investment of this kind in the last few years in Poland has been the Museum of Modern Art. After year-long negotiations, the city authorities finally signed a contract with Swiss architect Christian Kerez on 12 April 2008. The results of the competition, with Kerez’s minimalist design as the winner, aroused controversy from the very start.

The Swiss project was criticised for being too modest; commentators had hoped for something spectacular to counterbalance the dominating Palace of Culture and Science in Plac Defilad (Parade Square). Moreover, the two lowest storeys of the building, making up to 10,000 of the 35,000m2 of the available floor space, have been allotted for commercial purposes, whereas the exhibition space will be confined to two merging concrete cuboids above. Kerez has agreed to prepare the final design of the building as well as the planning application and the tender materials. The construction will commence in 2010 at the earliest, after the department store in Parade Square has been removed and an underground segment of the second line of the Warsaw Metro, located under the future museum, has been completed. The cost of the venture has been estimated at €77 million, although due to the rising prices of building materials and services, it is likely to increase.

Another of Warsaw’s cultural investments with a huge budget, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews designed by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamäki and Ilmari Lahdelma, had its foundation stone laid down in June 2007. The building, which symbolically evokes the biblical parting of the Red Sea, is to be constructed with less typical building materials, such as limestone and lithium. Unfortunately, the construction of the building had to be stopped owing to recalculation of costs, which four years ago were estimated at €29 million and were to be covered by the city, the Ministry of Culture and the Jewish Historical Institute. Today, the completion of the edifice (including the fittings) is estimated at €77m. However, the city has re-

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The 20th century wasn’t a great time for Poland’s capital. Smashed to bits in the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century, it was then patched up with blocs of crumbling communist concrete in the second. Now, backed by a resurgent economy, Warsaw is shaking off its socialist architectural hangover and putting forward a bold new face of glistening skyscrapers designed by some of the world’s top architects.

Around 85 percent of Warsaw was reduced to rubble during World War II, with most of the damage coming in the pitched street battles of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and a year later between Polish insurgents and the Nazi occupiers in the Warsaw Uprising. After crushing the 1944 revolt, the Germans systematically dynamited most of the remaining buildings and shipped the surviving residents to concentration camps. That episode now allows Warsaw to develop its urban areas in ways Paris, Vienna, Austria and Prague cannot.

“Other cities weren’t destroyed, and that is their advantage, but also their limitation,” said Tomasz Zemla, Warsaw’s Deputy Director of Architecture and Planning. “We have a different, dramatic history, but that allows us to have a whole lot more freedom in building.”

Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, who took office in 2006, is leading the skyscraper charge in Warsaw, and has said she wants the city to be a place where architects from across the world and Poland compete. “The city has great potential, and a lot of land to build on in the centre,” she said. “Warsaw must grow up if it wants to compete with other big European cities."

assured sceptics that the construction of the museum remains a priority.

The governments of France, the US and Germany as well as private sponsors have offered financial support. A tender notice will be released in the summer of 2008, settled in the autumn and, in line with the most optimistic scenario, the construction works could resume at the beginning of October.

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Gdansk-based Fort studio, stipulated that the first and second prize winners would be invited to join in further negotiations and to produce a detailed design.

The second prize winner, Warsaw-based Grey architecture studio, estimated their Also in the capital, the second stage of the public tender for the conoffer at €0.9 million, whereas Fort was ready to carry out the same project for struction of the Copernicus Science Centre in the Powisle district is underway. €4.6 million. Although neither of the offers exceeds the eight percent value of The first stage of investment is to be ready in two years; the second, seven the whole investment (estimated at €68.6 million) as specified in the regulamonths later. In its long-term financial plan, the city has earmarked €43 miltions, Gdansk officials were dismayed at the huge disparity, and may seek the lion for the development of the centre, while the permanent exhibition and the opinion of an external expert. The Centre is to be built by 2010 to honour the multimedia planetarium are to be financed by the Ministry of Science. The 30th anniversary of the Gdansk August Accord. The simple body of the buildbuilding, designed by Laboratorium Architektury Gilner & Kubec from Ruda ing, with corten steel façades complemented by smoked glass, relates to the Slaska, the winners of the architectural competition in 2005, will predictably industrial character of the shipyard. The rawness of materials will be softened be built using fibreglass reinforced concrete. The dome of the planetarium, by rich greenery around and inside the building.

16m in diameter, will be covered with halftone rust-coloured glass plates. The Another design contest for a unique building on a global scale – the building will be adapted to meet the needs of the handiAfricarium in the Wroclaw Zoo – was resolved in Wroclaw capped. Moreover, thanks to such ecological solutions as at the beginning of April. The winning project came from light courts and self-cleaning water tanks, the building is the ARC-2 architectural studio. A black cubicoid with to promulgate the idea of sustainable development.

12,000m2 floor space will house the exhibition “The lifegiving waters of Africa”, which will comprise artificial Regional developments rivers, lakes, coral reefs, a large aquarium with sharks as As far as cultural institutions are concerned, interestwell as a restaurant installed in a shipwreck. The city is of Warsaw was ing projects are planned in other cities as well. In April prepared to bear the costs of the investment estimated reduced to rubble in 2008, Krakow saw work begin on the building of the at €29 million, but still hopes to receive a subsidy from World War II Polish Aviation Museum, which will rise in the northern the EU. The Africarium is to be completed by 2012. end of the Polish Airmen’s Park. The aerodynamic strucAnother example of an architecturally interesting ture, reminiscent of a propeller, was designed by public investment is the Silesian Museum. On 13 April renowned Berlin-based architects Justus Pysall and Peter Ruge, in co-op2008, after a few months’ talks, the museum’s management signed a coneration with Polish architect Bartlomiej Kisielewski. Arup Polska will overtract for the construction of the building with Austria’s Riegler & Riewe see construction and installation works, while the Berlin-based ST Raum Architekten. The new building will be erected on the site of the Katowice studio is to take care of landscaping. The main building material will be coalmine and will be entirely hidden underground. The only visible feature architectural concrete (structural), which until now has rarely been used will be two towers illuminating the interior. Thanks to such a discreet soluin Poland. The construction work is to continue until 2010. The investtion, the monumental structure of the former coalmine will be exposed. ment, worth as much as €13 million, is primarily financed by the EU (€8.5 Comprehensive project documentation is to be prepared by June 2009. million) and from the coffers of the Malopolskie Voivodship.

Construction work will commence in the spring of 2010 and will take two In Gdansk, where the European Solidarity Centre is to stand, the pubyears. The whole investment, estimated at €68.6 million, will also entail lic tender for the construction of the building ignited a conflict. The rules of land development and building of infrastructure. Around 85 percent of the the competition, which was resolved in December 2007 in favour of the necessary funding will come from the EU. Construction of the new Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, designed by Christian Kerez, will commence in 2010

85%

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Warsaw’s museum of the history of Polish jews symbolically evokes the biblical parting of the Red Sea

HILTON WROCLAW HOTEL A hospitality facility that will certainly stand out as original is the Hilton Wroclaw Hotel, which was awarded a prize at this year’s Cannes International Real Estate Fair.

Thanks to the application of the extraordinarily durable Corian material, many construction limitations were successfully overcome. As a result, the build will take the form of an organic structure, one wholly devoid of right angles. The author of the project is the Parisian Gottesman-Szmelcman Architecture studio. Presently, earthworks are underway on the plot on the edge of Dominikanski Square. The investment, worth €86 million, is scheduled to open in 2010.

Euro 2012 An additional factor that has fuelled new architectural projects is Euro 2012, which requires the completion a number of investments in sports facilities, hotels and infrastructure. The most architecturally interesting of all the planned stadiums seems to be the project of the Baltic Arena for Gdansk, which was created in Germany’s Rhode Kellermann Wawrowsky studio. The golden colour of the outer layer of the stadium is evocative of

the colour and texture of amber. The investment, worth an estimated €143 million, is to be completed by the autumn of 2011. Currently the building plot is being cleaned; the construction work is set to commence in December 2008.

The biggest investment, worth €343 million, will certainly be the National Stadium, designed by the experienced German studio JSK Architekten. The new stadium will rise in place of the former Stadion Dziesieciolecia. Since the ground is swampy, it has to be reinforced with 20,000 concrete stakes before the proper construction work can commence. The bid for the staking will be announced in the summer of 2008.

In Krakow, the design competitions for a sports and entertainment arena and for a congress centre have been resolved. The designer of the first, whose shape is reminiscent of a flying saucer, is the Krakow-based Perbo Project studio supported by Poznan’s Modern Construction Systems. The whole exterior façade of the arena is to be an enormous screen, which is a very interesting solution, both for aesthetic and commercial reasons. The investment, estimated at €86 million, is to rise by the end of 2012, on the western end of the Academy of Physical Education Park. The second building, designed by Ingarden & Ewy, assisted in interior design by Arata Isozaki, will be erected in the next three to four years near to the Grunwaldzki roundabout. This seven-storey edifice, which will house a congress hall with a 2100-person capacity, is to cost the city €71 million. Apart from glass and light marble, Krakow-specific building materials such as limestone and brick will also be used.

In the immediate vicinity of the future congress centre, construction work on a new hotel with the working-name Stepped on Frog is in full swing. The project was designed

by German architect Jurgen Meyer, with the assistance of Ovotz Design Lab and Joi Design. Not only will the body itself be eye-catching, the structure of the façade is also set to be stunning, made from aluminium intertwined with dark glass. The building was initially to serve as office space but, considering its location, the investor SOF Debniki Development, a member of the UBM Polska and GD&K Group, decided that it will also hold a three-anda-half-star Park Inn hotel. The investment, worth €26 million, is to be completed in 2009.

This revival of the Polish market has been fostered by the favourable economic conditions and by a shift in the aesthetic approach towards architecture. Today’s 20 and 30-year-olds have already had the chance to take advantage of open borders; they travel easily and enjoy almost unlimited access to the solutions offered by the world’s architectural milieu.

Nowadays, thanks to inter-university agreements, scholarships and placement programmes, young Polish architects can study and work all over the world, drawing on the experience and skills of world-famous designers. All these factors mean that gradually there will be more and more architectural studios emerging that, following good international examples, will create architectural space in Poland in a conscious and original way, bringing it closer to global standards.

Bartlomiej Sosna and Anna Bedkowska are construction industry analysts at PMR Research.

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PROJECT FINANCING

INFRASTRUCTURE SECTOR ANTICIPATES STRONGER YEAR AHEAD Despite doom and gloom merchants predicting the onset of recessionary conditions across a number of industry verticals, reports of the demise of the infrastructure sector have been greatly exaggerated.

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ver two-thirds of senior executives within the European infrastructure and transport industry expect the volume of deals and level of financial investment in European infrastructure projects for the next 12 months to either increase or remain consistent with the past year, according to a recently released survey by international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. The results follow a tough year so far for the industry, with the credit crunch contributing to activity dropping 40 percent in terms of number of deals completed during the first six months of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007.

Activity levels for the next 12 months are expected to be concentrated on energy utilities (61 percent) and renewable energy (56 percent) with transport projects on roads (53 percent), rail (45 percent) and aviation (44 percent) also likely to feature. Social infrastructure projects, such as schools (33 percent), hospitals (28 percent) and prisons (22 percent) – which in recent years have experienced a boom – are, in contrast, expected to slow.

“With the credit crunch denting optimism across so many industries, the infrastructure and transport sector appears to be holding strong and pointing towards a decisive focus on traditional infrastructure, particularly energy and renewable projects but also rail, road and aviation,” says Nick Bliss, co-head of Freshfields’ Global Infrastructure and Transport team.

Among the reasons behind the industry’s focus on energy and renewables, Bliss cites the skyrocketing price of oil, the fact that governments worldwide are keen to improve energy security, dwindling energy reserves, nuclear plants coming to the end of their lifecycles, the unbundling of the European energy market, demand and growth of energy requirements in the emerging markets, as well as the regulatory and socially driven impetus for the energy sector to respond to climate change as major factors. “There’s a plethora of urgent issues stoking up demand for new, modern energy infrastructure,” he says.

Funding investment A more detailed analysis of the results from specific respondent categories suggests investors being slightly more optimistic (80 percent expecting European deal volumes to increase or stay the same) than credit providers (60 percent) – a distinction far less discernible in relation to expected deal values (68 percent compared to 60 percent).

Despite a more positive outlook for the future, constraints within the market remain: the increasing cost of debt, continued downward pressure on individual credit providers’ exposure levels, the tightening of covenant packages and limited accessibility to the capital markets, particularly after recent monocline downgrades. “Market conditions are undoubtedly tougher, but re-

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cent deal closures and forward-looking announcements can give cause for optimism,” says Bliss.

Recently completed deals include the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) deal in the UK (which had a UK£2.2 billion senior debt requirement plus UK£105 million mezzanine and UK£180 million equity bridge facilities); and the UK£3.6 billion acquisition of Angel Trains. Future projects that have been recently announced include high-speed rail programmes in Portugal and Poland, the ongoing public private partnerships (PPP) road programme in Russia and India and PPPs in the USA – including the long-anticipated US$12.8 billion acquisition of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Longer-term view The picture for the year ahead is consistent with forecasts for the next 10 years, where renewable energies (77 percent) and energy utilities (65 percent) are expected to provide the greatest opportunity for growth. These are followed by road (53 percent), rail (49 percent) and significantly, nuclear (45 percent) ahead of aviation (43 percent). Schools (32 percent), hospitals (25 percent) and prisons (23 percent) are not widely regarded as major growth areas.

“The continued strength of interest in transport infrastructure such as roads, rail and airports is not surprising given the attractiveness of the long-term stable returns that can be generated by such assets to a growing group of investors such as infrastructure funds, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds,” continues Bliss. “However, over the long-term the highest levels of activity are, once again, expected to be in energy.”

Bliss warns that one of the main challenges for continued growth in infrastructure deals for the year ahead remains pricing and, invariably, funding. The large infrastructure deals of 2006, such as Ferovial’s acquisition of BAA and Macquarie’s acquisition of Thames Water, were supported by the availability of cheap and readily available debt. The debt markets have clearly undergone a radical change since August 2007, leading to higher levels of equity, vendor loans (to sustain, as far as possible, vendor exit price expectations) and an almost-total closure to infrastructure deals of the monoline wrapped bond market (exacerbated by the recent MBIA and Ambac downgrades). This has consequently led to an increased reliance upon bank debt, higher debt margins, reduced ticket sizes on the part of banks, tighter covenant packages and more conservative financial ratios.

“The overwhelming view from the survey’s respondents is that sellers’ price expectations are too high and remain at pre-credit crunch levels with only limited evidence to the contrary. The market is, in truth, expecting a price correction for infrastructure assets which has not yet come through,” concludes Bliss.

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INDUSTRY INSIGHT

A whole range of cranes Tower crane specialist Terex Comedil is considered the pioneer of flat top cranes. In addition, the company offers a whole range of quick assembly cranes and luffing jib tower cranes.

Marketing Director Christian Schorr-Golsong explains more. erex Comedil’s portfolio of flat top cranes ranges from 51 to 720 meter tons with jib lengths of 25 to 85 metres. Many things speak in favour of flat top cranes: they make perfect sense if a range of tower cranes work simultaneously in a confined space on large construction sites, if used in the immediate vicinity of airports or in extreme situations such as in industrial halls. Without the ‘tops’ of conventional tower cranes, several metres of assembly height can be saved and therefore tower cranes can, in general, be stacked lower. The benefit for the user: fewer tower segments, smaller tower systems or, alternatively, no special tower combinations and therefore lower investment costs.

Another advantage of the lower installation is the more flexible choice of the required mobile crane for assembly: as a result of lower overall heights and favourable individual weights of assembly containers, smaller mobile cranes with less lifting capacity and boom length may be used; for example, a 100 ton mobile crane can be used in lieu of a 160 ton mobile crane. The lack of a head and anchor poles make the work of the assemblers easier and saves on assembly time.

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“The use of modern control technology and frequency converters for hoist, trolley and slewing gear drives provides a smooth and efficient lifting operation” Assembly and bolting of the crane systems is easily carried out: the assembly platforms are integrated in the tower segments.

There is no need for draping of assembly platforms, which can be time-consuming.

Flat top cranes made by Terex Comedil offer low-cost transport and quick assembly with fewer complete sub-assemblies. The upper crane, which has been completely pre-assembled, can be installed with only four auto crane hoists: slewing platform with cabin system, counter jib, jib heel section with hoist and trolley winch gear unit, as well as a trolley with lifting crane hooks including reeving ropes and the (pre-assembled) jib.

The assembly work performed at height is thereby kept to a minimum.

Alternatively, the upper crane can also be assembled in individual steps at height – depending on the amount of available space on the construction site or the availability of a large mobile crane.

Thanks to the modular concept for tower and jib elements as well as cruciform bases, the crane can be customised, depending on its conditions of use. The operator disposes of a true modular assembly system from the base to the jib point. The jib components can variably be used for small or large cranes. The use of modern control technology and frequency converters for hoist, trolley and slewing gear drives provides a smooth and efficient lifting operation. The new Panaroma cabins offer an excellent view of the load and the construction site.

The workplace, which has been ergonomically designed, ensures light and tireless operation.

Quick assembly cranes The selection of quick assembly cranes ranges from 18 to 40 meter tons and offers jibs of up to 40m. The CBR Plus series consists of a transport unit, which is ready for assembly with a tower and jib package, complete reeving ropes and central ballast – even loading in containers is possible due to the compact design. The welldesigned assembly kinematics provides secure installation, even in tight spaces. The crane impresses with state-of-the-art technology: the switch cabinets are integrated in the central ballast and the drive components are fully enclosed. A compatible transport axle with ABE (road homologation) is available for road transportation. The standard frequency converters for hoisting, trolley and slewing gear help make crane operations smooth and precise. All cranes are equipped with remote radio control.

Luffing jib tower cranes Specially developed for urban use, the CTL class offers jibs with an outstanding reach without requiring too much room for slewing motions – a special advantage if many cranes are to work on high-rise building and power plant sites. CTL cranes can work without a bulky base given their mobile counterweight system. The integrated AWLR system promotes quick work cycles and easy handling.

For more information Christian Schorr-Golsong can be reached at Terex Demag GmbH, Dinglerstrasse 24, 66482 Zweibruecken, Germany, by phone on +49 6332 83 1738 or email at Christian.schorrgolsong@terex-demag.com

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INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Intelligent technology New technology for high-tech road building wins cost and energy savings. pecifications for high-tech road building are becoming increasingly sophisticated – especially in the field of automatic compaction, compaction control, measurement and total documentation.

Faced with the challenges of lower government spending, higher energy costs and tougher environmental protection, contractors need to be sure about the efficiency of their plant and the quality of their output. The avoidance of premature road failure due to insufficient compaction and the implementation of lower-cost compaction processes are twin goals where intelligent technology is becoming indispensable.

For years, measuring technology has been synonymous with efficiency and quality control in compaction and has proven itself on innumerable construction sites and large-scale projects. BOMAG’s measuring and documentation system not only optimises the compaction process and documents results, number of

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passes, amplitude, frequency and working speed, but even detects and stores material stiffness values. Documentation is handled via the well-proven BOMAG BCM 05 Compaction Management System. The EVIB value is the only measured value based on MN/m2 that offers reliable compaction control as a physical value for all soil-based and most asphalt-based applications. This produces a significant advantage for the contractor as he can monitor the compaction of all layers from sub-base to asphalt, using the same measurement value – comprehensive and consistent documentation for the entire project.

State-of-the-art BOMAG rollers can be equipped with an automatic compaction control system (ASPHALT MANAGER), while single drum rollers can be equipped with VARIOCONTROL. These systems allow drivers to see key compaction data on a display screen – thus dispensing with guesswork. Unnecessary passes are avoided, saving time, money and protecting the environment. With each pass, the driver sees a surface picture of the site and the level of compaction achieved. The EVIB value in MN/m2 is continuously calculated and indicates the achieved level of stiffness. Both ASPHALT MANAGER and VARIOCONTROL regulate the compaction force to the load-bearing capacity of the sub-base. Drivers use automatic mode for approximately 90 percent of all applications, but a manual setting for jobs in a

BOMAG is a global market leader in compaction technology. The company, situated in Boppard, Germany, belongs to the French FAYAT Group and produces compaction machines, stabilisers/recyclers, milling machines and pavers. In 2007, around 2000 employees achieved a turnover of €634 million.

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sensitive environment (e.g. close to buildings or on bridges) is always available. So BOMAG compaction control and measurement technology also offers the contractor the highest detail in the way in which it documents the quality of work for each compaction site.

Since 2007, BOMAG has made the BCM 05 positioning software module available for comprehensive GPS supported documentation on all tandem rollers with ASPHALT MANAGER,

“For years, measuring technology has been synonymous with efficiency and quality control in compaction” on single drum rollers with VARIOCONTROL and on all fourth-generation single drum rollers. As a DGPS solution, BOMAG uses the compact and fast Starfire iTC system, which is simple to install and works with a satellite supported reference service with accuracy down to at least 20cm.

However, BOMAG software interfaces with all conventional DGPS systems with and without reference stations. Positioning precision depends on the GPS system chosen by the contractor. The raw data supplied by the system can then be transformed into on-site co-ordinates using the BCM 05 positioning software and are documented along with the BCM 05 results.

All decisive variables for compaction are recorded and can be displayed individually or combined on the BCM 05 display as a multicoloured map to support the roller driver. The system is fully automated: manual, track-bound entry of positioning data is no longer necessary.

However, if the GPS reference satellites are not available, compaction control and documentation of track-bound work can continue and position data can be entered manually.

In this way, the contractor is always able to control the compaction, to avoid wasteful roller passes and to provide consistent documentation of the quality of his work output, avoiding subsequent problems. Cost efficient, energy efficient and reliable: the key features of intelligent technology on modern road building projects.

By Dr Iris von Kirschbaum, Head of Communications, BOMAG. HansJosef Kloubert is Product Manager for the described technologies.

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OLYMPIC STADIUM The innovative design of London’s Olympic Stadium allows for an 80,000-seat athletics stadium to be converted into a more easily maintained 25,000-seat venue after the Games. The Olympic Stadium will be at the heart of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, with all athletics events taking place in the stadium, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. A roof will stretch around the stadium to provide cover and support the lighting and sound systems used to stage the Games. It will be built to international track and field standards for athletes.

PROJECT STATS: • Construction started in May 2008 • The stadium is on an island site, surrounded on three sides by waterways • Construction is scheduled to finish in 2011, in time for test events to take place before the Games

Project watch EU Infrastructure takes a look at the sports stadiums across Europe that are currently under construction.

LIA MANOLIU ARENA

CAMP NOU STADIUM The existing stadium bowl is to be retained with the upper tier expanded to accommodate extra seating capacity. The stadium will be enclosed in a new mosaic composed of translucent panels in the colours of the FC Barcelona club. The enclosure will act as a rain screen around the sides of the stadium allowing naturally ventilated concourse areas. The design also includes photovoltaic panels to harvest solar energy. At night, lighting will make the enclosure glow in bright colours and feature animated effects to give the stadium a changing image and dynamic response to environment and events.

PROJECT STATS: • Projected capacity increased from 98,000 to 106,000 • Approximate budget is €250 million • The project includes a new stadium museum

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The Lia Manoliu Arena will be the first five-star venue in Romanian football and is predicted to host European competitions when it is built

by April 2010. The arena will be built on the site of the Lia Manoliu Stadium, built in 1953, which has now been demolished to make way for the new arena. The arena will be built from in-situ concrete and prefabricated parts, with a membrane covering.

The arena is expected to hold 55,000 people, with a potential expansion to 63,000.

PROJECT STATS: • The stadium is named after Lia Manoliu, a Romanian discus thrower who competed at a record six Summer Olympics, winning three medals, two bronze and one gold • The arena is expected to cost €142 million • The stadium is the first one built to support a possible bid for Euro 2020, which Romania and Bulgaria are prepared to jointly host

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SWEDBANK ARENA The Swedbank Arena will be the largest in the Nordic region and will serve as Scandinavia’s premier football and entertainment venue. One of the greatest structural engineering challenges will be to engineer the steel structures that will bear up the weight of the retractable roof that extends over the pitch – each half of the roof weighs a full 400 tonnes, plus the considerable extra load arising from snowfall.

PROJECT STATS: • The arena is scheduled for completion in 2012 • It will accommodate 50,000 spectators during football matches and 65,000 at concerts • It is calculated to cost around €192 million

BALTIC ARENA The Baltic Arena will be the first stadium in Poland to comply with all UEAFA regulations. The project is estimated to cost around €170 million and the expected capacity is 44,000, when it is completed in 2011. The outside walls will be made of amber coloured material that will be illuminated at night. The stadium will be built on a site raised from the ground, which will make it visible from almost anywhere in Gdansk, as well as from the sea.

PROJECT STATS: • It will take just 10 minutes to get from the city centre to the stadium via bus, tram or train • The stadium will be used for the European Football Championships, which will take place in Gdansk in 2012 • The stadium will cover around four hectares, but combined with surrounding car parks, green areas and a training pitch it will cover 37 hectares

SHAKHTAR STADIUM Shakhtar Stadium will be the first stadium in Eastern Europe to be designed and constructed in compliance with EUFAs five-star guidelines. The iconic design features a sloping roof from north to south in line with the site, a glass façade providing views into and out of the stadium, and clear external concourses that are sympathetic to its surroundings in Leninskiy Komsomol Park. It has seated accommodation for 50,000 spectators.

