Rail works in Norway gain a CEEQUAL rating of Very Good
Overview
To achieve a more sustainable and safer city, the Bergen light rail was constructed. Due for completion in 2023, the total length of this sustainable transport system will be 29 km.
About
The light rail project was commissioned by the city council, known in Swedish as ‘Hordaland Fylkeskommune’, which translates to Hordaland County Municipality.
Background
Designed to improve transport links and offer people a greener way of navigating the city, the work took place in two different areas. As with many inner-city projects, there was a lot of obstacles to overcome. Despite this, the work was assessed by CEEQUAL (now BREEAM Infrastructure) and was awarded a rating of Very Good for it’s sustainable practices.
Challenges
A spokesperson for the project reflected on the biggest obstacles by sharing, “The work to register what materials we could reuse in the project was the main challenge. And finding temporary places to store the products without causing trouble with storage of new materials in the project.”
On top of this, the work was performed in the busiest part of Bergen city. It had to operated around tourists, commuters, residents, historical buildings, cultural relics, residential buildings, a hospital, shops and other businesses. In addition to being a densely populated area with difficult surroundings, several adjacent construction contracts were being performed at the same time.
The work itself involved excavation and fill replacement, new OPI channels and ditches, storm water system, demolishing and moving of some of the infrastructure and landscaping at city railroad stops. Some of the work has to be done during night, and temporary alteration of roads, pathways and bus stops has to be done to avoid problems for traffic.
Solutions
The whole team from Fyllingen Maskin kept a high focus on the CEEQUAL certification, both because Bybanen set this as a demand in the contract, but also because sustainable standards were high on the agenda. So, the company focused on planning the shortest amount of distance for transportation and tried to use both gravel, plant and landscape rocks that we first removed in the start of the project back in the building process.
The team replanted a lot of bushes and trees in temporary places and brought them back in the project at a later stage. They used the same solution for the bricks and pavement stones. The spokesperson shared, “We divided the stones from the dirty gravel and we transported the dirty gravel (polluted) to mass storage and we used the clean stones back in the project.” They continued, “We had much higher focus on using existing products back in the project. Both plants, trees and stones. Instead of buying new products we spent time to register what products can we use back despite that it was not new products that it was planned for.”
Benefits
Key sustainable benefits included:
- Re-used material: 10% of total material used
- Recycled material: 5% of total material used
- Locally supplied material: 10% of total material used
There was also financial benefits including a 2% cost reduction.