| Location of the tunnel and the new stations | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Line | Oresund Railway |
| Location | Malmö, Sweden |
| Status | Completed |
| System | Swedish railways |
| Start | Malmö C |
| End | Hyllie |
| No. of stations | 3 |
| Operation | |
| Opened | December 4, 2010 |
| Owner | Trafikverket |
| Character | Passenger trains |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 17 km |
| Track length | 28 km |
| No. of tracks | Double |
| Gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) |
| Electrified | 15 kV 16⅔ Hz AC |
The City Tunnel (Swedish: Citytunneln) is a 17-kilometre rail link in Malmö, Sweden, running between Malmö Central Station (Malmö C) and the Öresund Line (Öresund Bridge). The tunnel portion of the project extends for a length of six kilometres under the city centre. The purpose of the project was mainly to increase capacity on the Scanian network by changing Malmö Central from a terminus to a through station. The work is projected to cost 9.45 billion SEK. The line, under construction since March 2005, was inaugurated by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden on December 4, 2010, and revenue service commenced on December 12, 2010.
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Planning for a railway connection through Malmö connecting to the proposed Öresund bridge began in 1991. The task of investigating technology and cost of the various options was eventually assigned to Svedab AB (Svensk-Danska Broförbindelsen)[1]. In 1995, the City Tunnel Consortium was formed, starting the design of the so-called tunnel solution. The main purpose of the tunnel was to transform Malmö Central Station from a terminal into a through station by building new underground platforms (enabling more rail traffic in the Skåne region and across the bridge to Denmark), to create more stations in Malmö, relieve the Continental Line from passenger traffic, expand the catchment area of cross Öresund traffic and improve connections between destinations south of Malmö and the Öresund trains. Furthermore, the opening of the new underground station Triangeln creates what will be one of the country's largest railway stations, with significantly reduced travel times from the region's cities to southern parts of central Malmö, including the large Malmö University hospital. Malmö thus now has two stations in the city center, of which Triangeln station has the most jobs and housing in its vicinity. A new station was also built in Hyllie, south of Malmö.
Construction commenced on March 8, 2005. Three major construction sites were established at Malmö Central Station, Triangeln and Holma/Hyllie. By the end of 2006, another construction site was opened in Lockarp where connecting tracks to Ystad and Trelleborg were being built. The underground station section at Malmö central station was built in a 0.8 km long open trench which was then filled again. To minimize traffic disruption, the extensive and time-consuming work was done in stages. In order to build Triangeln station, two 25 m deep vertical shafts were dug at the northern and southern part of the site, and the underground station was then milled out of the rock by a roadheader — a machine equipped with a rotating cutter head on a telescopic arm. The rock was then lined with concrete elements to finish the structure. Hyllie Station was built in an approximately 7 m deep shaft; the vault that covers the station is a distinct landmark in the Hyllie development area. The tunnel was mostly drilled by two tunnel boring machines (TBMs). Underground drilling commenced in November 2006 and February 2007, respectively. On 25 March 2008, one of the TBMs achieved breakthrough at Malmö C, followed by the second TBM on April 21. Work was completed in December 2010, six months ahead of schedule.
According to a final cost estimate which was presented November 30, 2009, the cost of the City Tunnel will be 8.565 billion Swedish kronor (SEK) in 2001 prices, almost a billion kronor less than the budgeted 9.450 billion which was established just before the start of construction in 2005, when the procurement of the large contracts and the comprehensive environmental assessment was completed. Following the latest cost estimate, the Swedish Transport Administration's share is about 6 billion Swedish kronor, Scania County 800 million and the City of Malmö more than a billion kronor. The European Union's contribution is 700 million SEK.
According to an economic analysis conducted at the Center for Transport Economics (CTEK), the tunnel will produce a result ranging from slightly negative to slightly positive; most likely, it will bear its own costs. According to the Swedish Transport Administration's own forecasts, the project will not be profitable. It should be noted that these calculations were carried out in 2001, and since the early 2000s, there has been a sharp increase in local and regional train journeys, making calculations from 2001 highly unreliable. In April 2008, the Swedish Transport Administration revised their forecasts, stating that "...the economic viability of many railway projects in the real world will exceed the previously estimated [sic]."[2] The report was commissioned as part of the basis for action planning for infrastructure investment in the transport sector from 2010 to 2021. According to a political principle established in Sweden during recent years, construction projects in areas where construction is overly expensive does not need to be fully economically viable. In such cases, a lower cost estimate can be used in the calculation, since it is not politically desirable for certain metropolitan areas to be neglected merely because of the high cost associated with construction in these areas. Without such a principle, it would not have been possible to build the City Tunnel, Södra länken, Götatunneln and other upcoming city projects.
The running time between Malmö and Copenhagen Central Stations will be reduced from 35 minutes to 33 minutes, since the savings gained by the significantly shorter route is partly offset by the extra stop at Triangeln station. Maximum time savings will be between 15–25 minutes for trips to and from Triangeln, a central location in Malmo. From locations north of Malmö, travel times will be reduced by approximately 10 minutes for journeys to Copenhagen, since trains no longer have to reverse at Malmö Central station. The full potential of the tunnel, however, will not be realized until the line between Lund and Malmö has been expanded to four tracks, a project currently in advanced planning. [3]
The railway starts at a new underground station section built beneath Malmö Central station, called Malmö C Nedre (Lower). From there, the railway runs in a tunnel to the new underground station Triangeln, built 25 meters underground in central Malmö. It then turns south until it reaches Holma, and continues in an open shaft to the new station at Hyllie, a new development area south of the city centre. Here two lines branch out: one route runs west connecting to the Oresund Railway Line, while another branch will connect to the Ystad and Trelleborg (Kontinentalbanan) lines when it opens in August 2011. [4]
Trains in the City Tunnel will be controlled by the new signalling system ERTMS[5]. The system is a new European standard and will simplify operations across national borders. Under an EU directive, all newly constructed railway lines in Europe must use this system while other existing railways will gradually introduce the new system. Due to delays in equipment installation for integration between ERTMS and the older Swedish and (especially) Danish systems, there will be a temporary arrangement using ATC. In 2012 (tentatively), when all trains using the City tunnel are retrofitted, the ATC stopgap solution will be removed and ERTMS deployed instead. Since ERTMS is already installed and tested, the changeover can essentially be done overnight.[6]