PROJECT STATS: • At the project peak, over 1000 construction workers will be working on the stadium • Approximately 4300 tones of steel will be used in construction • Opening is scheduled for 2009

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THE BIG INTERVIEW

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As CEO of high-speed rail operator Eurostar, Richard Brown is a central figure in one of the most exciting periods in the history of European railways. EU Infrastructure’s Senior Editor Ben Thompson caught up with him to discuss the future of rail in Europe and why expanding the network is critical.

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he first thing you notice on arrival at Eurostar’s London headquarters is the gothic splendour of the recently revamped St Pancras station, the company’s new centre of operations. Over the past few years, a spectacular modernisation programme has seen the terminus transformed from a sootsmeared, neglected and half-empty shell of a building into one of the continent’s most impressive transport hubs. And as Europe’s gateway into London, St Pancras is set to be reborn as one of the capital’s iconic landmarks.

The catalyst for the renovation was Eurostar’s decision to relocate there from its previous base at Waterloo. The highprofile move, designed as the first stage in CEO Richard Brown’s grand plan to make the high-speed rail network more accessible to millions of Britons – and the UK more accessible to European visitors – has been an unprecedented success. Passenger numbers are up, journey times are down and Eurostar recently announced record sales figures. Brown is a happy man. But what other challenges are on the horizon for the company and its charismatic chief executive? EU Infrastructure caught up with him to find out.

EUI. There’s been a huge expansion in the high-speed rail network across continental Europe over the last few years, and now it is also over here in the UK. What opportunities has this opened up for Eurostar?

RB. Well, first and foremost, the completion of the UK’s first high-speed line represented a complete overhaul of our initial network, enabling us to run high-speed rail all the way through from central London to central Paris and central Brussels. It’s reduced the journey times significantly – the fastest time from Brussels-London is 1hr 51 minutes, and Paris-London is 2hrs 15, which has really improved the accessibility between three of Europe’s key cities.

Richard Brown envisages the development of high-speed rail links as a form of economic regeneration, citing Lille in France as a city transformed by the arrival of Eurostar

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NEW FACILITY OFFERS MAINTENANCE OPPORTUNITY The design of the new maintenance facility in East London was largely driven by the Eurostar team and its layout was based on the operational requirements of the maintenance crews. “At our previous facility, we had two different maintenance sheds: one for high throughput, overnight servicing and one for heavy maintenance involving more significant work,” explains Brown. “We have just one shed at our new base in Temple Hills, but one that offers a much higher degree of versatility in terms of what we can do there.”

One key advantage is the ability to dramatically cut down on the unnecessary movement of trains around the facility. “It takes quite a while to trundle quarter-milelong trains all over the place to go through the washing machines, to go through the toilet discharge facility, to go over the systems that check the wheels, and so on,” says Brown. “At Temple Hill, we were able to optimise the layout so that we could minimise the amount of train movements and maximise the amount of time available to work on each train.”

An additional benefit was that the company was able to cut down on the time staff spent travelling around the huge facility. “It’s about two-and-a-half miles long, from one end to the other. The actual shed is obviously just a quarter-mile long (a train length) but even so, if you’re working in a car at one end of the shed and you’ve got to go to the store at the other end to pick up a replacement component, it’s still a half-mile roundtrip. It’s actually a quite interesting logistics exercise.” To help address the challenge, staff now use bicycles to get from one end of the shed to the other.

more accessible terminal station in London than Waterloo. For one thing, it’s the right side of Central London (most people live north of London, not south) and it’s on six London underground lines. So, it’s accessible to the rest of London and to the rest of Britain. And the new line is more reliable.

It’s a new, purpose-built infrastructure, and as such our punctuality rates for the first half of this year are 92.6 percent. The comparable figure for the airline industry is 62 percent punctuality. So, it’s a service that people know they can depend on.

For phase two, we see High Speed 1 as plugging Britain and Eurostar into that extended European high-speed network. So through Railteam – the group of eight of the north European high-speed train operators – we’re working hard to develop through-travel from one operator to another using a simple fare structure and easy-to-access timetable information, so travelling around that rapidly growing network becomes as easy as travelling domestically.

EUI. I guess the key idea there is the access the new line provides to the rest of the European network, meaning you can utilise existing infrastructure rather than having to build it yourself?

RB. Exactly. Each new link in that infrastructure network contributes to the performance of existing links, as well as providing new accessibility for operators and opening up new journeys between new cities for passengers. So, there’s a lot of synergy as that network continues to expand. For instance, France and Spain will be joined up in the next few years with high-speed. So, you will be able to take Eurostar from London to Paris and switch to TGV from Paris to Spain. It really does open up a much wider range of journey possibilities.

EUI. And I guess it offers the opportunity to increase expansion across all of the other high-speed rail networks in Europe?

RB. That’s the second phase, if you like. The first phase is just our core markets: Brussels-London and Paris-London, where we’ve seen tremendous growth as a result of the high-speed line. We’ve seen 25 percent in sales growth and 18 percent passenger growth in the first half of the year versus last year, which is pretty good.

That’s partly about faster times and the increased accessibility to the market for day trips by business people between London and Paris. The market for people using that has more than doubled because we can now get people to London before 8am in the morning and Brussels before 9am in the morning. It allows people to do a full day’s work without having to stay in a hotel, so it’s improving productivity for business people.

EUI. Clearly there’re a lot of opportunities, and I have no doubt that connecting up that infrastructure also presents a number of challenges. What are the key challenges for you in terms of infrastructure development?

RB. For the UK, the key challenge is whether we will see a High Speed 2 and a High Speed 3 linking the rest of Britain into London and to Europe. There’s a growing body of opinion, particularly in some of the regional cities, that being linked to that Europe-wide network will be essential in the coming years.

On the continent, I think it’s much more accepted that high-speed is the way forward. The challenge is just continuing to run out the network.

As an operator, the challenges are more how we get the reservation systems and the fare systems for what are essentially national railways to talk to each other and to link up for consumers, which is a key project for Railteam. Then having done that, to put in place simple, attractive through fares. At the moment, if somebody wants to go from London to Austria, you end up putting fares together from two, if not three, different operators for different portions of the journey. And it’s no surprise that what you end up with doesn’t necessarily bare much relation to the market price. So that’s clearly a big challenge: to get national operators to think in terms of an international market.

EUI. One of the key advantages is that it delivers people from city centre to city centre. Has this been a factor?

EUI. What do you think the market is for further expansion of the highspeed rail network within Great Britain? I was speaking to somebody re-

RB. Absolutely. Our new hub at St Pancras International is a much better,

cently who suggested that we are better off modernising the existing rail

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infrastructure to meet 21st century standards rather than building completely new lines. What do you say to that idea?

RB. I think he’s a bit behind emerging thinking. There is undoubtedly huge potential for additional high-speed lines in the UK, and I think there are three main strands to the business case. First and foremost, it will improve accessibility between regions within the UK. Air services are already pretty congested, and they’re not going to get any better: concerns over climate change mean the addition of new flights is not an option, and you can’t fly any faster because of the extra fuel this uses. You could build more roads, but nobody’s suggesting that as a solution – besides which, the new roads would not really be any faster than the existing infrastructure. The only way of improving accessibility and bringing journey times down is therefore to build high-speed rail lines.

The second argument is transport capacity. It’s generally recognised by both the UK government as well as the rail industry that we’re going to need to look at new rail lines in the UK over the next 20 years because existing lines will be full to capacity in that timeframe. And if we’re going to build a new line, then surely we should build it to 21st century standards? The incremental costs of building new lines to high-speed specifications are quite low compared with the costs of building the new line in the first place.

EUI. I think he was advocating the modernisation of the existing railway lines rather than prioritising the construction of new, high-speed lines…

RB. This is where the thinking in the UK has moved on quite a lot in recent years. The experience of upgrading the West Coast Mainline has shown that even modernisation programmes can be very complex – upgrading the existing lines is extremely disruptive and very expensive and does not produce the same degree of benefits. In fact, only last July the UK government said very clearly that not only can we anticipate the need for more capacity over the next 20 years, but also that the best way of Passengers carried by providing additional capacity is building new lines.

Eurostar in 2007 Of course, the third argument is the sustainabili-

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ty/environmental angle. For one thing, high-speed rail is electric because diesel engines cannot develop the sort of power-to-weight ratio that you need to travel at these higher speeds. And the fact that we run on electricity allows us to source energy from any fuel source, meaning we can go to the cleanest types of energy possible, whether that be nuclear, renewable, carbon-sequestered coal, whatever. So, it’s a low-carbon, future-proof method of travel as well, and it’s already greener than flying or driving and will get greener still in the future.

EUI. So if the arguments are so compelling, why do we not have any plans in place to further expand the high-speed network in this country?

RB. That’s a very good question. The issue of why Britain does not have a high-speed network when every other major European country is rapidly expanding theirs certainly needs resolving. Part of it is that we in Britain have had a lower level of investment in transport, particularly in rail, than a lot of other European countries. It’s also partly a matter of the political will required to commit to an initiative that could take 20 years to see through

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from initial concept to opening. There are an awful lot of planning processes to go through on a project of this size and scope – routes to approve, stakeholders to consult, due process procedures to implement, and so on. I think High Speed 1 took nine years from the start of construction to project completion because we are such a densely populated country. So, these things are not quick. This is a long-term project.

The UK rail network is steadily improving; on the West Coast Mainline, the completion of the final round of improvements should see frequency go up and journey times come down. And there are quite significant improvements that have been planned for the East Coast route, too, to improve frequency and journey times. But it’s all incremental improvement.

What’s needed, in particular for the longer-term, is a further step change, which only proper high-speed rail can bring.

EUI. Let’s talk a little bit about the move to St Pancras, which took place last November. You moved overnight, in one night – that must have been quite some undertaking?

RB. Yes, it was. We spent three years planning it, progressively putting in the detail, and broke it down into three main segments, managing each one

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ST PANCRAS IN NUMBERS

£5.8 billion The total cost of the Eurostar High Speed 1 project, including £800 million spent on restoring and modernising St Pancras station 50 million

Man-hours required to complete the Eurostar High Speed 1 project, including the renovation of St Pancras

1 million Bricks replaced with new ones cast from Leicestershire clay, sourced specially to ensure they are the same colour as the originals 300,000 Welsh roof slates replaced, with the material dug from the same quarry as the originals 18,000

Self-cleaning panes of glass used on

the roof

8000

People involved in the restoration and modernisation of St Pancras

1868

Year when the original station, with its vast, single-span roof and Victorian Gothic façade, opened

3500 The highest number of workers on site at any time

96 The length in metres of the station’s champagne bar, the longest in Europe 60 The number of shops on the mainline rail and Underground concourses 21 Different nationalities have worked on site 6 The number of Eurostar platforms (also the number of King’s Cross St Pancras Underground platforms)

4 The number of Midland Mainline platforms 3 The number of platforms for the new highspeed Kent rail link run by Southeastern

2 The number of Thameslink platforms, replacing the station in Pentonville Road

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as a separate project. The first part was the move itself, and believe it or not, moving to St Pancras was the easy part of that project! The hard part was simultaneously moving our maintenance operation overnight from its previous base in West London to the new location on the new line near Stratford in East London. That was seriously hard, because we had to do all our maintenance overnight, and doing that without interruption to service was the big challenge. So, that was the first project.

We also had a project that ran for a year to keep staff well-informed, show them the new locations, answer all their questions and provide them with the basic information to pass on to passengers. For one thing, we were quite worried that we would lose a number of staff in the process because of longer journey times to work in the morning and the extra hassle of moving to a new location; and secondly, we wanted our staff to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the move so that they could translate the benefits to our customers.

Then the third project was focused on taking our passengers with us and communicating the details of the move to over eight million of our customers. In the event, we only had five people turn up at Waterloo in the first week after we moved – a Japanese couple who didn’t speak very good English, and a family of three who had booked months before to go to Disney and didn’t read the newspapers. It was pretty amazing, really.

EUI. And what benefits does the new station offer?

RB. For starters, we’ve got at least 70 percent more capacity at St Pancras in terms of our ability to handle passengers. The biggest constraint on our capacity, is passenger baggage screening, and Waterloo just wasn’t set up to handle the huge volumes we’d like. At St Pancras, we basically use pretty much the same processes as the airline industry, which is unique.

I think the Spanish have limited security on their high-speed trains because of their recent experience of terrorism, but we’re pretty unique

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amongst train companies in having that level of security. It’s obviously important that passengers feel safe and secure and they’re reassured.

EUI. Obviously you’re an operator, but to what extent were you involved in the construction of the new station, upgrading the lines, that type of thing?

RB. Well, the line itself was largely set and designed years ago.

Technically it was a really complex project – obviously it’s very challenging driving a new line through a pretty densely urbanised area like London and the surrounding suburbs, so that project involved a lot of consultation and we were involved in that, naturally. We were also very closely involved in the final layout and design of the operation at St Pancras, in terms of advising on passenger flows and those types of things. It wasn’t easy, because the original St Pancras station is a historic building and is Grade One listed, so everything that happens there in terms of new construction, renovation or modernisation has to be approved by English Heritage. So reconciling the need to provide a modern transport infrastructure within the setting of a historically significant building was our major challenge.

“It’s very challenging driving a new line through a pretty densely urbanised area like London and the surrounding suburbs, so that project involved a lot of consultation”

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ince joining Transport for London (TfL) in early 2007, Phil Pavitt, Group CIO, has been one busy man. He has managed to remodel the entire information management team to become more customercentric as well as continued to tackle the huge challenges around the TfL transformation, remain cost-effective and focused on new technologies.

In terms of his focus on customers, Pavitt is keen to set the scene: “Like all IT departments, it’s important to have focus, something we can really aim for. When I arrived here the IT teams were very good in themselves, but were functionally heads down, looking at what they were doing. Really getting them to look at the bigger picture was the theme of customer-centricity.”

Customer centricity for London’s public transport EU Infrastructure speaks to Phil Pavitt, Group CIO at Transport for London, about his number one aim: to make the traveller top priority.

So, why was Pavitt so keen to focus on the customer? “We decided to really focus on the internal customer because they are serving the ultimate customer, the real user of our services at TfL. From there we began to move to look at the absolute user of the transport services here in London,” he explains. By showing the IT teams how they fit into the bigger picture, Pavitt motivated the team to work harder. Getting employees to recognise their role in the overall look and feel of the organisation and its impact on the customer has been a prime way to drive the passion among staff. “We needed to demonstrate that although your job might be to load a disk every night that goes into the system, it’s not just an activity, it has an impact on customers, it’s part of a very big jigsaw that faces the customer,” says Pavitt.

The CIO goes on to explain that it has become a self-perpetuating process. “Over the last few months, instead of me having to ask, the team have come to me and asked to change certain issues – so they are finding customer-centric issues, fixing them, or asking someone to help fix them, to remove the barrier.”

Challenges Other than focusing his team on the notion of customer-centricity, Pavitt has had some other big challenges to cope with. He sees two sets of challenges, the first being to harness the functional IT teams to operate as one team. “Each team were fine functioning on their own, but trying to get a pan-TfL approach has been the number one strategy: getting people, technology, investment and purchasing and aligning them around a theme, in this case customer-centricity,” says Pavitt.

Secondly, Pavitt has been looking at getting to the next generational leap in terms of technology. “We are well known to be looking to go to a very thin client-based solution, to use some very modern technology to re-

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ally enable our staff to be mobile, to provide information to our staff that they can instantaneously provide to the customer to help them with their journey,” says Pavitt.

In order to tackle the challenges, Pavitt has been addressing a strategy that he presented to the board back in September 2007 covering the next two years, up until September 2009. It included an investment programme and a benefits programme that includes a technology refresh, and has become the strategy that has been adhered to and drives the teams further, to go and deliver. “The second thing that we are looking at is working out both the cost and the services we provide to our customer and then rationing out the performance against key performance indicators, which involves us working with our third party and ourselves to actually hit the right number.”

Real-time information

time decisions. Although we are currently seeing the information provided individually, over the next 12 to 18 months trials will be performed to see real-time information on a combined basis, and depending on how the technology performs it is likely that more and more people will be brought into the process.”

Pavitt also has the typical CIO ambitions, namely to make sure that the cost-effectiveness of the IT provided to both internal and external users is the best in the industry and to make sure that the total cost of ownership is better than industry standards across the world. “At the end of the day, we are the single biggest transport authority in the world, and we should have IT that really helps the customer to complete their journey well,” says Pavitt. “Our 2025 view of transport, which is a publicised policy going forward, talks about “The 2012 integrated transport across London, and our bit of that is to make sure the IT is integrated to support that Olympics are across London.” affecting anybody

One of Pavitt’s ultimate ambitions is to provide realtime information delivery around travel schedules, dewho works in Exciting technologies lays, routes and alternatives. He believes that the major London, both As well as being keen to get real-time information impact that he can provide in IT terms is real-time inforin the public and delivery up and running, Pavitt is looking to embrace mation. Pavitt wants a customer to be on one mode of other technology around infrastructure, virtualisation transport and then be able to decide to stay on that in the private and IP networks that the organisation has not really mode of transport or move to another one, and make sector” taken advantage of before. “We did not have a thin that decision based on core information. TfL currently client or any real volume here, for example,” says Pavitt, provides this data to customers through Journey “But by the time we get to next February, we’ll have a pretty traditional 70 Planner, which helps a customer plan a journey to multiple destinations, percent profile of thin client, which is a dramatic change for any authority but Pavitt is working to get this information to the customer in a way that like ours.” they can see it on the device they want to use, for example, on a mobile Pavitt also points out that he is now employing a mobile strategy that phone or a handheld, and between datasets to make a decision. “It’s probis around a thin client mobile, which is proving very exciting. “Modernisation ably the single biggest and most exciting technology because customers for the user is to enable people to do their jobs easier, to do their jobs from making those choices based on our data is phenomenal,” exclaims Pavitt. more than one location, and embrace the home working and flexible working However, it is also the largest challenge because all the datasets have abilities. We’ve also published a series of activities that we are going through to be harnessed using the same standards and presented in a way that to enable the rebuilding of the datacentre, the new network and the IP infradoes not confuse the customer, to enhance their knowledge and help them structure behind that as well. While these technologies are well known in the make choices. “The biggest test for us,” says Pavitt, “is when people arrive market, they excite me for an organisation like TfL because of the amazing during the Olympics, for example, in an airport like London Luton, and have amount of productivity that will be enhanced more dramatically by IT supquite a large journey to make. If they can do that using information that we porting people doing their role going forward.” can provide them, it will be a demonstration of their ability to make real-

Q&A EUI. How are the impending 2012 Olympics affecting TfL? PP. The 2012 Olympics are affecting anybody who works in London, both in the public and in the private sector. For us as an authority, and for me in particular, it doesn’t have a direct impact on what we do everyday since we are providing services around the transport side. We are currently advising members of the TfL committee about what we are doing and our strategy, so we can try and dovetail that better, but the technologies that we have in place are really an enhancement on what we are already planning, helping London to be more accessible, helping us in terms of our ticket management and so on. But these are thing we intended to do anyway, so we are simply informing Olympic committees to make sure we are not working against each other in any way going forward.”

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ASK THE EXPERT

Developing the rail industry Is it possible to find the right balance between interoperability and harmonisation on the one hand and innovation and sustainability on the other hand? Frank Walenberg, Director of KEMA Rail Transport Certification, outlines his view. urope is well on the way to create an interoperable railway system. However the desire for interoperability seems to be contradictory to the need for innovation.

Sustainable development for the railways is hard to imagine without this innovation.

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Interoperability Interoperability finds its origin in the well-known Interoperability Directives 96/48/ EC, 2001/16/EC, 2004/50/EC and the more recent Directive 2008/57/EC. Interoperability is based on the so-called essential requirements. It is defined as “the ability to allow the safe and uninterrupted traffic at a required level of performance. This ability depends on all regulatory, technical and operational conditions, which must be met in order to satisfy the essential requirements.” Essential requirements are related to safety, reliability and availability, health, environmental protection and technical compatibility. From a practical perspective it is understandable that interoperability is often mistakenly limited to technical compatibility. From a more general perspective it is logical and necessary that all the essential requirements are taken into account. The link to sustainability is established through the essential requirement of environmental protection. In the current situation this is characterised by a pragmatic approach: concrete objectives in the area of noise, vibrations, electromagnetic compatibility and emission of fumes are formulated.

Harmonisation and standardisation The requirements for interoperability are detailed in the Technical Specifications for Interoperability, or TSIs. These specifications apply to the entire Trans-European network, both on high-speed lines and on conventional railway lines. The TSIs will soon cover all the railway requirements, but impor-

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legislative framework as a boundary condition, but not because of the legislative framework.

The subsystem energy is a good example. As long as the requirements on the interfaces are met in terms of voltage, frequency, power, harmonic emission, and mechanical contact with the overhead line, every solution to realise the functions of distributing and converting the energy is allowed. This has made it possible to include all the results of the development of energy efficient solutions for distribution and conversion. It will support further development in this area. New sources of power can be introduced within the existing framework. The limitation is given by the standardisation of the interfaces; possibilities are created by the use of the concept of the essential requirements as the criterion for acceptability.

Pragmatism to sustainability

tant parts are already in force for the entire network, like ERTMS/ETCS. This approach of interoperability is based on a high degree of standardisation and harmonisation. In order to guarantee compatibility on the interfaces, there is no other technical possibility then to harmonise. And railways are all about interfaces. Between rail and wheel, between axle and track gauge, between vehicle and loading gauge, between pantograph and overhead line, between on-board and track-side signalling. The list is virtually endless. On top of this is the ergonomics of the human-machine interface. Adaptation of the interfaces makes the railway work. Certification of the standardised components and interoperability constituents guarantees the interoperability.

Innovation From the above, it must be clear that the Interoperability Directives are not meant to stimulate innovation as such. The incentive for innovation must come from the market and society itself. Sustainability through innovation is an objective that must be reached with the

The pragmatic approach implies that new developments are checked against the existing essential requirements and not necessarily against the standard, which is used to check the traditional technical solutions.

KEMA Rail Transport Certification has all the skills and experience to assist you in your certification processes in the frame of the Interoperability Directives, even if you want to propose new sustainable solutions.

The current Interoperability Directive is pragmatic where it mentions very concrete goals and measures, but incomplete where it leaves out the objectives related to sustainability. Where in the current version of the Interoperability Directive emission of fumes, electromagnetic compatibility, noise and vibrations are treated, the next revision could spend more attention on introducing the concept of sustainability as part of this essential requiremen,t for instance in the area of energy consumption and energy efficiency, general applications of materials and lifecycle approach. But you do not need to wait for this improvement. The railway is developing and KEMA Rail Transport Certification can assist you in the acceptance of your developments.

For more information please contact: Frank Walenberg Director of KEMA Rail Transport Certification P.O. Box 11 AA Arnhem, the Netherlands frank.walenberg@kema-rail.nl

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ASK THE EXPERT

Sustainable transport The City Line in Stockholm is a UK£1.3 billion rail-tunnel project that supports an ecologically and economically sustainable transport system.

ESKIL SELLGREN

veryone needs to re-think and increase their focus on sustainability and resource efficiency. There are many incentives for such change, such as the on-going and ever more noticeable climatic changes, market changes and revisions in legislation and regulations. Half the world’s population lives in urban areas. Seen from a sustainability perspective, and contrary to common belief, a city is a useful geographic system. The city creates opportunities for efficient and optimised solutions that reduce environmental impact, such as the release of greenhouse gases. A composite housing stock, the possibility of increased residential density, energy-efficient transportation and communication are some of the advantages that cities have from a sustainability perspective. Cities also offer rich opportunities for trading, social contacts, development of ideas, knowledge and skills, and of course for making a living. Regional planning is the city’s gram-

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mar, and its social and economical aspects are its flow and pulse. Yet to be truly sustainable, they must be competitive, attractive and efficient at the same time. One universal ambition must be low emissions of greenhouse gases, achieving and maintaining social welfare, providing a solid governance base for a fair sharing of costs and revenues, avoiding segregation and releasing social potentials. With

“All investments in improving the railway network will help to develop a transport system that is sustainable in the long term and reduces the pressure on the environment” good communications people can get to work, to home and to leisure activities easily. Good communications also imply that businesses can deliver goods and services in a cost-effective manner. The reliability of the transport system influences the whole society. The driving forces are often political with the objective to reduce pollution and traffic congestion to control climate risks. The railway is one of the most important means for a sustainable transport system.

The City Line in Stockholm is a UK£1.3 billion rail-tunnel project with two railway tracks running beneath Central Stockholm, and is an example of a modern solution to solve the transport problems in a big city. At present there is enormous pressure on the commuter train system – the carriages are often crowded and the trains do not always run on time. With the advent of the City Line, travel will be far more convenient and reliable. The two new commuter train stations will make it easier to change between train, underground and bus services, which could help to cut travel time. The new centrally located stations also mean that commuter trains could prove to be an attractive alternative to the underground for those people who live in Central Stockholm.

