The SAAone consortium around HOCHTIEF has been awarded the contract to build an important section of the highway between Amsterdam and Almere. The partners designed, financed and built a section of the A1 and a section of the connecting A6 based on a public-private partnership (PPP) commissioned by Rijkswaterstaat, the operational arm of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The project has a total volume of more than one billion euros. After a construction period of less than five years, almost three years shorter than initially planned, the operation and maintenance phase of 25 years is now in full swing. We safeguard safety, high quality and a high availability for the users.
New connections, improved traffic flow
The SAAone consortium, in which HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions has a 20 percent share, has developed one of the biggest PPP projects in the Netherlands: at the time of the award, SAAone was also the biggest project ever awarded by Rijkswaterstaat. In 2013, it was Europe’s biggest greenfield infrastructure project to reach financial close in that year. The trade journal “Project Finance International” recognized SAAone as the “EMEA Road Deal of the Year”. To finance the project, a consortium of six interna- tional banks has made available total funding of approximately 727 million euros. HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions’ partners are the Dutch construction companies Boskalis and VolkerWessels, and the institutional investor DIF (Dutch Infrastructure Fund). The approximately 20-kilometer stretch of road is part of one of the most important highway spur routes to the Dutch capital and one out of a total of five projects (including four PPPs) in the SAA program designed to improve transportation capacities between Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport and the young, fast-growing city of Almere.
Superlative structures
HOCHTIEF Infrastructure has a share of 35 percent in the construction joint venture. The joint venture has widened the A1/A6 sections (Muiderberg junction – Hollandse Brug) to two four-lane sections plus two reversible lanes, and has built 60 engineering structures, an aqueduct (Europe’s biggest, with a width of 65 meters) and a steel railway bridge (the longest in the Netherlands with a span of around 250 meters). In addition, 8.5 kilometers of noise barriers were built, 1,270,000 m2 (or roughly, 1 million tons) of asphalt was laid, and a total of 9 million cubic meters of sand was transported and processed. The environmental advantages: For the preparatory sand leveling work on the new A1 between the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal and the Muiderberg intersection, around four million cubic meters of sand was brought to the site by means of hydraulic flushing. This method replaced 225,000 truck journeys, reduced CO2 emissions, relieved pressure on the surrounding transport network, and protected the local residents against noise. The SAAone project has achieved the highest “safety performance score” in the Netherlands and thus the top safety standard in one of our most important markets.
Always available
The consortium took over operation, maintenance and servicing of the highway section for a period of 25 years. Afterwards, the link will be handed over in a contractually defined condition to Rijkswaterstaat. The operator’s remuneration is linked with the highway section’s availability for traffic. Car and truck drivers can use the Dutch highways toll-free.
