Brenner Base Tunnel

Italferr is entrusted with the engineering services for railway equipping

BBT SE, Brenner Base Tunnel, has entrusted Italferr, leader of the Joint Venture formed together with the international companies ILF Consulting Engineers, Systra-SWS and EUT Engineering, with the engineering services for railway equipping for the Brenner Base Tunnel infrastructure project.

The contract, worth approximately EUR 26.5 million, was signed on 23 May 2024 in Bolzano and will run for 36 months.

Railway equipping includes all technical structures and systems for future railway operation. Once the civil engineering works have been completed, the work will then proceed with the superstructure, installation of electrical traction systems, contact line, medium and low voltage power supply and distribution, signalling, telecommunications, access control and monitoring, as well as tunnel safety systems (ventilation, pressurisation and fire-fighting).

Italferr, the engineering company of the FS Group's Infrastructure Hub, in cooperation with its partners ILF, Systra-SWS and EUT, will revise and update the Final Project approved in 2008, aligning it with the regulations and state-of-the-art and the adjustments made. The company will also assist BBT SE in the tendering procedures for the executive design and the execution of the works, according to the Italian and Austrian procurement codes.

The biggest challenge in the design of these railway equipping facilities lies in the cross-border dimension of the project, along with its high technical complexity and the need to comply with the technical standards of both the Italian and Austrian railway networks, which are already very high today, within the framework of the European regulations on interoperability.

The Brenner Base Tunnel System has a total length of 64 km and is a complex project comprising 2 single-track tunnels with bypasses every 333 m and shafts every 2000 m, 1 service tunnel (former exploratory shaft), 2 interconnecting tunnels at Innsbruck, 2 interconnecting tunnels at Fortezza, 4 access windows to the main bores.

Once the railway line tunnels and the associated railway equipping phase are finished, the Brenner Base Tunnel will be considered completed and ready for railway service.