The City Line is being built with a view to the needs of the 2030s. The vision is that by that time, Sweden will be well on the way towards achieving an ecologically, socially, culturally and economically sustainable transport system. It will be easier to make day trips for business purposes between the major town and cities, and by then the Swedish rail network will also be connected to the rail network serving the rest of Europe will be so developed in terms of capacity and frequency of services that it gives people the chance to commute to and from work over an even greater area than at present. Furthermore, by 2030, effective rail connections and terminals for goods will have been created, which will improve the opportunities for transport on the railways. The City Line has an important role to play in this vision.

It will allow full advantage to be taken of the investments that have already been made in the region. The City Line is also a precondition for the investments that are being planned to improve rail traffic in Stockholm and with the rest of the country, for example between Stockholm and Gothenburg, and Stockholm and Malmoe. All investments in improving the railway network – both already introduced as well as planned – will help to develop a transport system that is sustainable in the long term and reduces the pressure on the environment.

Eskil Sellgren is the Deputy Managing Director for WSP Sweden, mainly responsible for the WSP Civils business with around 700 employees in Sweeden

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HEAD TO HEAD

Fire protection on the right track EU Infrastructure asks Roger-André Dirksmeier, Product Manager Rail Systems at FOGTEC, and Klemens Blasl, Head of Sales at AQUASYS, for their opinions on the new technologies and challenges of fire protection concepts in the railway industry.

EUI. Fire protection concepts need to consider the difficulty of accessing the scene of the fire in most railway cases. How do you approach this situation?

Klemens Blasl. Extensive fighting of fire incidents and evacuating the passengers in transport vehicles with less space represents a challenge to the operating staff and also to the passengers. A fix installed water mist fire suppression system, which can be activated immediately at the recognition moment of an incident and that fights the fire exactly where it is detected, seems to be the perfect answer to the question of how to approach the scene of fire. Furthermore, the water mist system is completely harmless to the human being as it uses pure water, therefore, no intervention time to start this system is needed and the water mist immediately improves the environmental conditions. This facilitates the evacuation of passengers and the approach of the fire brigade.

Roger-Andre Dirksmeier. In general, the evacuation and access concepts are one of the most important protection elements. If this could not be realised by basic requirements or measures, than you have to think about active measures to help you to reach the protection goal. It depends on the operation concept of the railway vehicle and on many other parameters like the

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environment or the track characteristics, but it makes sense to implement active concepts.

EUI. What are the main challenges facing fire protection concepts for rolling stock and how are you tackling these challenges?

RD. The main aim is to create solutions with safe, comfortable and economic vehicles.

Safe transport means that an active system is needed. It has to be checked against the different parameters. If active systems could help, make sense or are required they have to be integrated in a smart way, have to realise a

“The main advantage of a water mist system is its efficiency and damage reduction effect” Klemens Blasl high availability and reliability with a minimum life cycle cost. To realise this, a team of highly skilled and specialised people with experience in railway vehicles is necessary. At FOGTEC you will find a team of people working on rolling stock business to solve the daily challenges during integration of fire protection concepts.

KB. The main problem for technologies that aren’t used daily is their justification and therefore their acceptance. I remember many critical opinions about safety belts, and later about airbags, after their introduction into cars. Nowadays, nobody would buy a new car without the state of the art standard safety features, like safety belts, airbags, antilock braking system, etc. It takes time to accept new technologies or their applications, but once settled in our mind we would never want to miss them.

EUI. How do your water mist systems differentiate from conventional sprinkler systems?

KB. The main advantage of a water mist system is its efficiency and damage reduction effect. The system sees better results for decreasing temperature and heat radiation by faster evaporation of the smaller water droplets and the three dimensional effect in the whole compartment. The low water consumption compared to sprinkler systems and therefore the low weight and small dimensions of the system have even enabled the implementation of water mist fire fighting systems in rolling stock.

RD. In a railway vehicle it is extremely important to optimise everything regarding the weight and the dimensions of the systems or components.

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Roger-André Dirksmeier is Product Manager Rail Systems at FOGTEC Fire Protection. He joined FOGTEC to build up the Rail Systems department and today Rail Systems are the market leader for innovative fire protection solutions in rolling stock applications.

protection systems.” This mentality has changed in the last few years because of the focus on the availability of transport/ traffic, consequential costs and economic losses caused by accidents. I see an improved concomitance and positive mutual influence between the manufacturers of passive fire protection, detection systems and fire fighting systems.

RD. During the last few years we have noticed a change in regard to fire protection on the manu-

Klemens Blasl studied Automation and Process Management in Austria and collected experience in Sales and Project Management around the world during his career. He is Head of Sales at AQUASYS, which has existed since 1993, and is the pioneer company in water mist fire fighting and an expert in customer-optimised solutions.

To reduce weight and dimensions, you have to use the water more effectively. To have the most effective system you have to optimise the energy transfer from the source to the medium, in this case the fire fighting medium. In the case of a sprinkler you have big droplets, which fall and are collected as water on the floor but, if you atomise the water in really small droplets, you generate a bigger reaction surface to have an optimal flow of energy.

The result is a rapid cooling effect around the ignition source, the surrounding area and what is really important in regard to the running capability. It also means new possibilities for evacuation, running capability and design.

EUI. In your opinion, how has the threat of terrorism affected the industry?

RD. This depends on the country or area.

In mid-Europe, for example, there were no effects to the vehicle design, however, in Korea there are some influences in different approval tests (especially for the fire fighting system) caused by terrorism activities.

The fact is, if you have events such as the Madrid bombings, no fire protection concept can help. And it could be not our aim to design vehicles for these events.

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“To have the most effective system you have to optimise the energy transfer from the source to the medium, in this case the fire fighting medium” Roger-André Dirksmeier KB. There is no alternative to the indispensable public transport in daily life, and therefore our obligation is that we are faster in the existing competition between security technology and criminal effects. Such terrorist acts as the Spanish Metro in 2004 are very difficult to completely prevent, but developing technologies to protect people and property without losing flexibility and comfort is the industries’ main task to make the world safer.

EUI. What improvements are you currently seeing in the transport industry regarding fire and safety solutions?

KB. “Until the moment that something happens, nobody wants to think in security and

facturer side as well as the side of the approval bodies. There are a lot of trains running now with FOGTEC systems not because a fire protection system was required but because the system is there to compensate other requirements, such as, the fire barrier doors between the wagons, material requirements or fire resistance of walls between traction equipment and passengers.

The results of this are more possibilities for a modern and open design, saving of weight, simplification of approval process, simplification of evacuation and finally, it may have positive effects on the economic balance of the project.

EUI. What do you think the future holds in terms of safety issues on trains?

RD. Many various safety solutions are in discussion or have come up, but especially difficult is the discussion to use things in parallel. We currently have a good technical standard and we have make sure that what we create does not complicate vehicles by adding more and more safety issues – the costs for new trains would increase if we tried to realise all possible situations and in the end the travellers would have to pay for this. We should destroy the great chance of the moment for the railway industry manufacturers and operators to increase the signification of railway transport in modern systems by implementing too many new safety issues.

KB. Under the influence of globalisation, people have to be more flexible at continuously increasing energy costs. People want to be faster and more comfortable and arrive at their destination for the cheapest price. Passenger trains are supposed to be one of the safest means of transport and to make sure that it remains so, fire fighting in railway vehicles will become more important for providing fast and punctual connections.

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EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

On the right track With Weidmüller’s Detmar Saalmann.

EUI. Technology standards in the European rail and transport sectors have changed in recent years, what are your thoughts on the improvements?

DS. Low energy consumption and the resulting low levels of environmental pollution are a distinguishing feature in comparison with other means of transport. As well as the environmentally friendly aspect that rail transport is extremely safe is a further point in its favour.

Problematical on the other hand is the wide variety and complexity of the technical specifications and operating conditions that exist in the various national railway networks. These lead to higher costs for the construction and operation of the infrastructure and in so doing diminish the attractiveness of the railways.

That is why it is extremely important to create a legal framework for Europe that supports a uniform railway market throughout the entire European Union that stimulates its development. The objective is to develop technological standards throughout Europe that will enable the straightforward exchange of components and part systems through to complex systems.

In addition, it is necessary to harmonise interfaces and basic system characteristics. This is the only way for the internal market of the European Union to operate smoothly.

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EUI. What are the current challenges in the electrical connectivity and data industry and how are you tackling them?

DS. Safety in rail transport is an essential requirement, because the components utilised in rail applications are constantly faced with extreme influences. That is why the regulations and guidelines are so clearly defined. As a partner to the national and international railway industry, Weidmüller offers these technological concepts in the field of electrical connectivity.

We have adapted our components such as terminal blocks, plug-in connectors, housings and marking systems to meet the special conditions that prevail in railway industry applications.

These include undertaking extensive tests in our own accredited laboratory. The products are tested according to the relevant criteria such as resistance to vibration and shock, thermal stability as well as operational lifetime and electromagnetic compatibility.

The manufacturers of railway rolling stock are increasingly integrating bus systems. The CSB connector (ConCept System Bus) ensures

“High levels of mobility are a sign of a dynamic industrial society” safe and reliable connections in the MVB (Multi Vehicle Bus) und WTB system (Wire Train Bus).

The CSB plug-in connector is a 360 degree shielded module with one or four-pole signal contacts. As you can see: Weidmüller products are utilised in all vehicle modules that have to be connected electrically with one another.

Together with our products we stand for innovation and quality – to ensure that the railways remain a safe and reliable means of transport.

figurations to meet the needs of actual traffic volumes. These rolling-stock concepts require innovative platforms and modular means of construction to be manufactured effectively.

Both require high-performance and reliable interfaces. Weidmüller supports these platform concepts with a broad range of solutions and an extensive product portfolio. For example, these include WF, WFF and ST-4000 series stud terminals as well as heavy-duty connectors from the ‘RockStar’ series. They guarantee reliable electrical connections up to 4000 V in control cabinets and in the junctions between the vehicles. Aluminium die-cast enclosures from the K-Series as well as heavy-duty connectors from the ‘RockStar’ series are utilised in underfloor assemblies where electrical connections have to be protected from dust and water spray. The robust but feather-weight housings are rated to protection class IP68. The use of pluggable terminal blocks allow complete, preassembled functional units to be installed in the driver’s cab and in door controls in seconds and without any errors.

EUI. Deutsche Bahn AG has rated Weidmueller as an L1 supplier. How important is this level of recognition for you as an organisation?

DS. Being awarded L1 supplier status was very important for Weidmüller. This supplier rating has now been supplemented with the International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS) certificate, which is the new quality standard for the rolling stock industry. The DEKRA certified Weidmüller with an ‘above-average’ result. The IRIS standard represents a further important award for the company and has already been implemented in Weidmüller’s quality management regime. Both awards underline our competence as a partner, something we have been maintaining together with the international railway industry for more than 50 years.

EUI. In your opinion, what is driving the growing trend for mobility and consequently the increasing use of modular systems?

DS. High levels of mobility are a sign of a dynamic industrial society – and mobility is permanently on the increase. This continual need has an influence on future railway vehicles.

Their concepts must be designed to be extremely versatile to allow railway operators, for example, to be able to quickly alter train con-

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CASE STUDY

UK scheme shows the future for urban transport A UK£3 billion scheme in the UK is set to redefine the way in which urban transport and congestion pricing programmes are designed and implemented.

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funding deal recently announced between the UK Government and the Greater Manchester Authorities has opened the way for a combined investment and congestion pricing package that could become a blueprint for other schemes around the world. The Greater Manchester package combines what will be one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated congestion charging schemes with the largest public transport investment programme ever delivered in the UK outside London.

Subject to a final consultation period, work should shortly begin on delivering all elements of the package. Only in the summer of 2013 – when the large majority of the public transport investment elements of the package will be in place – will the congestion pricing scheme come into force. The package includes more than 20 separate initiatives such as extensions to the light rail network, a heavy rail investment programme and an extensive bus priority network.

At the heart of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive’s (GMPTE) strategy – on which KPMG was the lead advisor – was a bid for funding from the UK government’s Transport Innovation Fund (TIF). The TIF represents a pool of central government funding available for transport projects that demonstrate innovation and contribute to economic growth. The UK Government allocated UK£1.44 billion of TIF funding to GMPTE’s package. The bulk of the remainder of the package will be financed through local borrowing against charging revenues.

“The UK needs to overhaul its transport infrastructure and address the threat that rising congestion poses to economic competitiveness” “Greater Manchester’s investment and charging package can be considered groundbreaking in that it has been designed as an integrated package, targeting a clear set of economic, social and environmental objectives, not as a series of standalone measures,” says Lewis Atter, Director of KPMG’s Global Infrastructure & Projects Group. “This means that the package recognises both the critical importance of delivering real alternatives to the car in advance of charging being introduced and addresses the financial challenges that doing these things in the right order represents.

“Throughout the design process, two objectives were paramount. Firstly, the scheme had to help promote greater growth in the long-term by breaking the link between growth and rising congestion.

Secondly, it had to be ensured that these long-term benefits were not delivered at the cost of a short-term hit to the competitiveness of the local economy or at the expense of disadvantaged or vulnerable communities.”

The scheme is promoted as a fully funded and integrated transport package, incorporating a sophisticated but cost-effective road pricing scheme (that is designed to send subtle rather than blunt price signals to road users whilst also minimising running costs) alongside transformational investment in public transport alternatives delivered in advance. Accordingly, Atter believes this could well become the blueprint for other cities around the world looking to address the transport constraints they face.

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A Manchester tram transports passengers through the Salford Quays area

“It’s widely accepted that, in common with other parts of the world, the UK needs to overhaul its transport infrastructure and address the threat that rising congestion poses to economic competitiveness,” continues Atter. “Nor is it a secret that congestion charging, although potentially an effective tool in addressing these issues, brings with it very real economic and social challenges. What the Greater Manchester model shows is that a package approach supported by innovative analytical and financial techniques – and with the right kind of central government support – can address these challenges. I’d be surprised if we didn’t shortly see this model being adopted as leading practice elsewhere.”

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The road to

success

EU Infrastructure talks with Ingemar Skogö, Director General of the Swedish Road Administration, about the challenges of managing a national road network.

EUI. International surveys have shown that Sweden has a comparatively low traffic accident rate. To what do you attribute your success in this area?

IS. We have worked patiently on this issue, together with many partners, and on many fronts; our work on higher traffic safety started as early as the 1950s in Sweden. But we still have a long way to go to reach our vision. Today, Sweden has a high usage of safety belts, a low percentage of drunk driving and we have improved the road infrastructure – the addition of centre guardrails on the roads is just one example of that. Fortunately for us, the Swedish car fleet consists of safe cars and Sweden has car manufacturers that are interested in safety issues.

EUI. The number of cars on European roads has surged in recent years, leading to increased congestion and rising pollution levels. Is this a problem in Sweden?

IS. In some Swedish regions – mostly in the bigger cities, such as Stockholm and Gothenburg – we have congestion and pollution to the extent that it causes problems. In an effort to combat this, Stockholm has a congestion tax for the inner city zone. Congestion tax is also under discussion in Gothenburg.

We also manage different kinds of traffic information that the drivers can receive, both through the radio and via our traffic management system, and provide data for navigation systems. Where possible, we adjust the road design to maximise the capacity of the roads and, together with municipalities, cities and other partners, try to improve the conditions for other transportation modes such as combination terminals for goods, and improvements for cycling and public transportation.

The pollution levels have generally improved through the combination of several of the above measures. From time to time, we unfortunately experience problems with high levels of particles along the roads in periods of dense traffic. This is mainly due to the high usage of studded tyres during the winter months. As a result, we are working on new ways of decreasing the spread of particles, as well as a reduced usage of studded tyres.

EUI. Do you think road charging is the answer to easing congestion?

What would it take in terms of infrastructure improvements to implement such a scheme? What are the benefits/drawbacks?

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IS. We have a positive experience from our road charging experiment in Stockholm City, where we have undertaken a fully automatic congestion tax in the city centre. Our experience is that the congestion has decreased by approximately 10 percent, and acceptance from the public is, overall, positive. However, I think that these kinds of actions must be complemented with improvements in public transport, new trains and buses, traffic planning, parking places adjacent to train and bus stations and also new infrastructure. Success demands a number of coordinated actions in the field of society and traffic.

One additional observation on this point is that, despite the congestion tax, we have seen that the volume of traffic is increasing again slowly due to the fact that people are now getting used to the extra expense.

EUI. This challenge of how to improve mobility while at the same time limiting congestion and pollution is common to countries across Europe.

Are you seeing any innovative approaches in other countries that could be adopted in Sweden? To what extent do you collaborate with national road network agencies in other countries to establish best practices and exchange ideas?

IS. The problems and challenges in the Swedish road transport system are not unique to Sweden, and neither are the solutions. We have to collaborate with other countries to adopt their solutions, if appropriate for us. We cannot afford to tackle all the problems and challenges ourselves, even though we already spend significant financial resources on initiating and undertaking research and development activities.

NETWORK MANAGEMENT The value of ITS There are various types of IT support available along main roads in Sweden that offer support during a journey. There are also a large number of sensors along the roads that collect traffic data.

Electronic signs Along roads, mainly on approaches to main cities, there are signs that provide information about possible accidents or if there is a risk for queuing. Some signs are used to direct and control traffic if this is necessary. There are signs along the roads that show road surface and

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Around Europe and the rest of the world, we see a lot of innovative road infrastructure solutions that we would like to adopt in Sweden – for example, different solutions to solve congestion by using the road area more effectively and through more effective traffic management. Examples of this include hard shoulder running, different times for delivery transport to use narrow roads for unloading, ‘slot times’ and so on.

We try to follow new innovative solutions around the world. Our experience Ingemar Skogö is that international networks are a valuable tool for collecting information and also initiating innovative projects in cooperation with other countries.

The World Road Association (PIARC), the Nordic Association for Road and Traffic Association (NVF) and the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) are valuable forums for us.

Also promising is our ERA-NET ROAD collaboration funded by the European Commission. This collaboration has demonstrated that the national road administrations are more or less facing the same problems and challenges for the future, and thus we are able to jointly formulate common research needs. The most appropriate research provider in Europe is then contracted to undertake this research.

In Sweden, for instance, the last year has seen us examining the importance of integrated land-use and urban planning. The urban areas and their road networks must jointly be designed in such a way that we achieve a transport-efficient society – one where the importance of demand management must be stressed. Another aspect of our research into greenhouse gas emissions is to focus on the importance of developing energy efficient road management and operation. After all, cars are not the only GHG emitters.

EUI. How are you partnering with the private sector to map out the strategic development of Sweden’s road infrastructure?

IS. The Swedish Road Administration has long had an open dialogue with representatives of the private sector, car and truck producers, transport companies and so on. Through this we can identify their different needs within our remit of responsibility. We also need to cooperate with con-

air temperature. Trials are also in progress to warn motorists if wildlife is approaching the road.

Variable speed limits Speed signs that change the highest permitted speed limit depending on the condition of the road, the number of cars on the road, visibility, etc. are being tested at several locations in Sweden. The trial is in part to show that the motivation to maintain speed limits increases when speed limits are based on prevailing conditions.

Finding an available parking space There are signs in many cities and towns that indicate how many parking spaces are available in a specific part of town.

tractors, consultancy firms and other businesses within the construction field in order to improve and develop Sweden’s infrastructure. Therefore, we have several collaborative projects in this area.

The major one was initiated by the Director General of the Swedish Rail Administration and myself, and is called FIA (FIA is a Swedish acronym that translates as ”renewal in the construction industry”).

The private sector is involved and the goal of the FIA is to rethink construction by sharing the knowledge we all have, and together renew and develop the industry and thereby the road infrastructure.

EUI. Technological innovation has a huge role to play in enabling better use of the transportation infrastructure. What impact is the application of technology such as intelligent transport systems having on the Swedish road network?

IS. ITS is a tool that can contribute to greener, safer and smarter transport, and plays a key role in delivering safe, efficient, sustainable and seamless transport systems. Examples are through traffic management and traffic control, road charging, route navigation, and in-vehicle support systems that enable lane control, speed control (ISA), provide assistance at an emergency situation through automatic communication with rescue services (eCall), and systems for collision avoidance. These research and development activities are in many cases undertaken within the framework of the Swedish public-private joint research programme Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems (IVSS).

EUI. With environmental considerations currently enjoying such a high profile, what is your organisation doing to promote greener, more sustainable use of the road network?

IS. We take part in national and international negotiations (for instance, in the EU), providing facts about vehicles and fuels and how their environmental qualities can be improved. We are also involved in the discussion about taxation per kilometre by providing knowledge and facts about the conceivable environmental benefits of this. The Swedish Road Administration supports the business world and organisations with knowledge and experience in order for them to develop a more sustainable business. Examples are eco-cars, car pools, planning of public transportation and eco-driving.

Automatic speed surveillance Automatic speed surveillance has proven to be a good method to reduce speeds, increase road safety and reduce environmental impact. Seven out of 10 motorists approve of the system.

Smart traffic signals Some traffic signals can manage traffic to minimise queues. This flow is based on how the traffic situation is at that time. Smart traffic signals can also prioritise public transport and emergency services at a junction and make it easier for pedestrians to cross a busy street. www.euinfrastructure.com

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TRANSPORT FOCUS

CEE: the next logistics hotspot?

A fast-improving transport infrastructure could help the Central and Eastern European region become a hub for the logistics industry.

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he logistics industry in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia is set to experience substantial growth over the next five years. Datamonitor predicts that nominal spend on logistics and storage in the region will grow from around €184 billion in 2008 to just under €250 billion by 2012. This will primarily be derived from fast growing domestic country-markets, as well as increasing merchandise exports.

The overall Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) economy is estimated to grow at an average growth rate of five percent during 2007-2012, with strong contribution from the automotive, consumer goods, electronics and machinery, retail and telecom industries. This is also paving the way forward for increased development and outsourcing of contract logistics in the region.

On the whole, CEE has a relatively under-developed transportation network but is attracting increasing amounts of investment flows from the EU, local government and large foreign and domestic private players in the logistics sector. Praveen Ojha, Senior Logistics Analyst with Datamonitor, says: “The lenient tax policies and moves for privatisation have also helped attract a good amount of foreign direct investment funds into the region. With rising private consumption and fast-growing external and internal trade, the CEE region has displayed high-potential for the sustained growth of the transportation and logistics market.”

Infrastructure: under-developed but fast improving Railways have become an expensive transport mode. Railway infrastructure, monopolised by local governments, is relatively under-developed in the region. Only 50 percent of the railway tracks are operative due to poor investment and maintenance. Consequently, the intermodal capabilities are limited and a majority of the gross tonnage, which could ideally be transported by rail, is being transported via trucks as road infrastructure is quite well developed. Governments are encouraging private participation, especially in railways, to attract more foreign investments in order to improve overall transport infrastructure.

Maritime transport plays a major role in the transportation of bulk and dry cargo, but is not a preferred transport mode across the region. Air transport is still the costliest transport mode due to its efficiency and timely deliveries.

Maritime and rail transport have together lost a significant market share of 10 percent to road freight over the last decade. However, in Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia there has been an increase in rail freight volumes over the same period.

Another problem is the congestion of logistics networks and warehousing in and around the major trading centres. As the manufacturing and distribution activity is concentrated in a few major centres (Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Poznan, Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg), other cities in CEE need to develop as distribution and logistics hubs in the coming five years. This will create new opportunities to leverage the existing space, labour and logistics infrastructure and result in the creation of new transport networks, distribution and warehousing facilities.

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Small but fast-growing contract logistics market The contract logistics market is still under-developed due to the highly fragmented nature of both the freight forwarding industry and the road freight industry. With the rapidly growing economy, an ever-expanding manufacturing industry, increased international trade and foreign investments in transport infrastructure, this sector is set to undergo a positive transition over the next five years.

The small number of large logistics service providers (LSPs) in the CEE region is steadily increasing, especially in the larger markets of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia. Both large local and foreign LSPs are actively pursuing the outsourced logistics business (especially in the automotive, electronics, machinery and retail industry verticals) and are thus the major contributors to the contract logistics market in the region. These players continue to invest in both their local divisions as well as an expanded portfolio of logistics services.

“With rising private consumption and fastgrowing external and internal trade, the CEE region has displayed high-potential for the sustained growth of the transportation and logistics market” Logistics services providers are in for a boost Datamonitor expects third-party logistics services to receive a boost due to the increased focus on contract logistics activities, both from the local strategic partnerships as well as consumer industries such as automotive, electronics, machinery and retail, among others.

The CEE region is also experiencing high demand for warehousing of agricultural and perishable products. However, inventory management, supply chain management consultancy and IT solutions are some key areas of greater growth in the future. Going forward, all this, along with the EU accession of the region, will result in an increasing number of international freight forwarders and large LSPs scaling-up their investments and activities to exploit the logistics outsourcing market, particularly in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia.

“Until recently, the major weaknesses of the CEE countries were their economic instability and low quality of overall transport infrastructure,” says Ojha. “However, following the EU accession for most CEE countries (and imminent accession for others), improved fiscal management by the governments and increased mobilisation of capital (especially foreign direct investments) for infrastructure investment has helped in successfully tackling these challenges.”

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ANALYST VIEWPOINT

hile the mature economies in Europe move towards creating integrated transport policies, emerging Eastern European countries are searching for ways to strengthen their transport infrastructure through technology. Lower operating costs have created business opportunities within this region and its geographical proximity to other eastern markets has made it a prime transport corridor. Due to an increase in traffic congestion and growing road management costs, road building and development have now become critical needs in the region, forcing Government Ministries to find ways to finance these projects. As a result, charging transporters for using main roadways has become an important source of funding development. With road transport growing almost 20 percent each year, road toll charges offer a significant, constant source of finance for the construction and maintenance of road infrastructure.

