11.10.2012

  • Successful major project as public private partnership
  • Completed ahead of schedule

An impressive example of the efficiency of public private partnerships (PPP): the six-lane expansion of the 73-kilometer section of the A1 highway between Hamburg and Bremen has been completed after only 49 months of construction - three months earlier than originally planned.

Thomas Töpfer, Member of the Executive Board at Bilfinger SE and Chairman of the German Construction Industry Association's PPP Workgroup, talks about the advantages of public private partnerships at an event marking the completion of the six-lane expansion of the A1 highway between Hamburg and Bremen.

In 2008, a consortium under the leadership of the engineering and services group Bilfinger, infrastructure developers John Laing and contractors Johann Bunte assumed responsibility for financing, design, construction and operation of the highway section within the scope of a PPP model. With an investment volume of €650 million, the A1 is the largest public private partnership project in Germany.

"The A1 shows what public private partnerships can deliver. Completing a project of this size much earlier than planned and within the planned budget is an exemplary achievement", stresses Roland Koch, Chief Executive Officer of Bilfinger. If the traditional approach of awarding the expansion of the route in lots had been used, experience shows that the project would have taken at least ten years.

The PPP consortium will ensure the availability of the highway for a period of 30 years. In return, it receives a portion of the toll charged to trucks using the road. At the end of the concession period the section will be returned to the state in a condition set in the contract.

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