In the last two years, efforts have been aided by technological advancements that revolutionised road user charging in Western Europe. Similar developments are surfacing within Eastern Europe, giving rise to the expectation that every country in Eastern Europe will have a sophisticated road user charging system in place by 2013.

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TECHNO-TOLLING IN EASTERN EUROPE Malavika Srinath, Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, assesses the dynamic rise of road user charging across Eastern Europe.

An evolving market Due to the depth of government involvement in the sector, tolling in Europe is heavily dominated by political goals. Although technological innovation was often not encouraged, countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland developed highly sophisticated tolling systems. As a result of this, the market has been forced to shift from manual and automatic tolling booths to satellite and microwave-based electronic systems. With the success of satellitebased tolling in Germany, Western Europe is likely to see the spread of this system in the near future. But as the countries of Eastern Europe are in various stages of infrastructural development, there has been a lopsided upgrading of tolling systems within this region.

For example, countries such as Poland and Hungary have rolled-out tenders in order to select more technologically advanced systems, while countries like Lithuania are still operating manual and automatic ‘vignette’ sticker systems.

However, figures show that electronic toll collection systems currently dominate the European road user charging market, holding 84 percent of total road toll revenues across the region. Market movements also indicate that, following the success of the Czech Republic’s call for tender to install microwave-based tolling on its roadways, this technology is likely to be adopted in Eastern Europe on a large scale in the coming years – especially as these states are heavily influenced by system choices made in neighbouring countries.

Nevertheless, the success of satellite-based systems in Germany has prepared the European market for further technological growth. As more sophisticated systems are adopted worldwide, Eastern Europe will be forced to keep up. The growth of technologically advanced tolling systems is being driven by efforts to achieve Europe-wide interoperability in tolling, which meets standardisation requirements.

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Efforts towards interoperability Recent years have witnessed the issuing of several EU directives aimed at creating an interoperable tolling system throughout the European region.

The CEN/TC 278 standard was one of the earliest initiatives within this area, and the preliminary standard was defined as early as 1991. The Eurovignette Directive followed in 1996, introduced to limit problems within road freight caused by the existence of different methods and levels of charging in different countries. Subsequently, a directive issued in July 2003 continued to focus on interoperability, prescribing the conditions necessary to put such systems in place at the earliest in all European countries. But despite such governmental efforts, the problem remains unsolved, primarily due to the differing stages of infrastructural development in the countries of Eastern Europe. Some are still unsure of the wisdom of investing large amounts to upgrade their tolling systems.

However, trends indicate that this is likely to change. With the launch of the European satellite Galileo in 2008, it is hoped that satellite-based tolling will alleviate the problem of non-interoperable systems. Satellite systems will also drive the amalgamation of business processes, information technology and mobile communica-

“The success of satellite-based systems in Germany has prepared the European market for further technological growth”

tions. The road user charging market in Eastern Europe has already begun to see an influx of systems providers and telecom operators, driven by potential investment opportunities. Increasing private investments will serve as sources of finance for governments, enabling them to focus efforts on other developmental measures.

Future directives will begin to address the enforcement of sophisticated charging systems, and the focus will shift towards adapting this framework to reflect both internal and external costs. Compliance with the principles of both environmental and developmental sustainability will become key.

Today, most road charges in Eastern Europe are levied only on heavy vehicles, but charges have already begun to filter down to car users. A case in point is the congestion charge applied on vehicles within cities such as Warsaw. More countries in Eastern Europe will begin to see such developments, as environmental wellbeing becomes critically important.

Forecast for market development With more states entering the European Union, the demarcation between the East and West of Europe will begin to diminish. Although technologically – and even economically – there are still significant differences between the two regions, a common transport policy will hugely aid development. United in their purpose, all countries in Europe will work towards building an interoperable, environmentally sound transportation policy. Sustainable mobility of freight will also depend on developing a multimodal transport network, and the future is likely to see an increased use of rail and waterways across Europe as road toll charges become higher.

Nevertheless, the market will continue to witness significant technological advancements in road toll systems. On urban and interurban roads, congestion charging maintains its dominant position as more cities enter the scheme. This will be supported by the development of advanced traffic management systems and traffic information systems such as variable message signs, in order to manage road congestion within urban areas better.

In Eastern Europe, transport ministries will continue to welcome private investment in the form of road concessions and buildoperate-transfer projects to support the development of roadways.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic currently offer the most attractive opportunities for investment in the road tolling market – especially as over 50 percent of traffic from new member states into Western Europe comes from these three countries. Roads connecting Russia to Europe are also likely to be high road revenue earners for players in the market.

As traffic begins to move east, the developing countries in the Eastern European region will begin to play pivotal roles in the expansion of an all-European transport network. It is therefore inevitable that sophisticated technology will become the backbone of road tolling systems in this region.

This article is based on Frost & Sullivan’s research titled Strategic Analysis of the Road User Charging Markets in Eastern Europe, published in February 2006. For further information, please contact: Michael Banks, Corporate Communications Executive, on +44 (0) 20 7915 7876 or michael.banks@frost.com.

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COVER STORY

Fraport AG is the owner and operator of Frankfurt Airport, one of the largest and most efficient air travel hubs in the world. In an exclusive interview with EU Infrastructure, Fraport CEO Dr Wilhelm Bender discusses sustainability, infrastructure challenges and future growth plans.

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raport is among the leading groups of companies in the international airport business, operating some of the busiest airports around the world. As an experienced airport manager, Fraport is looking to modernise and expand Frankfurt Airport, in particular the infrastructure to the north of the airport, incorporating a fourth runway and a third terminal. Furthermore, Fraport will implement continuous measures to generate further retail space and increase real estate at the airport, creating an ‘Airport City’ – a first class service for mobility, shopping, events and real estate. “Because of its multimodal transportation links and outstanding strategic location, Frankfurt has all the requirements to be an attractive airport city,” explains Dr Wilhelm Bender, CEO of Fraport. “The underlying vision is a world that combines travel, work, living and relaxation.” The focus for the project is on non-aviation development and all new areas of development will be part of Frankfurt Airport City, including the Monchhof Site, Airrail Center Frankfurt and Gateway Gardens. “The concept is focused on Frankfurt Airport because it is our hub and therefore the base for this idea, but of course we hope to pass on our experience within the group and try to export the idea to the other major airports we are operating.”

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In January 2008, Fraport was given the green light to build a fourth runway and a third terminal. Bender explains that construction work is expected to start in 2009 after a ruling of the administrative court, and that the new runway, for aircraft landings only, will be in operation for the winter 2011 timetable. “Furthermore, additional capacities for aircraft handling have to be built to cope with the predicted growth of aircraft movements and passengers at Frankfurt Airport by 2020,” explains Bender. Figures are expected to rise from about 500,000 to cover 700,000 movements per annum, with the number of passenger increasing over 50 percent from 54 to 88 million.

“The major challenge of our expansion, besides meeting the target costs and being on schedule, will be to organise the construction activities in a way that minimises negative effects on current airport services and air traffic operation,” says Bender. “And, finally, there will be the challenge to integrate the increasing air traffic volumes into daily airport operations and services.”

A primary consideration for operators of infrastructure projects is how to mitigate any impacts on the local environment, and Fraport is no different. The company’s concept for renovation of infrastructure and for con-

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struction of new buildings is based on the careful use of natural resources in a cost-effective way.

“Our main objectives are using less drinking water and enhancing technical standards, such as energy consumption and emissions, on airport grounds,” says Bender. Other examples include new water pipelines in all restrooms and the use of recycled water for washing vehicles.

Expansion and development of aircraft noise are the greatest environmental problems for airports, and this also applies to Frankfurt Airport, which is located in a densely populated area and features high traffic volumes. While Fraport give maximum priority to fighting aircraft noise, they can only indirectly influence aircraft noise nuisance. However, the future development of aircraft noise impact resulting from airport expansion is a core issue for all involved, and Fraport is pursuing a whole range of measures to effectively reduce Wilhelm Bender and avoid aircraft noise, such as the operation of quieter aircraft, a noise-related charging system, minimum-noise approach and departure routes and supporting passive noise abatement measures.

Addressing climate change issues is another key aim. “Our plan is to decrease CO2 emissions by 30 percent, per traffic unit until 2020, and we are planning a geothermic design for the new Terminal 3.”

Growth However, while planning a decrease for emissions, Frankfurt Airport recorded noticeable growth in the first half of 2008, up more than 2.2 percent on the same period last year. “This growth rate is achieved despite extremely limited runway capacity,” says Bender. Short haul traffic is currently being superseded by long haul/intercontinental flights, with 40 percent of flights currently intercontinental, an increase of three percent on the previous year. “Since international flights are conducted with larger aircraft, more passengers can be transported despite a stagnation in aircraft movements. The loss of some short haul connections, such as Frankfurt-Cologne, are due to Frankfurt Airport’s unique transport connections: being in the centre of Germany’s

high-speed train network system offers convenient connections by rail.”

More long haul flights also means more transfer traffic, and numerous expansion projects will contribute to an even more efficient and convenient passenger experience. New two-level boarding gates, remodelled state-of-the-art infrastructure, fascinating retail outlets and unique services will secure passenger satisfaction and passenger growth up to 2011 before the fourth runway is complete. “During 2011 our new runway will be in operation and the current airside capacity bottleneck will disappear,” explains Bender. “With our third terminal as well as our brand new and competitive airport services, we are quite confident about achieving future growth.”

Other significant infrastructure projects include the Airrail Center and the A380 maintenance base. The Airrail Centre is an innovative building, 660 metres in length and up to 65 metres in width, situated directly above the airport’s ICE high-speed railway station, as a unique interface between rail, road and air transport. The centre will be opened in 2010, in order to serve the needs of discerning office users, providing 94,500 metres squared of office space, 34,500 metres squared of hotel space and more.

While Frankfurt Airport already has docking positions for the A380 superjumbo, the maintenance base is under construction. Lufthansa Technik inaugurated the first section of the new A380 maintenance hangar in January 2007, but the entire hangar system will not be completed until 2015. Lufthansa is investing around €150 million in the new maintenance base, which will have capacity for four A380s and will be Europe’s largest aircraft maintenance facility.

As well as a fourth runway and a third terminal, Fraport plans to increase the duty free space at Frankfurt and drive retail revenues up by 2012. Airport retail is an important revenue generator at airports worldwide, and passengers have come to expect, aside from

PROFILE: Frankfurt Airport • • • • • • • • •

Passengers per year: 54.2 million in 2007 Freight per year: 2.1 million metric tons in 2007 Flight movements per year: 492,569 in 2007 More than 300 destinations in 109 countries 1250 takeoffs and landings daily 386 check-in counters Three runways, each 4000m long 70,000 employees Direct connection to German Rail with over 170 trains daily at the airport’s long-distance train station and 218 trains daily at the regional station

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INFRASTRUCTURE OPTIMISATION smooth operations and processes, a decent shopping space. Fraport will be expanding the shopping floor space from 16,000 square meters in 2007, to 30,000 square meters by 2012. As a result Bender is expecting revenues to jump from €2.69 per passenger in 2007, to €4.00 in 2012.

“The challenge, of course, is finding the perfect mix of shop operators for our customers, and we will be closely co-operating with the airlines to attract a high number of customers to our shopping areas and marketplaces,” says Bender.

Future focus Bender believes that no other industrial sector will grow as strong and fast as air traffic. “We agree with the experts forecasting that the international passenger volume will double by 2020,” he explains. “This is a pleasant outlook for airport operators worldwide, but at the same time this presents one of the biggest challenges our industry will have to cope with in the future, particularly for the big hubs, which bundle streams of passengers, distribute and co-ordinate them.” Bender believes that many big hubs are currently operating at their capacity limits and consequently only those airports who have prepared themselves for the increasing demand and generated the capacity need well in advance will be able to cope with the immense traffic growth. “Besides the capacity issue, the airline industry will continue their dialogue about costs,

In addition to the new runway, terminal and longterm expansions, Fraport is also working on a number of medium and short-term projects to increase capacity at Frankfurt Airport, including:

New surface movement control systems For further improving the control and co-ordination of airport ground movements, Fraport is planning to implement the TACSYS taxi and control system, which allows for real-time location and identification of aircraft as well as a navigation and guidance system for all vehicles.

Terminal capacities expanded Over the past few years, Fraport has continually optimised Frankfurt Airport’s infrastructure – investments in modernisation projects at Terminal 1 alone have amounted to over a €500,000 billion in the last few years.

New Pier A0 Fraport is planning to build a new passenger pier to extend Terminal 1 further westward by 2012 to accommodate the new Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8 aircraft ordered by Lufthansa. The 790-metre-long pier will comprise of about 160,000 square metres and will have capacity for up to six million passengers per year. Construction is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2008.

New design of Pier B The new deign of Pier B in Terminal 1 was implemented in January 2008 in order to serve the new EU security regulations effective 2009 regarding the separation of arriving and departing passengers. The new design will feature a new lounge, retail and functional areas as well as three new gate positions remodelled to enable efficient boarding of the new A380 aircraft with two different levels. Passengers will experience more security, comfort and quicker handling as a result of improved service, guidance and baggage removal. Upon completion in summer 2011, the remodelled terminal is expected to serve approximately 10 million passengers annually.

Forecast 2020 Intraplan Research Institute worked with the latest data available on current traffic volume to forecast the development of air traffic demand at Frankfurt Airport until the year 2020. The forecast is based on the assumption that the airport is expanded as expected. Based on these premises, air traffic at Frankfurt Airport is expected to grow further: • While in 2005 some 52 million passengers used the airport, this number is anticipated to grow to 88.3 million in the year 2020, which corresponds to an annual passenger growth of 3.5 percent • Cargo and mail tonnage carried will increase by more than 70 percent to a total of 3.16 million metric tons in 2020 • Demand for flight movements is expected to rise to about 700,000 movements per year in 2020 from 490,000 movements in 2005 • About half of all passengers at Frankfurt Airport are transfers, and according to the forecast, this will not change in the future

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which must be in line with the market,” he says. “The achievement of competitive airport charges is an ongoing process in which both sides have to consider conflicting positions to ensure sustained and beneficial co-operation.”

In spite of intense competition, Bender is working to ensure that Fraport becomes one of the leading companies in the international airport management business, and is preparing for the increase in air travel demand with its investment projects. “Our expansion programme will contribute enormously to the strategic development of the company, and a large number of our expansion projects will ensure capacity growth and higher location attractiveness,” he says. “Airport expansion projects in line with market and competition requirements have their price, and it is therefore of particular importance to implement measures for clear cost structures ensuring that there is no threat to the success of Frankfurt Airport in the long-term.”

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he industry is in crisis. With oil at US$130 a barrel, fuel is now 34 percent of costs. In 2007, the bill was US$136 billion.

And if oil averages US$107 – the consensus forecast – the 2008 bill will be US$176 billion and losses will be US$2.3 billion. And that’s the optimistic forecast. If oil stays at US$135, losses will be US$6.1 billion. Over the next 12 months, that would be an added fuel burden of US$99 billion. Alone this is a staggering number. But we cannot forget the US credit crunch. Traffic is slowing in all parts of the world. Last year growth was six percent. This year we may achieve four percent.

Difficult decisions on capacity and aircraft deliveries are being made. It’s a perfect storm of increasing costs and falling demand.

IATA’s US$315 billion settlement system gives us a unique view on

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TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE Giovanni Bisignani, CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), explains why IT is crucial to the future of the aviation industry.

what is happening. In the last six months, 24 airlines went bust. The industry sent a very strong message: we are in constant crisis and change needs to happen.

It is clear what must happen. Governments must stop crazy taxation, regulate monopolies effectively, ensure that the cost of energy reflects its true value, fi x the infrastructure and change the rules of the game so that airlines have the commercial tools to fight crises.

Simplifying the business Four years ago, in the wake of SARS, September 11, war crises and the start of high oil prices, the industry’s CEOs mandated IATA to lead an industry IT revolution. We took up the challenge, defined a vision, developed a strategy and set targets. This became our Simplifying the Business programme with goals to cut US$6.5 billion in costs and improve convenience.

The headline project was 100 percent e-ticketing. When we started, many thought it an impossible dream. We put 150 experts on the case, we changed national legislation (the last in CIS) and we worked alongside our members. On 1 June, with a great global team effort and strong support, we achieved an important milestone – 100 percent eticketing and US$3 billion in cost savings.

Progress on our other projects is also strong. Common use selfservice (CUSS) is available at 94 airports around the world, 135 airlines are using 2D bar codes for their boarding passes and e-freight is operational at six locations with eight more by year-end.

What have we learned? The first lesson is that an industry-wide approach to IT systems can deliver enormous value. The second lesson is that our customers don’t care about process. They value convenience. An IATA survey showed that of the 70 percent of travellers who experienced self-service check-in, 54 percent liked it – and wanted more options. By the end of this year, IATA will build business cases for self-service options in baggage self-tagging, automated document checks, kiosks to handle irregular operations, self-boarding and mishandled baggage reporting. The goal is to make technology work even harder, to create an even more convenient travel experience and cut costs.

RFID and baggage RFID was part of the Simplifying the Business programme. Airlines handle 2.25 billion bags a year – a number that is growing quickly as security hassles force more bags into the hold. We are 98 percent accurate, but two percent of bags are mishandled and 48 million customers disappointed each year. The service recovery cost is US$3.8 billion. We thought RFID was the solution. Research showed it would only solve 20 percent of the problem. The potential savings did not justify an industry mandate. But don’t write off RFID completely. The next generation of aircraft will be built with RFID tagged parts to make maintenance safer and cheaper. And IATA continues to look at RFID applications for catering equipment, unit loading devices and service items. Our target is to be ready to take advantage of RFID as soon as the business case justifies it.

In the meantime, we are taking a broader approach to the baggage problem. IATA is developing a toolkit of solutions including passenger

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education on packing and labelling, more effective hub management and stronger labels that survive humid conditions. We will work directly with airports around the world to implement the best solutions locally.

To build an effective toolkit we need data. Delta, Emirates, LAN and Lufthansa are helping us launch the programme, and I encourage all airlines to share their data so we all can benefit. Our goal is to launch this by year-end so quick decisions and action are needed.

Security IT can also have an impact on process solutions beyond our control.

Look at the unco-ordinated security mess. We are more secure than in 2001, but at what cost? Since 2001, airlines and their customers paid at least US$30 billion in security. We get more frustration than value. Why? Because fear drives decisions, the infrastructure cannot cope, governments are not co-operating and nobody is taking leadership.

Passengers suffer a maze of duplication, bureaucracy and hassle.

And CIOs suffer constant demands for reprogramming to deliver the same advanced passenger information (API) data in different formats to government agencies, often within the same department. It costs US$50,000 for each data element changed in an API message. In total, API costs the industry over US$100 million every year. The irresponsiGiovanni Bisignani ble US exit proposals will outsource more data collection to airlines.

Second, we need to push governments much harder to move forThis time it’s fingerprints and the potential cost is in the billions. ward with a Single European Sky and NextGen so that we can take We are aligned with governments in wanting an even more secure advantage of the technology already on the aircraft. And third, we industry, but we need some common sense. The IATA-led Simplifying need global harmonisation. The patchwork of air traffic management Passenger Travel project is a solution to make security effective, ef(ATM) requirements around the world means that we do not always fly ficient and convenient. The technologies are not science fiction. Milwith optimum conditions and we carry extra limetre wave, backscatter and biometrics are IT kit to cope with the differences. We are a available today. Already many governments “CIOs will be stretched as global industry. The infrastructure must be issue biometric passports. Now they need to globally harmonised, in line with the Global start using them. never before to direct effective ATM roadmap. cost reduction and identify Environment The IT investments to build more efficient new revenue opportunities” US$130 oil makes fuel saving critical to businesses must also help build green busisurvival and gives airlines the biggest incennesses. Fortunately, the two are aligned. Look tive of any industry to improve environmental performance. Even at data centres. On average only 15 percent of capacity is used but venbefore the crisis, our vision set a benchmark for other industries to tilation, cooling and power is supplied for 100 percent – all the time. achieve carbon neutral growth on the way to a carbon-free future. To CIOs will need to look much more closely at virtualisation to opachieve this, we have mapped out a four pillar strategy: invest in new timise operations and achieve cost and environmental benefits. The technology, operate efficient infrastructure, fly planes effectively and same is true for the management of networks of personal computers, apply positive economic measures such as fair, global and effective automatic power-off at night, and extending the life and recycling of emissions trading, investment in bio-fuel research, tax credits for reequipment. These must also be factored into the decision-making pafleeting and so on. rameters. As part of the next stage of our environment work, IATA will In April, IATA led a group of top industry CEOs from Boeing, Airbus, develop guidance on Green Business best practices.

Embraer, Bombardier, Rolls Royce, GE, Pratt & Whitney and CFM to make this strategy an industry commitment. IT has a big role to play.

A changing world The years since 2001 have challenged and re-shaped the industry.

First the big picture. In 2007, IATA saved 10.5 million tonnes of CO2.

The oil crisis we face today with the potential of US$99 billion added Our Green Teams worked with airlines on best practice, and we shortto our fuel over the next year will bring even more massive change. ened 395 routes and the fuel saved went straight to the bottom line Airline industry CIOs will be stretched as never before to direct ef– US$2.1 billion. But we must do much more. First, more effective flight fective cost reduction and identify new revenue opportunities. The planning systems are needed. To manage and make the most of these determining factor of those airlines who survive to 2010 and those developments, we expect system providers to ensure their software who don’t could be the strength of their IT capabilities. optimises fuel use and takes advantage of every improved routing.

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Environmentally friendly flight starts in-ground

• Ground Power • Preconditioned Air • Potable Water • Lavatory Servicing • Jet Fuel

Already in-ground at Airports in • Stockholm • Oslo • Copenhagen • Barcelona • Amsterdam • Lyon • Jeddah • Hyderabad • Bangkok • Hong Kong • Dubai • Abu Dhabi • Riyadh • Muscat • Jordan •

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The concept The Combibox in-ground concept is centralized generating units with underground distribution to pits optimally positioned on the apron near the aircraft servicing points Environmentally friendly Replacing old diesel driven ground support equipment and jet fuel powered APU usage is essential in creating the eco-friendly airport of the future. When compared to Aircraft Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) the reduction in CO2 is 94% and compared to diesel powered GPU the reduction is 70% for ground power alone.

Reduced costs The Combibox in-ground system reduces the costly fuel consumption of diesel driven support equipment and the use of jet fuel consuming APU. Also less man power and time is needed to perform the ground support services.

Increased safety with a clean apron The removal of service vehicles from the apron reduces the risk of collision between aircraft and service vehicles.

Less vehicles, less congestion.

Increased capacity with shorter turnaround times A complete and integrated in-ground system reduces waiting times, frees up space and optimises delivery thereby reducing turnaround time. The airport will gain from increased capacity.

Combibox Systems, Virkesvagen 19, 12030 Stockholm, Sweden

Telephone: +466117635 Email: info@combibox.com Website: www.combibox.com

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INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Airport IT infrastructure: the beating heart of every modern airport SITA has been providing IT solutions in airports since 1949. Today, it works closely with airports all around the world, reducing the total cost of ownership of their IT portfolio while delivering the maximum benefits of technological innovation.

JEFF AMIRI

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oday’s air transport industry (ATI) is the most interconnected, massively interdependent business on earth, comprising some 2000 airlines operating a fleet of 23,000 aircraft serving close to 4000 airports through a global route network spanning several million kilometres. With passenger numbers and cargo volumes continuing to grow, existing airports need to be upgraded and expanded and new airports need to be built. But for anyone planning to build or upgrade an airport, or simply manage an existing airport, co-ordinating operations and simplifying processes while delivering better service to a broad range of customers is a huge challenge. That’s where SITA can help.

As the specialist provider of integrated IT business solutions and communication services for the world’s air transport industry, SITA has been building on a strong heritage of innovation for almost 60 years – and in 2007, some 600 million passengers worldwide checked in using SITA systems.

Master system integration Today, SITA is bringing its unrivalled air transport know how and expertise to deliver master system integration (MSI) to airport owners, easing complexity and enabling better and more efficient airports to be built, upgraded, expanded or operated.

The first step is to understand an airport’s requirements, and SITA has a proven track record in not just listening to customers’ needs but in delivering high-quality systems that not

only exceed expectations but also come in consistently on time and on budget.

SITA has worked successfully on major airport IT infrastructure projects around the world, from North and South America to Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

SITA also has a positive track record in engagements with multiple entities such as investors, operators, construction companies and consultants, and partners with them to deliver technical expertise and thereby reduce their exposure to risk.

“SITA has been building on a strong heritage of innovation for almost 60 years”

SITA engages with airports on various different levels, from the initial development through to airport operations and management, and finally new business development.

SITA’s MSI is a fully-comprehensive offering to airports, covering not just products, services, solutions and technologies, but people as well.

With decades of specialised aviation experience, SITA understands everything that exists in the market place today and what’s up and coming too – and uses its know how to identify products and solutions which complement its own offerings. When it is cost-effective, SITA also acquires companies that have complementary products, in order to expand its capabilities and reduce the cost of the bundled packages it offers customers.

A number of high-profile, as well as medium-sized airports, have come to SITA for outsourcing – and indeed, SITA has been working

OUTSOURCING Outsourcing with SITA combines: • Unparalleled industry knowledge and expertise – and a proven track record in outsourcing with partners such as Düsseldorf Airport • An innovative and well-articulated vision of the airports of tomorrow, positioning IT as a key business enabler and a vital commercial asset • An integrated end-to-end airport portfolio that delivers SITA’s vision of the future while immediately delivering efficiencies and new revenue generation opportunities • Innovative community-focused solutions that offer the air transport industry greater costeffectiveness – anywhere in the world • Experience in multiple outsourcing and partnership models to address customers’ business challenges and objectives • Local, regional and global availability • A unique position – SITA is owned by the ATI community, with the SITA Board comprising shareholders and customers from across the air transport industry

with airports in IT outsourcing partnerships since long before the term ‘outsourcing’ was even coined.

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AVIATION SECURITY

Securing air travel Ben Swagerman is Senior Vice President of KLM Security Services. Here he outlines some of the security challenges facing the aviation industry.

EUI. How have you seen the issue of aviation security intensify over the past 10 years and what has it meant for your airline?

BS. Clearly, aviation security has always been a big focus for us, and this has only intensified in recent years. Obviously, working for KLM I cannot speak for the airports (although there is a good deal of co-operation between us and them because we have to consult each other about measures proposed by the Civil Aviation Authority), but we have an extensive corporate security department now that is geared towards preparing for implementation of those and other measures. We have a multilayered security system, which is very complex and involves a good deal of co-operation between the airlines and the airports.

EUI. What does this involve from a security planning perspective?

BS. There is a clear division in terms of obligations for the airports and the airlines. Passenger screening, hand luggage screening and package screening for passengers are requirements for the airport security staff, whereas we have responsibility for securing aircraft, doing cabin security checks and searches, and cargo security. To have all the processes run smoothly there needs to be much consultation and discussion about how to manage all these processes. The ultimate goal is that security will have a minimum impact on passengers in terms of delays and hassle.

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aspects technology can help. However, it will never be the only thing we have to deploy to prevent unauthorised access or people bringing prohibited articles on board. There’s always a human factor involved. For instance, technology has to be used by screening personnel, so we have to look at how we can provide technology in the right places that complements the skills of the screeners. At Schiphol Airport, for example, we have jointly deployed innovative body scanner technology for speeding up the passenger screening process, and in that sense it’s a very important layer of security – but it is just one layer.

Ben Swagerman

EUI. I appreciate that you can’t speak for the airports, but many of the operations you describ

personnel. And of course, we have the obligation to do cabin security checks in the aircraft, performed by our crew in every aircraft for every departing flight in Europe.

EUI. And how do you ensure that the technologies you as an airline are integrating dovetail with the technologies that the airport itself is integrating?

BS. Active millimetre wave technology is a good example of the collaboration process. The airport

are actually dependent on close co-operation with the airport itself – for instance, securing the physical security of the aircraft. How have you addressed this challenge?

BS. For that we have specialists who are involved in those processes that take place on the apron – the tarmac around the airplane. We have a system of access controls that are conducted by the cabin and corporate crew, and sometimes employees of the maintenance department. Access to the airport itself is the responsibility of the airport, but our KLM cargo premises are guarded by airline

EUI. What role will technology play in tightening security around the planes and around cargo security? Are there any key technologies that you think will have a significant role to play in improving security within that environment?

BS. I think there’s a major role for technology in the sense that technology can help to better detect explosives or prohibited articles in general.

From a security point of view, I think it’s very important to underline the need to have a balance between detection and deterrence, and in both

had a plan to introduce this technology, and they proposed that KLM run a pilot with our cockpit and cabin crew to see what the results were like regarding detection of prohibited articles, and there were also some privacy and health concerns that needed to be addressed. So we spent many hours discussing how to use this technology and how to build up processes around it. And after the pilot was successful and we got approval for the use of this technology by the Cockpit and Crew Association, the airport decided to use millimetre wave scans in the passenger process.

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Another example in the field of cargo screening is sniffer dogs. We as an airline transporting cargo make use of a system of regulated agents and known shippers that are certified by the government with the approval of the European Union.

But while in Europe it’s enough to transport cargo within Europe in this supply chain security system, in the United States they require 100 percent physical screening of cargo transported on passenger aircraft. We’ve tackled this problem by the deployment of sniffer dogs, and they are trained and skilled to detect explosives in cargo.

“We have reached a stage where there are too many measures that are not consistently applied. We need to find redundancies in the system” EUI. To what extent have the new EU airport security regulations impacted on your operations at KLM? Do you face any challenges in terms of complying with the new legislation?

BS. We’re currently in discussion with the European Commission about the details of the regulation. Its aim is to make aviation security more flexible, better harmonised throughout Europe, and to foster new technologies and new methods. It’s still under discussion and we have to wait to see what the exact impact will be on our operations, but I’m quite optimistic because I think the EU regulation initially approved by the council right after 9/11 was very detailed and too comprehensive. I think it’s a very good opportunity to get more flexible, more effective and more efficient security in the future.

EUI. Do you think it will have the effect of standardising security across Europe? Obviously as an international carrier you must work with many different countries – do you see much difference between the security standards at these different countries?

BS. In terms of the regulation, the rules in the Netherlands are the same as in the UK and the same as in France or Germany, but the implementation of those rules is quite different, and that’s not a very good thing for us as an airline. For example, one measure states that there has to be a cabin security check before the departure of the

Amsterdam before flying on to the UK or elsewhere. The European Commission is currently in negotiations with the US government as to whether they can accept each other’s security system in order to expand the one-stop security principle further afield, too.

BODY SCANNERS At Amsterdam’s pioneering Schiphol airport, KLM was the first major airline to use new body-scanning machines at security checkpoints to find metals and explosives hidden under clothing. The system, which uses harmless radio waves to display headto-toe images of people, has since been expanded for use by other airports.

Schiphol handles about 160,000 passengers per day at peak times and is Europe’s fourth-busiest hub. aircraft – the actual wording is that there should be an inspection of the seat pockets. Now you can say an inspection of seat pockets can be done physically (that is to say the employee opens the seat pocket), or can it be done visually. Of course, the aim of doing this is to see whether there are prohibited articles in the aircraft. There’s a lot of discussion about whether it should be visual or physical. That’s only one example. We have many different interpretations of the rules.

EUI. So hopefully this discussion about the new regulations will involve some guidelines for the implementation of these…

BS. Exactly, and one of the basic principles of the new framework is that the idea of one-stop security should be advanced in Europe. That is to say, once an aircraft is flying from one European airport to another before flying elsewhere, security checks only need to be performed once.

So for example, if there are basic security checks done in Copenhagen and you fly to Amsterdam, those checks shouldn’t have to be repeated in

EUI. Obviously one of the key trends of recent years has been rising passenger numbers.

What sort of challenges does this present to you as an airline in terms of security?

BS. It presents a challenge in the sense that we have to be careful that the system won’t collapse in terms of waiting lines and hassle for passengers. The more passengers you have, the quicker the process needs to be. From a security point of view, having people in a crowded airport is a security risk in itself. This we saw in the attack on Glasgow Airport last year, where a jeep filled with explosives was driven into one of the terminals. Fortunately there were no casualties, but the danger is, of course, that there will be in future.

I think you have to put the point of focus not on the airport, not on the aircraft, but far away from the airport. It’s all a matter of intelligence.

Once you have the right intelligence you can intervene as soon as possible. I think the foiled Heathrow plot in August 2006 is a very good example. I think the UK government can be proud that they have a system in place in which they have good collaboration between the intelligence agencies, the airport and the police to prevent a strike in the earliest possible instance.

EUI. Finally, one of the challenges for security professionals in this industry is striking a balance between security and customer service.

How do you address this challenge?

BS. Of course the main principle is that we need to have secure flights, so we can never compromise on security. The same applies to safety. On the other hand, security must be smart and effective and efficient. One of the reasons we talk with manufacturers as well as regulators is to try to convince them that putting more and more measures and more and more obligations on airports and airlines is not the way forward. Security needs to be multilayered, but I think we have reached a stage now where there are too many measures that are not consistently applied. We need to find some redundancies in the system without compromising on these security benefits.

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EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

Security solutions EU Infrastructure asks Eric Bergeron, President and CEO of Optosecurity, about the challenges of critical infrastructure checkpoints and what makes his company unique.

EUI. Please tell us a little about the company and its unique technology.

EB. Optosecurity was founded in 2003, as a technology spin-off from the Canadian Optics Institute – one of the world’s largest and most respected optical R&D labs. We’ve developed a very unique product, the OptoScreener, which connects to legacy checkpoint X-ray equipment to detect undesirable or dangerous liquids as well as weapons and weapon parts.

The OptoScreener is very unique because it is the world’s only inline system – meaning it does not require additional or secondary screening processes to improve checkpoint security.

Our solution is a decision support system that improves the probability of detecting threats, therefore increasing overall security.

The OptoScreener is a multidisciplinary solution, it can be deployed in both aviation security and critical infrastructure checkpoints, and our threat database can be customised to focus on specific threats for different locations.

In addition to our talented R&D and business teams, the company has a world-class board of directors, including our Chairman, the Honourable John Manley, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada.

EUI. What challenges do critical infrastructure checkpoints commonly face?

EB. We’ve identified three leading and universal challenges to critical infrastructure checkpoints. A significant challenge for security professionals is improving threat detection without disrupting or restricting the throughput at a checkpoint. An additional challenge is improving threat detection within

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budget and operational realities – frequently new solutions require major changes to the checkpoint, in-depth training or new skill sets for the screeners.

Finally, and most importantly, is the complexity and challenge of the sheer volume of prohibited items or threats. Consider the vast amount of information screeners need to process on an hourly basis, yet ultimately, as human beings, they can only be expected to process so much information efficiently. Therefore, a key challenge is to improve the tactical decision making ability of the screeners and help them deal with the volume of possible threats, so they can improve the efficiency and consistency of threat detection at checkpoints.

EUI. Why is the OptoScreener unique?

EB. The OptoScreener was specifically designed to resolve the current checkpoint challenges we’ve just discussed.

We improve the level of threat detection at checkpoints while maintaining throughput – we can do this because we are an ‘inline’ solution, which means we do not require additional or secondary processes, we process data simultaneously with the host X-ray system. This is incredibly important at infrastructure deployments where you frequently have peak hour high volume throughput – for example shift changes at a nuclear power plant, or visiting day at a prison, or even security at public event, a concert at a stadium. The automated detection of liquid threats and weapons through material analysis and intelligent vision, occurs in realtime, and screeners are notified of any threats

– this inline added intelligence maintains throughput, without increasing overall security.

The OptoScreener is designed to improve existing legacy systems, therefore we are an extremely budget friendly solution. Although our system is very sophisticated, it can be quickly field deployed to existing X-ray machines, and training of the screeners on the friendly user interface is very swift. We do not require changes to the infrastructure of checkpoint, nor to protocol or footprint – the system is mounted and connected directly onto the X-ray machine.

The volume and complexity of threats, not to mention how cleverly some threats can be disguised, are the ultimate challenges at the checkpoint. We support the principle that the most effective and valuable resource at the checkpoint is the security screener – but we believe they require additional tools to counter these complex threats.

The OptoScreener revolutionises the checkpoint because it provides the screener with additional, sophisticated decision-making tools to help improve the accuracy and the consistency of threat detection. Another major advantage is our threat database, which is customisable and dynamic – it can be updated remotely. In addition to weapon detection, Optosecurity is the only company in the world to offer an inline liquid threat detection system. All of these features bolster the overall performance and confidence of the screeners and allow them to effectively deal with the vast and complex list of prohibited items. It is truly a mission-critical enhancement for today’s checkpoints.

Eric Bergeron, President and CEO of Optosecurity Inc., has over 20 years of global international management experience in high-tech industries, including business development, sales, technology and finance. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) and was recently appointed member of the Canadian Government's Science, Technology and Innovation Council.

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What is a ‘naked camera’ anyway?

Johan Öhgren investigates airport security. ll who pass an airport security checkpoint today are forced to remove jackets, coats, computers from their cases and sometimes belts, shoes, etc. In general, it’s painstakingly slow and is privacy intrusive; but it’s for the greater good and helps us keep safe.

However, one of the problems with the traditional techniques like the X-ray machine and the metal detector arches at a security check point, is that it’s virtually impossible to detect non-metallic articles like sharp plastic and ceramic items that could also be used as weapons carried on a person. The current way to combat this is to set the detector to go off after a slightly randomised number of people passing the arch, regardless if they carry any metal items or not.

The object is to keep officers on their toes and to be able to pat people down. The aim is to discourage terrorists or criminals to try to sneak something through. In a perfect world, this makes it impossible to carry on any hazardous items onboard aircrafts. Unfortunately, as we all know, we do not live in a perfect world.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s quite easy to get through with weapons, explosives, Tasers and other dangerous items. To keep up some kind of pace in the security checks, the officers never, or at least rarely, stop anyone passing the metal detector if it hasn’t given off an alarm. This is the Achilles heel; we don’t get checked what we hide under our clothes unless the alarm sounds. As matter of fact, even when the detector give of an alarm, the officer sometimes misses obvious items due to intimidation, charm or plain laziness.

These facts allowed for undercover agents working for the Transportation Se-

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curity Administration in the US to cross the checkpoint at several US airports with guns, knives and improved explosive devices. In fact, when tests were carried out at Denver International Airport in 2007, in 10 percent of the cases, the items were detected. The remaining 90 percent passed the checkpoints even without being found/detected.

“The system will automatically detect a suspicious object and present the outline on top of a normal video image on the monitor” In 2006, Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General and the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found widespread failures in US airports.

According to the GAO, at 15 tested airports, security screeners only found 10 percent of the guns and explosives the undercover agent tried to sneak past.

This is why there is extensive research throughout Europe and US in new technologies to aid the security screeners in combating terrorists, insurgence and criminals. One of the more promising technologies has been nicknamed ‘naked camera’ due to its ability to see through clothes and is based on ultrahigh radio waves named THz. This is the reason behind the IMATERA project – IMAging in the TERAherz domain.

This EU research project, under the PEDEA+ umbrella is part of EUREKA within the EU, aims to address this problem.

The difference in the IMATERA projects, compared to other ‘naked cameras’, is that we work in higher frequency, in real time and in room temperature. All of this together gives a higher resolution image of what is hidden underneath the clothes a person is wearing, down to a size of some mm.

With all this power, the IMATERA projects have also addressed the invasion of privacy issues, which many other projects forget. Instead the system will automatically detect a suspicious object and present the outline on top of a normal video image on the monitor. This way, the machine could also be used in orthodox Muslim countries since the device won’t cause any religious

Johan Öhgren is the owner of Acquris IT HB. Acquris is one of a few companies that handle the complete chain, from developing to fabrication to installation of both overt and covert camera surveillance systems. Öhgren is the Swedish National Coordinator in the IMATERA project.

or integrity problems. With this approach, the machine, can not only work in assisting screeners, but it also allows for automated security checkpoints at lower security areas like a sports arena.

The research part in the IMATERA project stretches until 2011 and a device based on this technology will probably be available on the market around 2012-2015.

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ANALYST VIEWPOINT

Airport screening market set to take off Surge in air travellers creates tremendous growth potential for European airport passenger screening market.

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he flow of passengers travelling by air is set to undergo remarkable growth in Europe over the next few years, according to new research from Frost & Sullivan. The research firm has found that airports are revamping and redesigning their infrastructure with a priority on improving security, creating new opportunities for security equipment providers. The airport passenger screening industry needs to adjust to evolving requirements and effectively respond to customer demands in this concentrated marketplace.

The advent of millimetre-wave technology is on the verge of transforming the airport security screening market in Europe. Upcoming revamps and soaring passenger capacity are triggering major changes in security layouts, setting the stage for security screening to take-off over the next decade. As a result, revenues in the European airport passenger screening market are poised to increase substantially over the period 2008-2017 as airports procure additional units to leverage their security layout and better compete in their passengers’ facilitation.

HOW MILLIMETRE WAVE TECHNOLOGY WORKS Beams of radio frequency (RF) energy in the millimetre wave spectrum are projected over the body’s surface at high speed from two antennas simultaneously as they rotate around the body The RF energy reflected back from the body or other objects on the body is used to construct a threedimensional image The three-dimensional image of the body, with facial features blurred for privacy, is displayed on a remote monitor for analysis

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“Revenues in the European airport passenger screening market are poised to increase substantially over the period 2008-2017” The report, entitled Airport Passenger Screening Market in Europe and covering passengers’ hold baggage, narcotics and metal detection, predicts that market revenues will almost triple behave 2007 and 2017. “Most notably, airport expansions and the desire to implement cutting-edge security technology will drive the market,” notes Frost & Sullivan analyst Marie-France Mann. “The number of passengers in airports is on the rise, compelling the procurement of additional security equipment.”

Airport security will increasingly change, as the European Union standardises and introduces regulations. At the same time, most airports in Europe intend to modernise, privatise and develop their infrastructure. Currently, the airport security screening market remains heavily concentrated on the suppliers’ side, with significant opportunities for market participants to grow their business.

The biggest challenge for airport screening

equipment manufacturers will be to help airports achieve the optimal balance between security and facilitation. Suppliers must support airports in achieving high revenues, while providing top-line security equipment and services.

European airports are undergoing major changes in infrastructure design to process the growing number of passengers. However, they have to ensure that the security equipment and design they purchase comply with EU-mandated security regulations. Therefore, suppliers face the challenge of adhering their systems to EU regulatory standards.

“Security screening manufacturers must clearly understand the requirements of end users and the regulations framing the industry,” explains Mann. “While evaluating the needs and customising their products to meet varied requirements, manufacturers should opt for new system designs and capabilities to revolutionise the marketplace.”

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Protecting against terrorists The current threat-level from terrorist attack in the UK remains at ‘severe’ – highlighting that the possibility of an attack is a constant reality. Dr Jurek Tolloczko, General Manager at Corus Bi-Steel, looks into security measures. everal initiatives have been taken by the UK Government to prepare for and counter the increasing terrorist threat.

This has involved formulating a security strategy and setting up specialist agencies, notably the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) and the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI).

In March 2008, the National Security Strategy was published. The strategy provides a comprehensive framework that Britain will adopt to meet the security challenges of today’s world. In the strategy, much emphasis is placed on the need to physically protect buildings, crowded places and the people who frequent them from terrorist bomb attack. Enhancing protection of our critical national infrastructure – such as ports, airport and rail stations, along with key public and commercial buildings, sports stadia and other places where people gather together in numbers – is also high on the agenda.

Protective security measures ranging from barriers and bollards to walls around the perimeter of a site can substantially reduce the threat from a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attack.

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Security aesthetics Whilst protective security measures must be ‘fit for purpose’ in terms of their blast and impact capabilities, the versatility of the scheme and the aesthetics of the completed installation are now also critical. Today’s solutions need to fit with the surrounding architecture and environment, as well as being straightforward and easy to install.

In the first instance, effective perimeter and stand-off protection are key to minimising the possibility of attack by VBIED, and to

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mitigating the effects of an explosive blast.

This means installing an appropriate antiattack vehicle protective solution, which may consist of permanent bollards or walls, or redeployable barriers.

Corus has developed a range of permanent solutions to address the ongoing terrorist threat by providing high levels of stand-off and site perimeter protection at security sensitive locations. Bi-Steel bollard and wall systems meet the performance standards of PAS 68:2007, the accepted UK classification system for vehicle security barriers and their supporting foundations when subjected to horizontal impact. The systems have been carefully designed to blend aesthetically into the local environment and can be painted, clad in brick or stone, or cement-rendered in keeping with the surrounding streetscape.

Corus Bi-Steel also has a redeployable system designed to meet the requirements for rapid, temporary deployment, effective vehicle stopping and protection of people and assets. A robust system, it can be quickly deployed with minimum disruption, typically on a short or medium-term basis, providing an ideal solution for protecting crowded places and security sensitive events. These barriers have already been used to protect the Palace of Westminster, New Scotland Yard, Stansted Airport and other locations of strategic infrastructure.

Integration An increasing number of buildings are being designed to incorporate structural security features that are able to resist explosive blasts or reduce the damage caused from detonated devices. The primary objective is to stop vehicles from penetrating the

facade of the building. These measures are required where street furniture (such as bollards, planters and security walls) cannot be used for perimeter protection, as the required stand-off distance is not available outside of the premises to be protected – this is often the case in tight city centre locations.

Dr Jurek Tolloczko is General Manager for Bi-Steel, part of Corus, with responsibility for Defence and Security. He has been involved with blast and fire engineering for over 20 years and has a wide range of practical experience of how to design structures to protect against accidental and deliberate explosive attack.

A range of measures can be employed to achieve this objective, from reducing the amount of glazing or including high performance toughened glass, through to the integration of blast resistant materials such as Bi-Steel within the fabric of the structure.

Security by design The concept of ‘security by design’ should be at the heart of all the countermeasures described above. Prevention is always better than cure, and the inclusion of the appropriate blast protection security at the conceptual design stage of any new building will provide suitable protection for the structure and those who use it.

For further information, contact: Nicola Davies, Marketing Manager, Corus Bi-Steel +44 (0) 1344 751670 bi-steel@ corusgroup.com www.corussecurity.com/bi-steel

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INDUSTRY INSIGHT

So where exactly are my assets?

ROLAND CUNNINGHAM

tility and telecommunication businesses provide the infrastructure fabric for maintaining our way of life.

The pipes and cables that criss-cross Europe give us heat, light, water, the ability to talk and see others, and take away our waste.

Most of this infrastructure has been buried for decades and recording its accurate location has not always been a priority. Customer satisfaction, health and safety, efficiency, effectiveness, legislation and competition have all now become boardroom concerns and one way to attack them is to know what you have, its condition and where it is – an accurate location-based asset management system that supports business intelligence.

Most organisations have installed geographic information systems (GIS) that perform some departmental functions. GIS is now entering the ‘open standards and service-oriented-architecture (SOA) of mainstream IT’, but many businesses have yet to embrace GIS as their enterprise asset management system, even though interoperability can be achieved through geo-referencing their data.

The UK base level for location is the Ordnance Survey (OS) map. In the 1990s discrepancies between digital maps and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) co-ordinates became apparent. The OS therefore embarked on a Positional Accuracy Improvement (PAI) programme – completed March 2006. Base map features were shifted into new GPS-based positions – up to 28m in rural areas, but varying distance and direction.

Organisations that had plotted their assets

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against OS mapping then faced the issue of repositioning all of their records. Further impetus came from new legislation – Traffic Management Act. The UK Government’s aim is to encourage improved planning and coordination of road works and companies will have to provide electronic exchange of accurate asset information. For many companies, this requires a complete process overhaul and in-depth analysis of the quality of location data for buried cable/pipe assets.

“In this highly competitive world where efficiency and effectiveness affect the bottom line, an accurate asset management system is an essential business tool”

Central Networks, the electricity distribution company for central England and part of E.ON UK, realised that action was required with 86 percent of their land coverage affected by the OS PAI programme with the remaining urban 14 percent affected by new building developments. A worldwide competition was won by Rolta in May 2007 for a three-year GIS Data Improvement Project which is part of an overall UK£8 million investment to review, change and amalgamate GIS, creating one enterprise system for the entire company.

The project will update all geospatial information and will involve realigning or capturing every single cable of its 133,000km of underground cables and overhead lines that go through 97,000 substations, link boxes and other network assets, and transferring them to OS MasterMap. This realignment will

enable the use of GPS technology in the field to capture asset records.

The work is being undertaken at Rolta’s GIS production centre in Mumbai with secure high-speed links between both companies.

Rolta is integrating data from numerous sources: scanned images; vector files; database attributes, and uses a variety of systems: GE Smallworld; Intergraph; Bentley; Innogistic; ITS and Oracle to create one comprehensive and accurate geospatial database for Central Networks. As the resultant system will be at the heart of asset management, it was important that location accuracy was enhanced and Rolta went even further.

Rolta started with the application of shift parameters to realign the cables and other assets, adjusted using the engineers’ field dimensioning and finally applied the business rules. This back-to-basics approach was also necessary for new building developments where the cables and assets had been plotted against builder’s proposed plans and these now had to be realigned to the as-built position. A further enhancement has been the use of the latest geo-rectified aerial photography to accurately position electricity poles.

So, Central Networks is answering the question ‘Where exactly are my assets?’ by collating all their knowledge and records and reviewing the quality and accuracy in one project. In this highly competitive world where efficiency and effectiveness affect the bottom line, an accurate asset management system is an essential business tool.

Roland Cunningham is the Geospatial Sales Director at Rolta UK and has over 30 years’ experience in the geospatial and IT industry, including consultancy, business development and sales. Rolta is a leading provider and developer of IT-based services in GIS; engineering & design services; and Enterprise IT with multi-million euro projects undertaken worldwide.

For more information visit www.rolta.com or email roland.cunningham@rolta-emea.com

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he genius of the Port of Rotterdam lies in its central location. Directly connected to the North Sea – the most heavily navigated sea in the world – and a European hinterland comprising of 400 million consumers, the facility is a major economic hub. Each year, 30,000 sea-going vessels and 130,000 inland navigation vessels call at the Port of Rotterdam, and around 500 shipping lines maintaining regular services to over 1000 other ports all over the world count Rotterdam as an important stop. The port is Europe’s most important junction for oil and chemicals, containers, iron ore, coal, food and metals.

These huge cargo flows result in advantages of scale for both the shipping companies and shippers. But with a throughput of 406 million metric tons last year, maintaining an IT infrastructure that can handle the enormous volumes of data required to manage such a complex ecosystem is a major challenge.

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Nico Westpalm van Hoorn is responsible for adding value to the port’s business processes, managing safety for traffic and logistics and the leasing of the port’s land. As CIO, he aligns with his business managers to ensure they get the information they need to run their processes. As well as this, of course, he has to keep an IT organisation in place that can provide the services that are promised.

“Alignment with the business is all about trust,” he says. “IT is always something that will happen in the future. You promise a system, but one that will work in the future: you can never deliver on the spot.

Because you always deliver in the future, trust is the base to work together with your business to realise these goals. You need leadership to both convince your peers, your C-suite and your organisation that you need to work together.” According to van Hoorn, leadership is about creating a vision that people can believe in.

As you might imagine, the main challenge associated with the running of a port is that of logistics. Van Hoorn explains that he has

THE SHIPPING NEWS The Port of Rotterdam is one of the most important cargo junctions in the world, and Nico Westpalm van Hoorn is charged with ensuring operations run smoothly.

2007 throughput: Port of Rotterdam Total incoming 299,449,000 mt* Total outgoing 107,363,000 mt* Total throughput 406,812,000 mt* *metric tons

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two main tasks. “One is the leasing out of land and getting the right kind of companies to settle here in Rotterdam, rather than in Amsterdam or Antwerp or Felixstowe. That’s what we call the ‘dry’ side of our work, the land side. And we also have what we call the ‘wet’ side of our work, which is bringing in the ships safely and taking care that they move quickly through the port, with no collisions, and get their cargos off as fast as possible. Once the cargo is offboard – be it oil, or containers, or whatever – it’ll have to be put through to wherever its destination is – Germany, France, Eastern Europe, you name it.”

RISK MANAGEMENT Van Hoorn’s task is to deliver the systems that can manage these “Since 9/11, ports have had to enormously increase information flows just-in-time, which security levels, which is partly an ICT issue. It’s to do means working together with many difwith having the right personnel given access to ships or ferent parties. “It’s not just one company to containers, making container changes secure, making that runs the port – it’s a whole chain of sure no-one gets into a container and tampers with the partners working together on the logistics content. That’s a big issue here in Rotterdam, as in every side. It’s the shipper, it’s the container terport. It’s partly an ICT issue, but also has to be managed minal, it’s the transporter, it’s the people who by the owners and the parties involved in the supply chain receive the containers. So you see there are themselves.” many parties involved in running the chain, and our job is to bring them together and provide them with the information they need to specific critical performance indicators that it has to report about, and do their own planning process.” as van Hoorn explains, it is his job to see that the systems that help There are two projects that van Hoorn points to as his greatest measure, monitor and improve them are all in place. achievements during his time at the port. The first is Port info-link There is a problem with this as far as logistics goes though: (www.portinfolink.com), which is the single window one-stop shopthere still aren’t enough parties connected in the supply chain, so ping system built in Rotterdam to deliver value to all the parties who a lot of the port’s energy has to go into managing work together in the supply chain. He has also just this. “We have the Betuwe line you might have completed an IT outsourcing project, which was PORT MAP heard of, which is a new railway dedicated to undertaken when the port decided that it could cargo from Rotterdam through Holland and then work more successfully if it used IT partners to Rotterdam’s entire port to Germany. Managing this involves connecting provide certain services. Given the growth of inand industrial complex all the rail operators and shippers. We are still ternational trade, the demands on van Hoorn’s IT covers 10,500 hectares working with them to use our port community organisation were becoming unmanageable – the and stretches out 40 system.” port has an annual growth of trade (largely thanks kilometres in length, One of the reasons this is so tough is that many to the spectacular rise of China as an economic from the city to the SME companies in the supply chain struggle with powerhouse) of between eight and 10 percent, Maasvlakte along the their IT infrastructure because they don’t have the and it handles over 10 million containers each Nieuwe Waterweg canal. money, the energy or the motivation to be conyear. “I realised that with an internal IT organisanected electronically. The port is trying to create tion you can’t have the continuity or the flexibility a more user-friendly environment for these companies to make their to keep improving your business at the speed and the scale that was logistic declarations, telling the terminals at what time containers will needed,” he explains. “So the decision was made to outsource all arrive so the planning process works smoothly. our ICT operations to an international company with a large Dutch Van Hoorn is the first to concede that there’s still a lot to achieve. footprint, Getronics.”

“The future will be about broadband, about mobility, and trying to Today, van Hoorn’s biggest priority is concerned with core busiconnect as many parties who work together as smoothly and seamness: speeding up the throughput of containers through the port. This lessly as possible,” he says – no small feat for a port that must support involves working together with all the parties concerned with bringing a logistical chain as complex as this. Luckily for them, van Hoorn – a in the cargo, speeding it through the container terminal and bringing it man for whom solving technical problems has become “an addiction” to the hinterland. At the moment this process on average takes eight – and his team are up to the challenge. days, but van Hoorn’s aim is to get this down to six days. The port has

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EXECUTIVE Q&A

TECHNOLOGY AT THE TOP EU Infrastructure speaks to the Metropolitan Police Service CIO, Ailsa Beaton, about the challenges and opportunities of IT communications at the largest force in the UK.

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EUI. What are the main challenges facing the Metropolitan Police, and how are you tackling these challenges?

AB. There are four main challenges in my opinion. The first and the most important is providing the Metropolitan Police Service with the appropriate tools to support effective and responsive policing, and we do that in a number of different ways. One is to advise our police colleagues on emerging technologies and the uses criminals may want to make of those technologies. Then we deploy suitable technology ourselves first in the prevention and detection of crime; and the other is in the more traditional way, which is to support our administrative processes, back office processes and the like.

The second challenge is keeping our systems and infrastructure going 24 hours a day and keeping them secure and able to cope with large increases in demand, whether they are used to support planned activities like Notting Hill Carnival or unplanned terrorist incidents, for example. The third challenge has got to be cost and being cost-effective, particularly as budgets tighten in these more difficult times.

The last one I would pick out is probably around the green agenda, which is meeting energy efficiency requirements, while still keeping all the technologies going that the MPS requires.

EUI. In your opinion, what kind of technologies can be implemented to achieve greater efficiency so that less time is spent on paperwork?

AB. The use of technology to make people more efficient just isn’t enough on its own. What we have done in the Met in terms of mobile devices very much started off with looking at what the officers need to do. Technology is only part of the solution – to get greater efficiency, processes need to be changed as well.

EUI. What role do emerging communication technologies have at the Metropolitan Police Service?

AB. Communication technologies have an enormous role in many capacities. The most important technology is around the mobile space and using IT to give police officers immediate access to the information required for their job, as opposed to requiring them to come back to an

EUI. And do you believe GIS solutions can be applied to improve efficiency? And if so, how?

AB. Yes, definitely. We have a new strategy for using GIS, and we know that we can make efficiency savings by allowing people on-screen access to information, particularly GIS solutions. And it’s also very helpful to us in the work that we do – using GIS solutions to gather im-

office or a particular point to get the information they need or to ask the questions they need.

EUI. And what are you doing in the mobile space at the moment?

AB. We already have mobile devices in our vehicles that are used both as sources of information and to dispatch officers. We provide mapping technologies so officers can find out where they’re going as well as access to the police national computer, so that checks that can be made when officers are on the move.

Later this year we will be rolling out PDA devices to officers. This will give officers on the street the ability to access MPS systems and to receive messages and information when they are out and about.

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portant information on the whereabouts of an offence is critical to us.

So part of it is about cost and time efficiency, but a lot of it is about improving the quality of information that allows us to bring more offenders to justice.

EUI. Data security is a huge issue in IT for all industries. What strategies do you employ to ensure that all data remains secure at the Met? AB. Data security is important for everyone, but it’s particularly important for us to secure public confidence as well as to keep information we’ve got confidential. The main component of our strategy is that security is sponsored at board level. We have information security policies and standard operating procedures and we also take advice from other government bodies in terms of best practice and security, as well as using our own experts who are professionals in that field to make sure we’ve got the best advice.

Having got that in place, we make sure that all our systems are subject to an information assurance process and that any risks are identified, and if they’re not mitigated, any residual risks are properly managed. We do that with all the technologies that we deploy, but before we deploy anything new we will look at the security implications.

EUI. You are also involved with the National Policing Improvement Agency on a number of projects, including replacing the police national computer system with a new national database. What difference will this new national database make, and how will it be implemented?

THE MET IN NUMBERS 31,000 Police Officers 14,000 Police Staff 4000 Police Community Support Officers 2500 Special Constables 414 Traffic Wardens 180 Police Stations 32 London Boroughs

AB. My involvement with the National Policing Improvement Agency is as Information Management lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers. I look at the new police national database from a user’s point of view in terms of what business benefits it will provide to us.

As well as replacing the police national computer, the big change for the new police national database will be the inclusion of intelligence, expanding upon information that the police national computer has at the moment, so it gives us improved capabilities in sharing information across the police service.

EUI. What is the UK’s relationship with the rest of Europe like in terms of IT police processes? And have you been able to learn anything from any other countries?

AB. Yes, the UK’s relationship with Europe in terms of the European Union is handled through the National Policing Improvement Agency, as they are the people who are very closely linked to the EU development programmes. But the Met also has very strong links with police services across the world, and I have contact with my peers in other services.

We do try to learn from each other, and only a few months ago I was involved in a forum that included chief information officers from law enforcement agencies from all around the EU, talking about the things that we’re doing to meet the problems of law enforcement. And obviously in a forum like that there are some things where we’re ahead of the field, as it were, and can share what we’re doing in the Met with other organisations. But there are other areas where colleagues from other countries have done some innovative work that we will look at in detail and see whether it can be of value to us here.

So I think we have a good relationship, and this means we can find out what each other are doing and share our best practice.

EUI. In terms of the future, what are your key areas of focus, and are there any other technologies in particular that you’re excited about seeing implemented?

AB. In terms of the future, the big thing for me is going to be the London 2012 Olympics where the Metropolitan Police Service has the lead for security. And so I have the responsibility of making sure that we’ve got the systems in place to discharge those security responsibilities. That’s the big thing on my horizon.

And in terms of new technologies coming forward, there are two I would highlight. One is in the mobility space. The more information we can give to officers when and where they’re doing their job, the better we can support them.

And the other one I would pick out is our ability to engage with the communities we serve, using the internetbased technologies that are now available. We need to take advantage of these technologies to make our engagement with communities the best it can be because that’s what we’re here for, to serve the people of London, and to do that well we need high levels of interaction.

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EXPERT OPINION

EUI. Do you feel like your previous roles have prepared you well for your current postion at Skanska?

MN. Before my previous role at Nordea, I spent 20 years with Accenture as a management consultant in IT. After leaving Accenture in 2005, and joining Nordea as the CIO, I learnt about the dynamics that are ongoing in a larger corporation. Certainly this experience of a larger organisation was very valuable.

My personal philosophy is that IT is important for business, but it’s not there for its own sake; it’s there to support the business. But in internet banking, it was IT that partly drove that development as well as being there to support the business.

IT in financial services has a more prominent role and also a larger part of the budget compared to the construction industry.

The usage of IT is also different here at Skanska. Not every single individual has their own email account, for example. There are some differences, but many of the things that I learned at Nordea are applicable here at Skanska too.

THE

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FUTURE

EU Infrastructure asked Skanska’s newly appointed CIO, Magnus Norrström, about how he is preparing for his new role supporting the construction industry.

EUI. So Magnus, you recently joined Skanska, and have been spending your time travelling around to better understand Skanska’s operations. How is that going?

MN. Yes, that has been going well. I’ve met all the members of the senior executive team, including our CEO, Johan Karlström, and I’ve met about half of the other staff units that are located here in Stockholm. I still have a couple of meetings to go, staff units are areas like reporting, communications, purchasing, etc.

I’ve been to Helsinki and met our person that is responsible for the UK. I also have meetings planned for Poland, Norway and the US and am planning trips to the Czech Republic and Latin America. But I’m quite used to the travelling.

EUI. When working as a CIO, you learn the basics and then adapt what you have learned and apply it to any industry that you work in?

EUI. What have you learned about the role so far?

MN. I have three different responsibilities here with Skanska. I’m Head of the Group Staff IT Unit and in that capacity, I report to one of the senior executive team members, Tor Krusell, and I am also responsible for the group. So in addition to my IT responsibilities, I do have a personnel responsibility.

The second role I hold is as chairman of the board for Skanska IT Solutions. That covers the IT development, maintenance and the operation company for Skanska, mainly Skanska Sweden. That’s a group of about 90 people with their CEO who then reports to me in this capacity.

The third area I cover is co-ordination of the IT activities in the 13 business units. Skanska is a decentralised organisation, which means the business units do not use one overall IT structure.

EUI. What is on top of your agenda for your first year in the company?

MN. When I began at Skanska I agreed that I would split 2008 into three different steps. The first is to get into the organisation and the business as such. Second is to formalise my journey going forward, and the third step is to get buy-in and confirmation of that plan.

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MN. Yes, you can, but I actually think that my experience as a consultant stood me in great stead for this role. When you look at the role of a CIO – regardless of what business you work for – you are a leader for the group that you are responsible for. You have to have the general management skills, you have to have an understanding of the business and you must have an understanding of IT. Throughout my 20 years with Accenture, I understood from a practical point of view how IT works.

Then, of course, there are things that I learned at Nordea that you can’t learn as a consultant, having direct line responsibility. A combination of my experiences with a consultant background and line responsibilities have helped me.

EUI. The Group Staff IT Unit is responsible for the group’s global standards for data network, security and common platforms. This must be quite a challenge given the group’s global reach?

MN. I do see it as a challenge, but that isn’t necessarily a negative thing.

We have a common standard, which we use here at Skanska, so there are directions in those areas which gives the order of standards for the common network, common security and the common platforms.

Another factor that is important is that you present your suggestions in a way that the users – the other business units’ IT departments – see the value of it, so it’s a two-way communication. We can give directions and overall goals, but we can’t direct them to do certain things when it comes to their own IT department. Moving forward, the level of integration is one of the areas I will be focusing on, as there are benefits and synergies to having more of the basic IT structures in common.

EUI. What other issues will you be addressing?

MN. On the corporate level we have a Green Building initiative. We also have another staff unit called Sustainability. What we have started in IT is a group that consists of members from the major IT departments around the globe. We don’t call it green IT, we call it sustainable IT. Under that umbrella is where green IT falls, along with a number of other topics.

EUI. Do you think it will be a challenge to co-ordinate the purchase of IT-related services, seeing as you have to cover such a large group?

MN. The business model that we are using is a decentralised integrated model. That’s the overall Skanska business model. Under that umbrella, it depends how you see the balance between the decentralised and the integrated part. It also depends a little bit on what type of vendors, for example, hardware or software vendors or consultants that we’re using, how we are dealing with them. But we do have a number of common agreements with global players like Microsoft, for example.

It’s still up to each individual IT manager in the different business units to decide what they want to do, as we do not decide at the corporate level what type of software they should use.

It’s part of the integration strategy to see if we can do more in common. If we can do that – and I’m pretty confident that we can – it will be easier because we can all use the same type of application, the same type of integrated architecture.

Magnus Norrström Underneath that we will be using the same type of vendors as well or a selection of vendors. The most important areas is for terminals. We look at it for PCs and for servers and then we see how much of that will be in common and then we will also have common purchase agreements.

EUI. Where do think your IT focus is going to lie? Are there any particular business goals you’re trying to address?

MN. We will be looking into the whole business process, from the architecture to the development of what kind of new build we’re doing, and then the purchase, logistics and the project management skills that are needed in all these areas. My job is to see how we can support that from an IT perspective and that, you could say, is nothing new It’s just doing it better.

IT will be instrumental to enhance productivity in our core businesses. For example, IT is a crucial tool in our current standardising of our residential construction and we are also looking into BIM, which is building information modelling, for all type of projects.

That’s a way of gathering data from the very start of designing and planning what you want to build all the way through the handover of the completed building. We want to develop this further to better serve our goals, methods, processes and ways of working. I believe, we can be more efficient by utilising IT in the construction process.

EUI. What do you hope to achieve at Skanska?

MN. I want to make sure I understand the business model of pure construction compared to the development area, where we have the residential, commercial and infrastructure development. In these areas the process looks a little bit different, as we are developing it from our own land bank all the way until we sell the objects. I have to understand that so it can be supported more successfully from an IT perspective. In addition to that, we have to see if there are areas that can be integrated.

And at the moment, there are two initiatives, which started before I joined but which I am part of right now, regarding Nordic IT, to see if there are any synergies in the Nordic area and the same thing in the US area.

Those are two additional things that I will be focused on for the future different business areas. A busy time, but it will be a great challenge.

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ASK THE EXPERT

Modern communications hinge on software design Anna Squires, Product Development Director at Etherstack, explains the importance of wireless technologies to improve security, data and efficiency for radio devices. odern wireless communications rely on ever more extensive software to improve interoperability, security, data rates and spectral efficiency. Indeed, as radio technology evolves from analogue to digital, software has surpassed hardware as the most complex element in a radio device.

The investment made by radio manufacturers in software has consequently increased dramatically. It will continue to do so. It is therefore urgent that software is designed correctly to derive maximum value from this investment and to capitalise properly on the benefits of software-based systems.

The evolution of the ETSI TETRA standards from Release 1 to Release 2 highlights the importance of investing carefully in protocol software development. The first generation of TETRA radios to reach the market are now approaching end of life and users are anticipating the advanced features and higher data rates offered by TEDS and TETRA Release 2. However, many manufacturers are struggling to maintain their original TETRA protocol code and are finding that they can’t upgrade it or port it to next-generation processors and hardware platforms.

In order to offer a new Release 2 radio, these manufacturers are faced with two options. They can discard their existing code and begin again, with the attendant risk that the lifespan of the new software is also limited by its portability and maintainability.

Or they can try and shoehorn their existing code from one processor or platform directly to another – investing additional money and time to extend the life of software that will still need to be abandoned at some point.

Manufacturers can even find their choice of hardware for a next-generation platform severely constrained by legacy software that is 10 years old.

Commercial radio protocol stack software is extremely complex. It involves both signal-in-space and software co-ordination intelligence, as well as a carefully managed

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relationship between hardware and software to ensure that the code can be upgraded and reused on new platforms as technology evolves. Radio software design therefore needs to aim to maximise software portability, upgradability and performance – whilst minimising development costs.

Completely decoupling protocol stack development and maintenance from a specific platform, operating system and user interface is key to this, as is using correct design practice and tools and procedures geared towards embedded hardware at each of the specification, design, implementation, integration and maintenance phases.

However, most radio protocol stack developments today still involve cobbling together software design techniques and tools from other fields and different vendors, rather than offering an integrated approach geared for modern radio platforms. While commercial development tools are becoming more available, radio protocol stack development has yet to become a truly specialist enterprise within the wireless industries.

“It is therefore urgent that software is designed correctly to derive maximum value from this investment and to capitalise properly on the benefits of softwarebased systems”

Adherence to standards also remains an important consideration for radio software design. Interoperability is a hot topic in communications, and digital standards are central to digital interoperability. The benefit of standards-based software is illustrated by comparing the digital Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) industries in Europe and North

Anna Squires joined Etherstack as an engineer in 1999. In recent years, Squires has led defence Software Defined Radio (SDR) development projects with the company. She is now Etherstack’s Product Development Director and is also responsible for Etherstack’s Software Defined Radio strategy.

America. The European ETSI TETRA Release 1 air interface standard is well defined, firmly enforced and widely adopted, encouraging independent handheld manufacturers to the market and driving down the cost of equipment. By contrast, in North America digital PMR radios have tended to use proprietary air interfaces only loosely based on APCO P25, the North American equivalent to TETRA, due to less stringent regulation and enforcement.

However this has encouraged standardisation of the P25 network interfaces and as a consequence, multi-vendor options in the network and even solutions for air interface interoperability via the network look set to flourish. In each case, where standards have been followed, communications flexibility has markedly improved.

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HAFSLUND: FAST FACTS • • • •

520,000 power grid customers 600,000 power sales customers 80,000 residential alarm customers 14,900 GWh distributed through the distribution net • Annual median hydropower production amounts to 2900 GWh

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After a huge leap forward in 2007, Hafslund has laid an important foundation in its objective: focusing on environmental responsibility and the profitable development of renewable energy. So what’s next? President and CEO Christian Berg explains how he plans to keep up the current momentum and outlines his strategies for the future.

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007 was a big year for Norwegian utility company Hafslund. With an increased interest in climate change and renewable energy worldwide, Hafslund has been attracting increased international attention for the company’s focus on renewable and sustainable energy, and in addition, profits reached an historic high. “2007 was a fantastic year,” smiles Christian Berg, President and CEO of the energy giant. “But it didn’t just happen. We have been working towards these goals since the group as it is today was created, around 2001.”

Hafslund was originally established in 1898, with the objective to harness hydropower; however, it wasn’t until 2001 that the group focused its activities on energy while also acquiring several alarm and security companies. Today, Hafslund has three business areas, heat and infrastructure, markets and venture, representing the different aspects of Hafslund.

“I am pleased with the financial results, and believe that it proves that our business functions have performed well, although it is worth bearing in mind that one of the big contributors to our financial results was the market-to-market value and increase in value of our shares in RSE,” says Berg. “Our financial results reflect that both our employees and customers are happy with us, as a supplier of electricity as well as a network operator with the lowest cost and the highest security of supply.”

In order to keep up the momentum, Berg will be focusing on growth combined with excellence in service. “Working with infrastructure is a long-term investment, and alongside that is our contract with society to provide a first-class service, which for the moment we are performing very well against,” he explains.

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standing of business and operations. “We seem to get the best of both worlds Although the country is a considerable oil and gas producer, Norway is – we have the skills and knowledge of the plant itself from our older employEurope’s largest hydropower producer and domestic demand for electricity is ees, and a new skill and knowledge set from our younger employees, commet almost exclusively through hydropower, with an averbining all the skills and knowledge into one project.” age annual production of around 120 terawatt hours.

Berg also points out that Hafslund is working with a vaTwo of Hafslund’s major hydropower plants are due riety of suppliers. “We are working with a Chinese supplier a major upgrade by 2011, and as a result the turbine outon one of our plants, which is a challenge for us, mainly beput will increase by an impressive 20-30 percent. For cause we are not used to working with these suppliers.

Hafslund’s annual Berg, it is important to have the right people with the right However, I believe that it is important that we accept and unhydropower skills involved. “We haven’t renewed or refurbished for the derstand that the Far East is where most new energy plants past 20 years,” he explains, “but we do have lots of project are being built so there is an extreme competence and production management experience when it comes to other areas, so skilled mindset in China. We are very much looking forward we are able to lean on each other internally, using our best to co-operating with the Chinese engineers, who will be project managers to lead the project.” coming to Norway and staying here together with our peoWhile some Hafslund employees have been working for the company for ple and working together with us to refurbish the plants.”

30-40 years, Berg is also keen to employ younger people with a better underHafslund also has some other major infrastructure projects in the pipeline.

Over the next four to five years, the company will be investing around three million Norwegian kroner in pipes and production plants in the Oslo area, in order to upgrade the distribution network. “Over the next five to seven years, we will have even more focus on investing in and upgrading the infrastructure in and around Oslo,” says Berg.

New plants are also on plan. There are two biofuel plants, one that has now been operating for six months and one that is due for completion in 2010 that will be fuelled with wood and waste.

“We are also building a large pellet plant on the west coast of Norway, making pellets to be exported to European coal-fired plants, and we expect this to be up and running in 2010,” adds Berg.

120TW/h

Challenges One of the major challenges for hydropower is overcoming the legal requirements. In Norway,

CHRISTIAN BERG’S TOP TIPS FOR SUCCESS: Fail to succeed: “You need to fail to succeed, know how to handle those failures and also how to handle success” Develop confidence in leadership: “You need to have the guts to invest and believe in new technologies” Look for new, innovative ideas: “ Find the crazy guys in the world who want to find a new solution”

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STRATEGIC PRIORITIES AND TARGET AREAS • Energy production will be increased via growth in renewable and alternative energy and heating • Status as a major regional infrastructure provider will be strengthened through further targeting of district heating • Maintain position through improved efficiency, quality, customer service and product development • Continue to be a driving force in the strategic development of the Norwegian power and security market in order to contribute to increased returns and more efficient markets • Identify and develop new investments and business opportunities • Develop ownership in Renewable Energy Corporation to ensure best possible growth for all shareholders • Continue with its new, flexible HR policy based on individual needs and work on competence development and training • Continue to develop a company culture based on core values, in order to create a developing and attractive workplace and secure its good reputation

for selling assets for the moment, although it is natural for us to look at opportunities outside Oslo.”

On the retail side of the business, Berg is concentrating on how to grow the company, both in terms of operational excellence and in order to take the company even further in its facilities and operations. Changing the meters in 550,000 homes in the greater Oslo area, which is a large project for Hafslund, will be a challenge in the period to come, admits Berg. “I also believe maintaining growth in new areas will be tough, so distributing waste handling, for example will be key. However, we are building on our waste innovations, which are looking pretty good – we’ve built one plant and are in the process of building a new one, and we are even planning a large plant in Oslo.”

Innovation two-thirds of a hydropower plant needs to be owned by the local municipality or region state, making it difficult to actually buy or build larger hydropower plants. “Despite the legal environment, it is a real possibility for us to grow the hydropower business in an organic way without ownership of more than one-third – that’s a challenge we are overcoming, by developing our own hydro-assets, building new technology, becoming more efficient and increasing capacity up to 10 percent,” says Berg. “It’s important to have an organisation on its toes in order to develop itself further.”

Looking at the distribution network side of the company, Berg is keen to highlight that Hafslund is the most reliable and efficient company in the sector. However, he admits that there are challenges in terms of distribution regulations, particularly around how to organise the network. “How much you should own yourself, how much should be done via contractors and how ownership is decided are all big issues for us,” says Berg. “But, at the moment, with a stable financial situation in Norway, we have no driver

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Berg’s ambition for Hafslund is to make everyday life safer and better, and promoting the company’s environmentally conscious focus on the profitable development of renewable energy. Berg believes that this vision is important in order to convey that the company represents a good and reliable power supply. “It’s also about wanting to take a bigger share of the responsibility for environmental and climate issues,” says Berg. “We want to be an organisation that our customers can trust and we are very conscious about our effect on the environment. We sell guaranteed green power to all our customers, and are in the midst of doubling capacity of our district heating in the Oslo area, taking away many old boilers – we have a strong commitment to developing new technologies and solutions for the energy markets as a whole.”

Hafslund is built on being innovative and inventive and Berg believes this stems from the formation of the company. “Hafslund has always been focused on staying at the forefront of innovation,” says Berg.

“It’s in the cultural roots of the company, which is a good foundation for

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Social commitment

VAMMA HYDROELECTRIC PLANT BUILT: 1915-1971 TURBINES: 11 INSTALLED CAPACITY: 215,000 kW MEDIAN ANNUAL GENERATION: 1,275 GWh FALL HEIGHT: 28.5 metres FLOW RATE: 950 cubic metres per second

a focus on innovation. You need to develop confidence in leadership and have the guts to invest and believe in new technologies, and you need to have the ability to handle failure as well as success.” Berg goes on to explain that the venture arm of the business is dedicated to looking at new ventures, innovative ideas and “finding the crazy guys in the world who want to find a new solution”.

The major success for Hafslund over the last couple of years is the investment in RSE, the global leader in solar energy, says Berg. “We invested in the company almost 10 years ago, and to be honest it was struggling until the focus on solar energy became international. Being one of the founding investors in that group has been a tremendous success. It’s all about challenging old technology viewpoints and trying to develop new ways of running water, which has been running for some 100 years through the power plants, looking at taking more power out of that water, trying new technologies and being able and willing to invest in that.”

Hafslund has also been investing in two or three automatic metering companies. Berg is keen to highlight that these metering companies offer much more than metering on its own, but rather the opportunity to use them as a communications box to inform the user how much energy they use as well as let them know how to become more energy efficient during a particular period of the day, for example.

Despite being one of the country’s most innovative companies within the energy sector, it is at Hafslund Manor, a protected cultural landmark built in 1762, that Hafslund was born. Named after the manor rather than vice versa, Hafslund has enjoyed a long, successful history at the manor and Berg hopes to continue this. “It’s great to be able to do our internal meetings in a place with so much history and culture, and a good basis for making the forward planning decisions we need to make, knowing the history that we have inherited.”

Hafslund Manor is open to the public all year round, and open for public guided tours during the summer months, and as well as this Hafslund also sponsors a humanitarian organisation, Medecins Sans Frontiers, an environmental organisation, Bellona Environmental Foundation, and Valerenga Fotball team, a Norwegian premier league football team. “Social commitment is an important part of our operational activities,” says Berg.

“We believe they are a part of our long-term value creation and believe that they inspire both trust and confidence and hope that it makes the company even more attractive to stakeholders. Of course, it also reduces some of Hafslund’s business strategies and risk forces.”

Berg goes on to explain that Hafslund is working with a number of companies when to comes to promoting the issues that the company have – how to become more energy efficient, for example. “Getting out our message to other channels is very important to us.” Belloma Environmental Foundation has been an important sponsorship for Hafslund. Belloma has always focused on alternative solutions while recognising that, for example, the world neither can nor will stop driving cars or using air travel. Instead, it focuses on influencing decision makers in relation to handling CO2. Belloma is an important advisor to Hafslund, and makes continuous suggestions for safeguarding the environment in the best possible way. “We have organised some good events with Belloma, including a conference with the Club de Madrid, drawing interesting conclusions from prominent speakers, and an environmental concert with many good artists, trying to reach out to the audience in another way than we would usually do as a utility. To be engaged with them is great for us, they continue to challenge us, and we even get them to work at our place so they can see how we’re working and thinking and we also send out our people to them to see how they work.”

“Working with infrastructure is a long-term investment” Future focus Berg is keen to focus on his long-term plan for the future, growing within the renewable energy sector and increasing investments in existing operations, including distribution networks and hydropower plants. Berg also maintains that he will continue to focus on operational skills and management, finding and retaining the right people in the group and challenging them in their thinking. Hafslund will also try to remain innovative, although of course that is always a challenge for larger utilities, says Berg. “We will continue working towards our long-term goals, which will require focus, but I am optimistic that we will be successful, as we have been so far.”

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Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farm T Højgaard has installed 54 foundations during 2007 on the Lynn and Inner Dowsing sites located on the east coast of England.

The foundations are each carrying a Siemens Wind Power 3.6 MW wind turbine.

The foundation concept is a steel monopile solution with a grouted transition piece installed on top of it, allowing for a standard flange connection to the turbine tower.

Forty-eight of the foundations were installed by driving only and six of the foundations were installed with a combination of drilling and driving. The verticality was adjusted using a pilegripper, developed by MT Højgaard.

Subsequently, the transition piece was positioned, with all accessories such as boat landing, platforms and anodes pre-assembled, and adjusted by hydraulic jacks. The connec-

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tion between the monopile and transition piece were finally grouted, using the patented MT Højgaard grout packer. Finally, internally positioned J-tubes were installed, followed by installation of the external J-tubes. The external J-tubes are spanning the scour, which is expected to develop around the pile. The foundation installation was completed in the winter of 2007.

FAST FACTS Employer: Centrica Renewable Energy Limited Contract type: Turnkey

Technical data

Duration:

Principal data: Total number of turbines: 54. Size of the wind turbine: 3.6 MW. Water depths: 6.3-11.2 m. OD for monopile: 4.74 m.

Weight of monopile: 199-266 t. OD for transition piece: 5m. Weight of transition piece incl. secondary steel: 181 t. Top level of foundation structure (LAT): +21 m. Client/Owner: Centrica Ltd.

2006-2008 Engineer: Rambøll A/S Location: England

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Wind turbine industry steps up to global demand

The wind turbine industry finds itself in a crucial transition period as it races to catch up with soaring demand, according to the latest research.

“In this high growth environment, competitive positioning among wind turbine suppliers is increasingly dependent on supply chain management,” according to Spain-based EER Research Director Keith Hays. “At the same time, to remain competitive, players across the supply chain – from bearings to blade suppliers – must rapidly scale up to meet this growing demand.”

EER anticipates the current seller’s market for wind turbines will continue in the short term while the industry builds out for a new phase of stable, global growth, stimulating the market to surpass US$55 billion by 2015. According to EER’s forecasts, global wind demand will continue to boom, going from nearly 20,000MW in 2007, to just under 50,000MW in annual installations by 2020 and requiring massive investments in turbine supply.

Larger projects The global wind turbine market has seen rapid shifts in scale and product sophistication on the back of booming global demand for wind power, according to EER. This has meant an increase in turbine and project size as mature markets look to tap lower wind speed sites, while developing markets scale up their total installed wind plant for a greater contribution to the generation mix.

The global turbine market will see increasing turbine size in mature markets that require larger rotors, balanced against steady demand in developing countries for smaller, older product models that are well-received based on cost and proven performance, according to EER. With an increase in average turbine size from just under 1MW to nearly 1.5MW in the past six years, EER anticipates global demand for multi-megawatt machines will continue to rise.

EER expects larger projects, particularly over 50MW, will increase their share in the future. Projects 100MW and larger will nearly double their contribution to global MW added through 2020 from 24 percent to over 40 percent, according to EER.

Smaller suppliers ooming global demand for wind power, which surged to nearly 20GW in annual installations during 2007, is on track to more than double within a decade led by rapid growth in the US and China.

Emerging Energy Research, a leading research and advisory firm analysing clean and renewable energy markets, expects global installed wind base to grow more than fi vefold from its 2007 total of 94GW to more than 576GW by 2020.

As a result of this booming demand, competition for wind turbine orders has moved from project-driven, national agreements to multi-year frame agreements spanning several regions.

These orders increasingly focus on supply of multi-megawatt turbines as the global wind market has made a steady shift toward 1.5MW and larger turbines, encouraging a number of new suppliers to enter, according to EER’s just-released market study, Global Wind Turbine Markets and Strategies 2008-2020.

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North American and European markets will begin to see increased competition with several players increasing US manufacturing capacity and vying for orders in this booming market, according to EER. The turbine market has seen increased fragmentation as the top six players have surrendered around 10 percent of the market to smaller players. “The bottom line is that while entrenched market leaders Vestas, GE, Gamesa, Enercon, Suzlon and Siemens have sought to build on relative strong positions in their home regions, several mid-sized and smaller players have sought to exploit this new level of demand in driving the industry to a new scale,” says Hays. “The beneficiaries have been turbine suppliers strongly established in high-growth markets, including Acciona Wind-

“To remain competitive, players across the supply chain – from bearings to blade suppliers – must rapidly scale up to meet this growing demand.”

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power and Goldwind, as well as mid-sized European players expanding globally, such as REpower, Nordex and Alstom-Ecotecnia.”

Increasing global competition between top suppliers and smaller expanding players will intensify post-2010, according to EER. As multiple experienced players challenge the dominance of GE and Vestas, price competition will heat up. With increasing demand for turbines, customers that can provide high volume, long-term, firm orders that offer strategic market share positions to turbine suppliers are likely to figure more prominently in suppliers’ order books, according to Hays. This trend will mark more sophisticated strategic account management targeting multinational utilities and IPPs, according to Hays.

Globalisation of the wind industry The wind turbine industry continues to globalise. Europe’s manufacturing pioneers have begun to penetrate rate North America and Asia. A growing presence of Asian manufacturcturers in Europe and North America will become more pronounced in the years ahead. Additionally, wind turbine sales and supply chain strategies will take on a more international dimension as shipment volumes increase, according to EER. With the globalisation of the wind indus-e try, supply chain management has become ps a key competitive driver. “The relationships ers between OEMs and their component suppliers ave have become increasingly crucial, and have hree come under increasing stress in the past three aster years as soaring demand has required faster eater ramp-up times, larger investments and greater owing agility to capture value in a rapidly growing ught to sector,” says Hays. Manufacturers have sought strike the most sustainable, competitive balance between vertical integration of component supply, heir turversus full component outsourcing to fit their bine designs.

Component suppliers will continue to play a critical role in scaling the wind industry as they take their businesses globally in step with the turbine suppliers they provide. Due to the diverse issues facing each component supplier, when deciding whether to increase production capacity or not, the wind industry has struggled to move as a unified whole, able to meet booming demand. Greater collaboration across the supply chain, spurred on by shortages but also turbine performance, is already leading to better co-ordination that will improve the industry’s ability to deliver, according to Hays.

The surge in global megawatt-capacity added observed over the past three years has served to stabilise demand for long-term, higher volume investments in adding new capacity. EER expects this surge to produce sustained growth through 2015 that will surpass US$55 billion installed annually as the wind industry moves into a new phase of more secure growth in the mainstream power mix.

NEW EWEA REPORT PREDICTS BRIGHT FUTURE In its latest report entitled Pure Power: Wind Energy Scenarios up to 2030, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) outlines the road towards large-scale wind energy.

Presenting three development scenarios for 2010, 2020 and 2030, the report examines in detail the probable impact on electricity, greenhouse gas emissions and the EU economy. It confirms the positive prospects of a technology that last year became the leader in terms of net power capacity additions in the EU. Wind power’s share of new generating capacity is forecasted to be 34 percent in the period 2005-2020 and 46 percent in the decade leading up to 2030. Wind power’s share of new capacity in Europe in the 25-year period 20052030 is 39 percent.

Wind ppower has experienced dramatic growth over the past pa few years. It currently meets 3.7 percent of the EU electricity demand and has in terms of net power capacity ranked second se additions over the last eight years. This strong development can be maintained, and further developm reinforced in the coming years, as long as the reinforc from the European Union clear commitment c and its member states continues. Swift adoption of the new EU Renewables Energy adopt Directive by the European Parliament and Direc Council is the key to the sector’s strong the C future development. futu Pure Power shows that the European Commission’s goal of increasing wind Co ppower’s share up to 12-14 percent by 22020 is within reach. “On average, wind power capacity needs to increase by 9.5GW per year over the next 13 reach 180GW and meet 12-14 percent of EU years to reac d d in i 2020.

2020 This is certainly achievable considering power demand that the EU wind energy capacity increased by 8.5GW last year,” commented Christian Kjaer, EWEA’s Chief Executive.

The wind industry target of 180GW by 2020 is equivalent to supplying the electricity needs of 107 million average EU households. Such penetration level would avoid the emission of 328Mt of CO 2 – the equivalent to taking 165 million cars off the road – contribute 44 percent of the EU greenhouse gases reduction target and avoid yearly fuel costs of €20.5 billion and CO 2 costs of €8.2 billion. It would also create hundreds of thousands jobs.

“In the current context of soaring energy demand, supply constraints, environmental degradation and climate concerns, wind power stands at the forefront in offering immediate and concrete solutions to the benefi t of all European citizens,” concluded Kjaer.

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ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

THE PANEL Tove Feld is Head of Department at DNV Wind Energy Dr Andreas Reuter is Managing Director of European Operations at Kenersys Europe GmbH Andy Poon is Director of Renewable Energy at Romax Technology Limited

EU Infrastructure speaks to a panel of experts about the current challenges and future opportunities in the wind power sector.

EUI. In your opinion, what are the main challenges currently facing the wind power sector? And how are you dealing with them?

Tove Feld. Renewable energy has rapidly become a ‘hot’ sector, with increased interest driven by the upward march of energy prices, increasing environmental awareness and energy security issues. These trends have spurred investment in renewable energy projects, particularly wind energy projects. However, this sector presents several technical, environmental and financial challenges that investors and developers need to understand thoroughly in order for their businesses to be successful. DNV offers combined expertise in appraising and evaluating the risks and opportunities projects face, and provides a vast range of services for developers, manufacturers and financiers investing in wind and ocean energy. We provide a clear overview of the risks and opportunities associated with a specific venture. Our risk management services cover the entire lifecycle of projects.

Andreas Reuter. Managing the supply chain to fuel the growth of the sector seems to be the main challenge. To sort out the supply chain, we are leveraging our forging capabilities to deal with some of the most severe bottlenecks. We also do long-term planning and are willing to commit on such a basis. A close co-operation with renowned suppliers and a design that helps to avoid these bottlenecks by using standard and proven components are additional elements of our strategy.

Adaptability to the varying environment conditions, different policy regulations, constraints in obtaining local clearances for land to build wind turbines in some developed countries and availability of windy sites to increase the project viability are other areas of concern.

Our focus on specific markets and a turbine technology that allows the widest flexibility helps us to deal with this challenge. Besides this,

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we co-operate with strong local partners to penetrate into different markets and utilise their expertise.

Andy Poon. While global commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases have generated the need for rapid growth in wind energy capacity over the next 10 years, the current generation of wind turbines suffers from high rates of gearbox and bearing malfunction. Costly turbine maintenance and losses in revenue and power generation are affecting the entire industry, from component suppliers to operators. We recognise that the wind energy industry needs to overcome this issue if it is to fulfil its huge potential.

Romax is providing innovative solutions to drivetrain issues through a combination of an expert engineering consultancy team and advanced simulation and analysis tools.

Taking a ‘whole system’ approach, we can design and develop robust gearboxes and bearings that will help ensure that wind turbines continue to be an efficient and profitable source of low-carbon energy.

EUI. It has been reported there have been problems sourcing turbine components at a fast enough rate. What is your experience of difficulties in this area and how are you tackling these difficulties?

AR. The availability of some critical components is limiting our growth.

Given the restriction of a limited volume of a couple of 100 turbines in our company, these constraints are visible for us but still relatively easy to handle. Kenersys is overcoming this challenge through a combined strategy of supporting our suppliers with the delivery of forged components through the Kalyani group, and entering into long-term supply contracts with them. The other element to deal with this constraint is some vertical integration in critical areas.

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AP. A global presence affords us excellent contacts within the component and subsystem supply chain, particularly in Asia. The potential for component manufacturers in this region is huge, given the large quantity of natural resources and heavy industry that already exists there, coupled with their willingness to invest in manufacturing. However, as Europe has discovered, the production of well-designed and manufactured components requires knowledge and expertise that is not yet inherent in Asia.

In our capacity as a technical consultancy, we are tackling this issue by providing component manufacturers with the knowledge and experience they need to supply quality components to the global wind energy market.

Romax is transferring technology to suppliers, advancing their capabilities and satisfying the ever-growing demand from the wind energy industry. This work also puts us in a unique position to be able to introduce European turbine manufacturers to quality Asian suppliers.

“Costly turbine maintenance and losses in revenue and power generation are affecting the entire industry, from component suppliers to operators” - Andy Poon

TF. Due to the impressive technological pace of the industry, new technologies are designed and type-tested within short development cycles. In order for wind turbine manufacturers to demonstrate confidence in their new wind turbine designs to their customers, wind turbine type certification is seen as a must. We have a long track record with type certification. Since the early days of the modern wind turbine industry in the 1980s, the independent certification we provide has played an important role in minimising the number of design errors and creating confidence in the industry between manufacturers, developers, owners, finance and insurance companies, and regulatory authorities.

Lately we see an increased focus on quality throughout all work processes.

TF. The DNV vision is to make a global impact for a safe and sustainable future. By understanding risk and working hard to improve safety and environmental performance, we have taken a step in the right direction.

We orchestrate these services by drawing upon specialist knowledge and experience from our teams of engineers and surveyors from around the globe.

DNV can provide risk assessments and independent verification for virtually all aspects of a wind energy project. Throughout the project lifecycle, significant investments are made in wind energy projects.

Providing sound technical guidance and independent advice minimises project risks and promotes successful outcomes.

AR. Experienced staff with a long track record in the industry the highest internal and stringent quality and safety standards, conducting training programmes (on-site and off-site) at regular intervals to create awareness among staff, proven technical concepts and the use of relevant tools as FMEA and DFR get us there.

“Good environmental performance is increasingly viewed as a business imperative. This trend is evident across the energy sector and it is spurring development” - Tove Field

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EUI. Safety is a key element in the production of wind turbines. How do you make sure that your solution is as safe as possible from project development through to construction and maintenance?

AP. As an advanced simulation tool, RomaxWIND software plays an important role in ensuring wind turbines are fit for purpose and safe. It enables engineers to study all influences across mechanical systems and provides a realistic environment in which to design, develop and test turbine drivetrains. RomaxWIND reflects how a component or system will behave in reality, leading to a greater understanding of turbine behaviour and the ability to accurately predict turbine safety.

The China Classification Society (CCS) established China’s first certification system for wind turbines and has been working with Romax in the development of technical standards. CCS showed interest in our software’s ability to accurately predict the behaviour of the mechanical drivetrain and they now use Romax software to ensure Chinese turbine designs adhere to necessary safety standards.

EUI. Wind power is often described as intermittent as the wind does not blow continuously.

How do you account for the variability of the wind and how does your solution ensure maximum efficiency?

TF. Good environmental performance is increasingly viewed as a business imperative.

This trend is evident across the energy sector and it is spurring the development of the renewable energy sector. Energy production

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WIND INDUSTRY TARGETS FOR THE EU27 IN 2020 • 180GW installed capacity, including 35GW offshore • Annual installations of 16.8GW, including 6.8GW offshore • Electricity production of 477TWh, including 133 TWh offshore • Meeting between 11.6 percent and 14.3 percent of total EU electricity demand • 18.1 percent of total installed electricity generating capacity in the EU • 32 percent of total new electricity generating capacity installed (2011-2020)

EUI. Technology is developing fast and manufacturing is becoming cheaper. What are your thoughts on the future of wind energy? Are there any particular technologies that you are excited about?

AR. Yes, we are quite excited about the conventional wind turbine, which has undergone many innovations since its birth.

• Providing power equivalent to the needs of 107 million (49 percent) average EU households • Avoiding 328 Mt of CO 2 – equivalent to taking 165 million cars off the road • Total wind power investments of €120 billion (2011-2020) Source: EWEA

through the use of renewable resources is continually increasing due to the rising oil prices and the public focus on cleaner energy. Wind technologies are evolving at a rapid pace and investors are now open to the idea of farming the wind and waves for our future.

DNV is helping these companies contribute to a cleaner environment through a range of services. From business case development, to assessment of environmental impact and clean development mechanisms; DNV is guiding the way for stakeholders to develop a deeper insight into reliability, safety and the technical and environmental risks involved before these business ideas turn into business reality.

AP. Romax is excited about developments in condition monitoring and control systems as they have the potential to greatly impact the reliability and maintenance of wind turbines. The right system could aid more efficient energy production, increase turbine availability and reduce unscheduled maintenance – the ultimate aim of the industry. We hope that our R&D work with other important companies will play a part in driving forward the successful application of this new technology.

The future of the wind energy will, in part, be shaped by the energy policies of governments. As leading nations strive to produce energy through more environmentally friendly means, wind energy is becoming a crucial element of our energy mix. This in turn will see further growth in the industry and drive technological advances in turbine design. The effectiveness of that technology, however, is down in part to companies such as Romax who are striving to develop a new generation of wind turbines that will ensure the world’s clean energy needs are met.

AR. Regarding turbine efficiency next to the specific design features of our turbines, we are planning the preventive maintenance effectively during the lean wind season so as to maximise the uptime. Through our SCADA system we offer the possibility to run the turbines as power plants. Together with partners, we are developing integrated concepts combining wind, solar and biomass to offer solutions that provide economic solutions with the required level of availability.

AP. The drivetrain of a wind turbine is constantly influenced by a variety of dynamic loadings and the mechanical drivetrain suffers the full effects of these variable forces. We offer an integrated environment for the design of drivetrain components that takes into account these variable factors and in-turn, makes our gearbox and bearing designs significantly more effective at dealing with the real conditions in which turbines operate. In addition, we are looking at ways to increase energy capture from the wind by reducing gearbox warm-up time after idling periods. Considering all these influencing factors early in the design process not only saves time and money, but leads to reliable and efficient design.

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“We are developing integrated concepts combining wind, solar and biomass to offer solutions that provide economic solutions with the required level of availability” - Dr Andreas Reuter

TF. DNV Energy believes that the future energy supplied will consist of a mix of energy sources – with increased focus on the renewable energy sector. Wind energy is already competitive and the most cost-effective of all renewables and we expect that new technologies will bring new solutions to the wind industry. Other renewables are foreseen to be more competitive in the future – and undergo an evolution similar to wind.

The move of wind energy offshore, where the winds are stronger and the turbines less likely to interfere with the surrounding landscape, involves unique technical considerations during the project’s development. The complexity of offshore wind farm projects is large and amplified by multiple key stakeholders such as designers, manufacturers, developers, investors and regulatory bodies, each inevitably focusing on their own areas of interest during project development. There is a general awareness amongst industry stakeholders that moving wind farms offshore represents a ‘game change’. Being offshore, the consequences of mistakes and failures becomes larger – hence managing risk becomes imperative for investors and developers.

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EU Infrastructure speaks to Fulvio Conti, CEO of Enel, one of the largest utility companies in Europe, about the new sustainable energy projects the company is embracing. nel is Italy’s largest power company and Europe’s second listed utility by installed capacity, producing, distributing and selling electricity and gas across Europe, North and Latin America to more than 50 million power and gas customers.

In 2007, Enel posted impressive revenues of €43.7 billion and CEO Fulvio Conti is keen to continue the good work.

“2007 has been a transformational year for Enel,” he beams, “particularly with the acquisition of Endesa, as well as the Russian assets. In the next five years Enel will mainly focus on three priorities: consolidating and integrating the new group; delivering growth from this new platform; and maintaining a stable and secure financial position.”

Having completed the sale of non-strategic assets, Enel is actively engaged in international expansion on the power and gas market. Enel is currently the second-largest Italian operator in the natural gas market, operating a wide range of hydroelectric, thermoelectric, nuclear, geothermal, windpower and photovoltaic power stations.

Enel is also launching a new strategic objective: to reinforce commitment to protecting the environment. In order to do this, the company is launching a huge investment project for the research, innovation and development of renewable resources. This also covers communication and information on the environment, since the company believes that it is possible to produce energy with contained costs, respecting the environment and helping to reduce the risks of climate change.

Over the next five years, Conti will be investing €7.4 billion as part of Enel’s Environment Project in the development of renewable energy sources and for research and development into new environmentally friendly technologies.

Of this figure, €6.8 billion is dedicated to develop renewables, while €600 million is for R&D projects such as high efficiency solar-power, off-shore wind facilities, hydrogen applications and CO2 capture and storage.

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ENVIRONMENT & INNOVATION PROJECTS

Off-shore wind farm One project in the pipeline will be the first off-shore wind farm in the Mediterranean. At the end of 2007, Enel’s installed wind capacity in Italy had risen to 325MW. The target set out in the 2008-2012 business plan is to increase this figure five-

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RENEWABLE ENERGY Enel is one of the largest independent operators of renewable energy in the world. Capacity includes: North America: Enel has 470MW of hydroelectric, wind and biomass power generation and has just signed an agreement with the company TradeWind energy to develop 1000MW of new wind power. In March 2007, Enel, through its subsidiary Enel North America, announced the acquisition of AMP Resources. The acquisition includes one operating and four advanced stage geothermal development projects expected to add approximately 150MW of capacity over the next four years to Enel’s North American operations, as well as access to a number of future opportunities.

Latin America: Enel operates 660MW of hydroelectric and wind power plants. Enel Latin America also runs operations in the geothermal field.

France: Enel has acquired Erelis, a company that has authorisations in several different fields to build wind plants of up to 500MW. Moreover, it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with EDF to acquire 12.5 percent of the new nuclear power project European Pressurised Reactor (EPR). Enel owns five percent of the French power stock exchange Powernext and is one of the main operators in energy trading in the country with 1000MW exchanged in 2006.

Bulgaria: Enel acquired control of one of the country’s largest power plants, Maritza East III, in March 2003. The lignite-fired facility has a capacity of 840MW. Slovakia: In February 2005, Enel acquired 66 percent of Slovenské elektrárne (SE), the largest electricity generator in the country and the second-largest in Central and Eastern Europe, with a generation capacity of 6000MW: a mix of nuclear, thermal and hydro assets.

Romania: In April 2005, it acquired 51 percent of two electricity distribution companies: Enel Distributie Banat and Enel Distributie Dobrogea, which supply 1.4 million customers. Further to the acquisition of Electrica Muntenia Sud, the electricity distribution company operating in the Bucarest area, finalised on 5 June 2008, Enel doubled its presence in Romania, reaching around 2.5 million customers.

mix and to the security of supply, to reducing emissions and to enhancing the competitiveness of Italy’s electricity system, in line with the European energy policy.”

The refurbished plant will meet 50 percent of electricity demand in Lazio, equal to about four percent of domestic consumption. Thanks to the use of the most advanced technologies available the plant, which will be fully operational in 2009, will be the most efficient in its class and will significantly reduce environmental impact. Compared with the previous oil-fired plant, all emissions will be greatly reduced – nitrogen oxides by 61 percent and particulates and sulphur dioxide by 88 percent – and through this, emissions will be 50 percent below the stringent levels set by European Union health and environmental legislation.

The plant, with a total capacity of 1980MW, is composed of three units, one fewer than the old plant. This capacity reduction will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 18 percent.

Moreover, Enel is working on developing CO2 capture and sequestration through a number of cutting-edge projects. The goal of these projects, which are considered by the European Commission to be among the most interesting ones in this area, is ‘zero-emission’ fossil fuel power generation. Through CO2 capture and sequestration technologies, flue gas will be captured at the chimney and stored safely, in deep aquifers or in exhausted methane or oil fields.

Photovoltaic power fold, to reach about 1500MW of wind power generated in Italy by 2012. Italy’s first off-shore facility will see the installation of 115 large generators with a capacity of between three and five megawatts in the Gulf of Gela, at least three nautical miles off-shore, between the towns of Licara, Butera and Gela.

The project, a joint venture between Enel and Moncada Costruzioni, will have a total installed capacity of between 345 – 575MW at an investment of around €500 million. The towers, which will be equipped with rotors with a diameter of about 110 metres, will be more than 100 metres tall and anchored to the sea bed in waters up to 30 metres deep. Once fully operational, the new wind farm will generate 1150 million KWh of power, enough electricity to meet the needs of 390,000 households, avoiding CO2 emissions of 815,000 metric tons per year.

“This innovative project will double Enel’s installed capacity in the wind sector in Italy,” says Conti. “It is an example of virtuous co-operation among companies, local institutions and environmental associations.

Enel’s commitment to renewable sources is significant and it is experiencing a continuous and solid growth. Today, Enel’s emissionsfree generation already represents about 30 percent of the total. We believe in wind power and we want to play a leading role in developing this energy source in Italy as well.”

Clean coal power plant Enel is also involved in clean coal plants. In July of this year, the first of three units at Enel’s Civitavecchia power plant were unveiled. “The Torrevaldaliga Nord power plant makes a major contribution to diversifying the national energy

In May 2008, Enel signed a strategic partnership in the photovoltaic sector with Sharp.

The two partners will assess the construction of a plant in Italy to manufacture panels using Sharp’s triple-junction, thin-film technology.

The output of the plant, whose size and structure is currently being assessed by the two companies, will mainly go towards meeting the rising demand for photovoltaic panels in Italy, South Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean basin.

Sharp and Enel.si, the sector-leading Enel Group company, will develop photovoltaic fields with a total capacity of 161MW by the end of 2011. Once fully in service, the plants will generate more than 220GWh of electricity per year, enough to meet the needs of 81,500 households and to avoid some 110,000 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

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CHEMICALS FOCUS

Reaching for success EU Infrastructure takes a look at new chemicals legislation, with Geert Dancet, Executive Director of the European Chemicals Agency.

he EU’s new chemical legislation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) entered into force on 1 June 2007. It covers all substances, manufactured or imported into the EU, in quantities of one tonne or more per year. The legislation requires manufacturers and importers of chemical substances to register information on the physicochemical, health and environmental properties of their substances and uses it to determine how they can be used safely.

Geert Dancet The active debate during the legislative process clearly indicated that various stakeholders felt that the EU required a new chemicals policy. This process also allowed everybody to participate and influence the final regulation. As an outcome the new legislation is balanced and realistic in the spirit of the Commission Better Regulation initiative. Therefore, REACH is not only important in what it must achieve, but also in how it was drafted and how the stakeholders participated in the preparatory work.

On 1 June 2008, companies started to submit data to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in a pre-register stage, which will last until 1 December 2008. Companies who pre-register their phase-in substances will benefit from extended registration deadlines; however, a company that fails to pre-register a phase-in substance may neither import nor manufacture it after that date until it has fully registered the substance with the ECHA. Low-risk substances such as water, oxygen, noble gases and cellulose pulp are excluded from

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registration. Other substances naturally occurring in nature such as minerals, ores and ore concentrates, and cement clinker do not need to be registered as long as they are not chemically modified.

“The ECHA is aiming to co-ordinate its work on risk assessment and risk management of chemicals with various EU bodies in the field of worker and consumer legislation, environmental and health issues, animal welfare legislation, research and development co-operation,” says Geert Dancet, Executive Director of the European Chemicals Agency.

Implementation Co-operation and communication with all stakeholders – including chemical and other industries – is important for the ECHA. In many cases it is also provided in the REACH regulation.

Chemical manufacturers and importers can be seen as the major clients of the ECHA. They will have to pay for the different REACH procedures and in return they have the right to expect to get their dossiers processed efficiently and correctly.

The ECHA has to be also able to develop tools and guidance that make REACH as workable for the companies – big and small – as possible. Therefore, dialogue with industry in the context of the preparing and updating of guidance is essential.

“Transparency is one of the guiding principles of ECHA and we want to promote it by various means,’ explains Dancet. “Importantly, we launched this spring the first call for expression of interest for stakeholders to participate as observers in ECHA’s work.” Around 60 industry and interest groups (trade unions, environmental NGOs)

JUNE 2008

DEC 2008

JUNE 2009

Registration of non-phase-in substances start

Pre-registration ends

Candidate list of very high concern

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have observer seats on the ECHA Management Board. In the future, mutagens and substances toxic to reproduction (CMR category 1 and stakeholders may also have access to follow committee meetings as 2) equal to or greater than one tonne/year; and substances classified observers. Presentation in conferences and seminars and an inforas very toxic to aquatic organisms (R50/53) at and above 100 tonnes/ mal exchange of views with stakeholders is also part of the ECHA’s year. On 1 June 2013, all substances produced or imported in quantities workload. “Public consultations have enabled interested parties to equal to or greater than 100 tonnes/year will need to be registered as participate in the work of the ECHA and to express their opinions. The substances produced or imported in quantities equal to or greater than consultations take place on the ECHA website,” adds Dancet. one tonne/year by 1 June 2018. Manufacturers and importers not having Enterprises have access to a lot of inforregistered substances in time according mation on REACH at the ECHA website – for to the appropriate volume levels will FAST FACTS example, technical guidance documents, no longer be able to manufacture in or FAQ documents, several submission manuimport that substance to the EU market.

• 30,000 chemicals will have to be als as well as IUCLID user manuals. FollowNon-phase-in substances need to registered over 11 years ing the approach that it is more effective to be registered before they are manufac“teach hungry people how to fish, rather tured or imported. Their registration than to serve them the fish on a plate”, the will start on 1 June 2008. Substances in • It is estimated that the cost to the ECHA Helpdesk is helping the industry in articles, that are on the candidate list industry will be between €2.8- 5.2 billion finding their own answers on their particuof substances of very high concern, will need to be reported to the European lar REACH obligations by “teaching fishing • Savings of €54 billion over 30 years Chemicals Agency from 1 June 2011. in the existing pool of information”.

Timeline

are expected as fewer people fall ill from exposure to chemicals

Challenges

From 1 June 2008 to 1 December 2008, “The major goal set for ECHA was to • The EU’s chemical industry produces the pre-registration of so-called phase-in make it ready for the entry into operation 31 percent of the world’s chemicals substances will take place. Companies are of REACH on 1st June 2008, and we were strongly encouraged to pre-register their successful in reaching this objective,” phase-in substances to benefit from stagsays Dancet. “On 1 June the main provi• The industry employs 1.7 million people gered registration timelines. Pre-registration sions of REACH entered into operation, requires companies to send only limited inand the companies were able to begin to formation to the agency. submit their pre-registrations, enquiries, registrations and notifications Pre-registration will allow companies to get in touch with other comand thus fulfill their legal obligations.” panies who are intending to register the same substance and gives them In the second half of 2008, the main focus will be on successful presufficient time to set-up Substance Information Exchange Forums (SIEF). registration and registration management, including completion of the In a SIEF, companies are obliged to share animal testing studies to keep IT tools. The recruitment will continue on a high level. About 180,000 the number of animals used for testing to an absolute minimum. They pre-registration files are expected to be received before December. At may also share other data voluntarily. the same time, from 1 June 2008, companies started sending notificaBy 1 December 2010, the following will have to be registered with tions, enquiries and registrations. By end of the year over 2000 research the European Chemicals Agency: all substances produced or imported and development related notifications, enquires on substances and in quantities equal to or greater than 1000 tonnes/year; carcinogens, registrations may arrive in total.

DEC 2010 Registration of phase in substances >1000t or classified as R50-53 > 1000t, CRMs 1 and 2 > 1t. Notification of phase-in substances in products starts

JUNE 2013

JUNE 2018

Registration of phase-in substances > 100t

Registration of phase-in substances > 1t

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“An effective co-operation between ECHA, other EU institutions, the member states, other institutional partners and involved stakeholders is vital for the success of REACH,” stresses Dancet. “But we are confident that together we will manage the tasks and achieve its objectives: high level of protection of citizens and the environment, creation of a safe management of chemicals and a shift in testing methods.”

The next big challenge is 2010. ECHA will have the first registration deadline for the high volume substances and the very hazardous ones. By that date, all the companies need to present all the inventory documentation for the classification and labelling of any dangerous substances.

Advantages

ECHA MISSION The mission of the European Chemicals Agency is to: • Manage and carry out technical, scientific and administrative aspects of REACH • Ensure consistency at community-level in relation to these aspects • Provide the member states and the institutions of the community with the best possible scientific and technical advice on questions relating to chemicals that fall under REACH • Manage IT-based guidance documents, tools and databases • Support national helpdesks and run a helpdesk for registrants • Make information on chemicals publicly accessible

The main benefit of REACH is that the hazards and risks of chemicals will be more systematically identified. This will allow for more effective risk management measures by industry and more speedy regulatory action by the public authorities where required. This should contribute to the prevention of health problems caused by exposure to chemicals, leading to a lower occurrence of diseases and preventable deaths, and, with that, lower costs for the national health systems. The benefits will come gradually as more and more substances are phased into REACH and the necessary risk reduction measures are taken on the basis of the data gathered. This should also benefit consumers who will have access to more information on the hazards and risks of chemicals.

“As with any major project such as REACH, teething problems are unavoidable but such problems will be overcome and we can expect to see real progress as more substances are phased-in” The European chemicals industry will benefit from a single EU regulatory system, a decision-making system with clear deadlines, and more consumer confidence in their products. A positive impact on innovation is also expected, as industry will have incentives to develop safer substances and technologies. REACH will also intensify the communication within industrial supply chains, allowing closer relationships between suppliers and customers. Suppliers will better understand the needs of their customers. Downstream users of chemicals will get relevant information on the safe use of the chemical substances they use in their production processes, which will help them to ensure better protection of their workers.

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“As with any major project such as REACH, teething problems are unavoidable, particularly as we enter into the operational part of the system from 1 June 2008. But such problems will be overcome and we can expect to see real progress as more substances are phased-in to the system.”

And it’s not just Europe that has the potential to benefit from the REACH regulation. “Already now we can say that REACH has set a vast process in motion. In Europe and other parts of the world, manufacturers, importers, downstream users are getting ready for the European standard on chemicals safety,” explains Dancet. “Countries outside the European Union take keen interest in the REACH legislation, its obligations and in our experiences. There is great potential to export our standard to the rest of the world thanks to the tools we have developed.”

Future The benefits of REACH to consumers will rise from improved information on chemicals during their entire lifecycle and the more detailed assessments carried out by companies on dangerous chemicals, leading to better safety instructions for users and, ultimately, for consumers. Some uses will also be restricted or banned for safety reasons. The consumer will also have access to more information on the properties of chemicals (e.g. the public information on the agency website). Consumers will be better informed, less exposed to and better protected from dangerous chemicals. In addition, REACH introduces a duty to communicate information on substances in articles, especially with regard to very toxic chemicals. The use of that category of chemicals will also be subject to the authorisation procedure, leading ultimately to much more limited risks for consumers or complete substitution of the chemical.

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IN FOCUS

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New wind technology prototype A father with a dream to design a wind turbine that could be made using scrap materials has been beaten to it by his son.

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ax Robson, a product design student at the University of Portsmouth, has designed a wind turbine made from 100 percent recycled materials and easily built by unskilled workers in less than a day, anywhere in the world. The 22-year-old has never set foot in a developing country but he now hopes to change that. He wants to take his idea to aid organisations in the Third World to develop it further, as well as see first-hand conditions in some of the world’s poorest countries.

“This isn’t going to change lives in the developing world dramatically, but a device like this could make their lives a lot easier” Robson’s design converts kinetic energy in wind into electrical energy stored in a battery and has been designed it so it could be made from a wide variety of scrap found locally. “My dad wanted to do something like this but I beat him to it,” he says. “He had the idea of designing a scrap wind turbine but it was my idea to use it in the developing world. I wanted to design and build something worthwhile and I am also interested making environmentally friendly design.”

Robson has designed the wind turbine to be affordable, sustainable and help those in the poorest parts of the world. His prototype was built using scrap found on roadsides and in front gardens. Robson has just been awarded a first class honours degree in product design and modern materials from the Department of Mechanical and Design Engineering.

His father had once mentioned he would like to come up with a sustainable and cheap

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GLOBAL WIND POWER CAPACITY REACHES 100,000 MEGAWATTS In 2007, wind power capacity increased by a record-breaking 20,000 megawatts, bringing the world total to 94,100 megawatts – enough to satisfy the residential electricity needs of 150 million. In March 2008, global installed wind power capacity topped 100,000 megawatts. Driven by concerns regarding climate change and energy security, one in every three countries now generates a portion of its electricity from wind, with 13 countries each exceeding 1000 megawatts.

Germany is still the frontrunner in total installed wind power capacity, with 22,200 megawatts, but in 2007 it lagged behind the US, Spain, China and India in terms of new capacity added.

form of energy production but Robson took the seed of the idea further and developed a product for his final project. “I’m interested in everything from nanotechnology to traditional technologies and the course has equipped me to use both old and new. The wind turbine I have designed is 1.8 metres wide so it isn’t too much of a burden on the surrounding environment,” he explains.

“The prototype generates 11.3 watts and charges a battery, which when fully charged

could run lighting for 63 hours or a radio for about 30 hours.

“This isn’t going to change lives in the developing world dramatically but a device like this could make their lives a lot easier. It cost me UK£20 to build the prototype and in the developing world it would be a lot less. The nearest alternative wind turbine on the market costs UK£2000.”

Book Review Ed P140:aug08

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Better ways to live From transport to waste management via climate change and sustainability, EU Infrastructure reviews the best of this quarter’s business book releases.

Hot, Flat and Crowded Why the World Needs a Green Revolution, by Thomas L. Friedman Thomas Friedman’s bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see globalisation in a new way.

Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilising climate change and rising competition for energy – both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. Friedman proposes that an ambitious strategy (which he calls Geo-Greenism) is not only what we need to save the planet from overheating; it is what we need to make us all healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive and more secure.

EU Infrastructure says: Hot, Flat and Crowded is classic Friedman – fearless, incisive, forward-looking and rich in surprising common sense about the world we live in today. Friedman assesses the state of the world environment and states what we should be doing to stop it getting worse.

Traffic Why We Drive the Way We Do, by Tom Vanderbilt Why does the other lane always seem to be moving faster? Why are people so different inside their cars than they are outside them? Is traffic a microcosm of society, or does the road make its own rules? Traffic speaks volumes: it brings together people from every walk of life and, in this hugely enjoyable, curiosity-filled book, Tom Vanderbilt explains why traffic problems are really people problems. Traffic shows that how we behave walking the streets, on our bikes and in our cars is actually an astonishing cultural indicator and a living, constantly surprising model of what physicists call ‘emergent collective behaviour’.

EU Infrastructure says: Vanderbilt chauffeurs us through why it’s so hard to pay attention in traffic, which bumper stickers can get you in trouble with the police, what factors make us more likely to honk our horns and a host of other eye-opening highway conundrums.

The Big Necessity Adventures in the World of Human Waste, by Rose George Produced behind closed doors, disposed of discreetly, hidden by euphemism, human waste is rarely out in the open in ‘civilised’ society, but the world of waste is a rich one. This book takes the reader underground to the sewers of Paris and London, and overground to meet the heroes of India’s sanitation movement, the R&D lab-rats at the cutting edge of toilet technology and the owner of the world’s largest toilet paper collection. With a journalist’s nose for a story and a campaigner’s desire for change, Rose George also addresses the politics of this under-reported social and environmental effluent, and the devastating humanitarian consequences of our reluctance to talk about it.

EU Infrastructure says: George provides an eye-opening tour through the world of sewage – the single biggest cause of death worldwide, and our last remaining taboo. Witty, serious and original, The Big Necessity proves that shit doesn’t have to be – and shouldn’t be – a dirty word.

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FACE OFF:23 APR07

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THE BIG DEBATE London’s Olympic Stadium

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Now that the Beijing Games are over, attention turns to 2012. But have the architects of the London stadium captured the public imagination with their design?

YES REBECCA GOOZEE

NO BEN THOMPSON

I

y problem with the plans is threefold. First of all: the design itself. When London won the bid, it was based around an exciting centrepiece that seemed to spring forth from the landscape like some vital, breathing life form; the stadium was wrapped in a muscle-like roof structure that gave it an organic appearance and made it genuinely feel like the vibrant, beating heart of the Olympic project. And yet this visionary blueprint has now been cast aside and replaced with a design that looks like a piece of flatpack furniture. Hardly the inspirational setting we were all promised in the euphoria that swept London to victory in the bidding process.

Secondly, I have a problem with the cost. A minimum of UK£496 million for what will ultimately be a 25,000-capacity arena? That’s just crazy. Arsenal Football Club recently built a state-of-the-art, 60,000seater arena for a fraction of that cost; the new 90,000-capacity Wembley was completed only a few years back and has been hailed a masterpiece of stadium design. If the planners were really committed to sustainability, they would have found a way to better synchronise the Olympic vision with one of these fantastic facilities. I acknowledge the need for a dedicated athletics arena, but not at that cost. Wasting public money is not my idea of responsible development.

Most of all, however, I see it as a wasted opportunity. The Chinese authorities used the world’s biggest sporting event as a chance to showcase the country’s ability to deliver jaw-dropping architecture projects on-time whilst single-mindedly communicating a clear vision. Already, the London project feels like the offspring of muddled thinking and poor public planning.

t is a great design – functional, beautiful and sustainable. After the architectural excesses of the Beijing Games, the simple bowllike structure provides a welcome dose of restraint and sophistication and could be the perfect antidote to the showy Bird’s Nest.

Classic design comes from functionality, not aesthetics.

The idea behind the new stadium is sustainability, particularly focusing on the use of the stadium after the Games. The current designs focus on functionality and flexibility, and idea of a ‘detachable’ stadium is brilliant – already, the Chicago 2016 bid has expressed an interest in reusing elements of the London build in their design and are making sustainability a key theme of their designs. And while critics are quick to point the finger at lazy and uninspiring architecture, they are missing the point. It’s an imaginative and innovative concept that is completely original and takes the Olympic vision to a new level – from London onwards, every bid will need to consider the re-usable aspects of their plans.

There is no need for another 90,000-seat stadium. We’ve already got Wembley and numerous other high-capacity arenas for big, one-off events. But we do require an athletics venue, which is exactly what the new stadium will provide, as well as a home for other sporting, community and educational events. There is no need for an 80,000-seat athletics venue; 25,000 will do just fine thanks.

No athlete wants to compete in an arena at 20 percent capacity, and no contractor wants to run a venue that isn’t being used – do we want a repeat performance of the Millennium Dome? So let’s embrace new ideas, embrace sustainability, and look forward to a lasting sporting legacy for the athletes of tomorrow.

M

What do you think? Email us with your views – we’d love to hear your feedback.

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FINAL WORD

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Investments in sustainable travel Eskil Sellgren, Deputy Managing Director at WSP, looks at the importance of the European railway system to the sustainable travel industry.

he European railway business is undergoing fundamental structural change. After a century of national monopolies, the market has opened up for international competition. Former national railway administrations are split into traffic operators, infrastructure managers, maintenance companies, regulators etc. A major driving force is the European Union, using a combination of legislation and funding.

The railway market in Europe continues to be strong. The driving forces are often political, with the objective to reduce pollution and traffic congestion or risk changes in the climate. The railway is one of the most important means for a sustainable transport system. The ongoing enlargement of the European Union requires integration of the new member states in many areas, transport infrastructure being one of the most important. Substantial grants and funds from the EU budget are directed towards railway projects, and investments are mainly focused on railway corridors that will make up a modern European transport network. Among the new member states, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic have the most advanced plans for their railways and the best chance of projects being realised. Romania and Bulgaria also look promising since their networks are currently in a very bad state and therefore will be a high priority. The railway is a very efficient and environmentally friendly way of transporting people and freight, which means that railways are the future transport system.

The EU has declared railways to be one of the most important means for a sustainable transport system in the common market. The decline in railway freight in Western Europe over several decades has now stopped and the market share of railway transport has stabilised and is growing in some segments. Railway passen-

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ger transport is currently competing successfully with road and air on medium distances with modern, comfortable, high-speed trains. Around major congested cities commuter trains are increasing their market share. The main reasons to develop more ‘sustainable transport’ systems are that sustainability is in many cases more economic (the railways are less energy consuming than other transport systems) and that the users require it.

The railways in many of the new member states in the EU are generally in very bad condi-

“The railway is a very efficient and environmentally friendly way of transporting people and freight, which means that railways are the future transport system”

tion and in urgent need of modernisation.

Substantial parts of the available EU cohesion and structural funds will be allocated to these countries. Investment continues to be directed chiefly towards upgrading the international transit corridors. The major part of investment in these countries will be maintaining and improving the existing networks, but there will also be a need for investment in new railway lines in these and other countries in Europe depending on the development of new regions.

Due to considerable investment over the last decade, there are many companies operating on the European railway market in technical consulting services. The market expansion is also based on the outsourcing and divestment of services from national railway administrations. This has created strong players in several countries, which are looking to the international market more and more.

WSP is one of these – hopefully one of the main players on the European rail market during the coming decades. WSP has a lot of experience in planning, design and maintenance management in the rail sector. In its 30-year history, WSP has been the lead engineering consultant on many landmark projects. We are large for a simple reason: it enables us to offer clients several advantages. Large scale means we have experts in many diverse disciplines and we can therefore offer services to cover every phase of a project, from early pre-studies, enquiries and planning through to design, construction and management. In one organisation, we have engineers, landscape architects, planning architects, surveyors, geologists, urban planners and experts in many other disciplines. We can form teams of people who have already successfully worked together many times before and achieved superb results. This saves time and money – efficiencies we pass on to clients enabling them to achieve more for less.

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