INFRA EU 9

www.euinfrastructure.com • Q1 2010

BUILDING CONSENSUSKeith Clarke of Atkins Global: why

the industry needs to come together over sustainability

CAPITAL GAINSSpecial report: what

The Olympics and Crossrail mean

for London

IN DEEPWATERCan an ambitious engineering project prevent Venice

from becoming a 21st century Atlantis?

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The current furore over DubaiWorld’s inability to pay back bil-lions in loans serves as a cautionarytale for those that fail to considerthe sustainability of their actions.

In the boom years, Dubai was a shining beacon ofdevelopment. Barely a week went by without theannouncement of yet another improbably ambi-tious project. The tallest skyscraper in history?Why not? A cluster of private islands modelled onthe countries of the world? What could possibly gowrong?

To employ a tired cliché, it now appears thatthese undertakings were all built on sand. Thebubble has burst and those gung ho pioneers whobet the farm on Dubai becoming some kind ofDisneyland for millionaires now find themselvesin the shadow of a teetering pile of debt. The emi-rate’s troubles are the most glaring example of fi-nancially unsustainable business practices anddirectly mirror the environmental sustainabilitychallenges now facing the construction industry.

the business works. Making better use of resourcesand streamlining processes to generate less wastemakes sense regardless of exactly why it’s beingdone. Being known as a low carbon company willalso have advantages in the kind of clients it is pos-sible to attract and the calibre of people who wantto work for you. Green credentials are becomingincreasingly valuable as a business differentiator.

Ultimately, sustainability won’t just be aboutthe survival of the planet, it will also be a key factorin the survival of companies and even whole indus-tries. If Dubai’s plight has taught us anything, it isthat taking the supply of an essential resource forgranted can have grave consequences. n

Huw ThomasEditor

Just as we cannot rely on an inexhaustible supplyof easy credit, so we cannot expect the Earth’s re-sources to be limitless.

Traditionally, sustainability issues have beenviewed as little more than an imposition, a box tobe ticked if a company is to meet its corporate so-cial responsibility targets. At the time of writing,the UN Climate Conference is just about to getunderway in Copenhagen. Even if this gatheringserves up little more than hot air, greater regula-tion of carbon emissions and a stronger focus onthe impact we all have on the environment is a cer-tainty in the not too distant future. Change is com-ing and those that fail to respond will seethemselves left behind.

This means that design and constructioncompanies need to stop thinking of sustainabilityas a chore and get serious about building it intotheir processes from the ground up. If the rewardsof protecting the environment don’t seem signifi-cant enough on their own, look at the drive to-wards sustainability as a tool for improving how

Companies need to act now if they are to beready for a carbon-constrained future

“Carbon is going to be rationed.It’s going to be priced and it’sgoing be traded in different wayseverywhere.” Atkins Global CEO,Keith Clarke (page 40)

“If young people can see that acompany is engaged with thegreen agenda, they’re more likelyto want to work for them.”Olympic Delivery AuthorityChairman John Armitt (page 86)

“Fostering the transition towardsa low carbon power generationsystem is a high priority for theEuropean Union.” EU EnergyCommissioner Andris Piebalgs(page 126)

The sustainability bubble

FROM THE EDITOR11

ED NOTE EUINFRA9_dec09 04/12/2009 11:46 Page 11

32

That sinking feelingRising sea levels and subsiding landthreaten the City of Light’s veryexistence. Can an ambitiousengineering plan provide a solution oris Venice doomed to a watery grave?

The Atkins dietIf it is to remain fit for the future, theconstruction industry needs toembrace low carbon now, says AtkinsGlobal CEO Keith Clarke

40

CONTENTS12

RobocopsMet Police CIO Ailsa Beaton on thetechnology infrastructure behind thecapital’s law enforcement

96

92Crosstown trafficAs projects go, running a new rail linkthrough the heart of London is as bigas they come. Crossrail ChairmanTerry Morgan explains that all thehard work is worth it

Race for the prizeThe Olympic Games are a seriousbusiness. EU Infrastructure talks withthe Olympic Delivery Authority’sJohn Armitt about London’s run tothe 2012 finish line

86

LONDON IN FOCUS

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46

CONTENTS14

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

54 Stan Peterson, VidTroniX108 Rüdiger Zollondz, Terex

Cranes134 Andreas Zöllner, Metso

Lindemann

PROJECT FOCUS

56 David Jones, Zeag

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

104 Paints and Coatings

60

68 FrankWalenberg,KEMA RailTransportCertification

7846 Flying highThomas Penner, VP Passenger and TerminalServices at Munich Airport explains theimportance of passenger experience

52 From fragmentation to integrationAlexander ter Kuile, Secretary General ofCANSO, outlines the issues currently facingthe aviation industry and explains what thefuture holds for the sector

60 The need for speedAs high-speed rail gathers speed on theEuropean agenda, plans for a trans-Europeannetwork seem to be on track. EUInfrastructure speaks to Michael Robson ofEIM to find out how high-speed rail fits intothe wider transport picture

70 Driving smart Caroline Visser of the International RoadFederation details the benefits intelligenttransportation systems can bring, both fortravellers and the environment

78 Security’s next waveThe futuristic technology that helps SchipholAirport fight terrorism

100 Standard issueEU Infrastructure sits down with Skanska’sPetter Eiken to hear about the company’sefforts to standardise its processes and theneed for greater specialisation

116 Power struggleE.ON’s Michael Lewis, on the challenges ofoffshore wind, the need for new transmissioninfrastructure and fossil fuel’s place in thefuture energy mix

122 Potential energyThe technology for renewables is ready fordeployment. All that remains is a push on thepolicy side


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130 Leading lightChristine Lins see a bright future forrenewable energy in Europe

132 WastedAs waste management works its way up theEU agenda, increasing amounts of legislationis being passed to regulate practises acrossEurope. However, these efforts will be wastedif the issue of compliance is not given toppriority

136 Leading by exampleGreg Vogt, Managing Director of ISWA,believes Europe is a leader in wastemanagement

116

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

44 Franz Saif, BTC SpecialityChemical Distribution GmbH

50 Jeanine Roberts, Medialounge66 Stefaan Volkaert, STEVO

Electric Ltd.76 Herzel Iosub, El-Far Electronics

Systems102 Claudio Ferracuti, Officine

Maccaferri SpA139 Toni Reftman, Eldan

Recycling A/S

IN THE BACK

140 Regional focus142 In review144 Photo finish

CONTENTS16

ASK THE EXPERT

58 Andy Nicholson, ARINC74 Wim D’Hooghe, OTN Systems110 Agnès Berthault, Ansell

Healthcare112 Hans-Josef Kloubert, BOMAG114 Ronald Utterodt, Dynapac

136

132

126 Action on energyEU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs onthe progress Europe is making in its pursuitfor sustainable, competitive and secure energysupplies

120 SteffenLinnemann,AutomatedPrecision Inc


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UPFRONTTHE BRIEF18

to promise strict reductions by 2020in an effort to help unlock a deal

in Copenhagen. At a news confer-

ence in November,Yvo de Boer, headof the UN ClimateChange Secretariat,

said: “We still needmore movement. Indust-

rialised countries must raisetheir targets and financial commit-ments further. I look to the United

come under pressure to agree tostrict cuts in greenhouse gas emis-sions by 2020. Only Chinaemits higher levels ofgreenhouse gasesthan the UnitedStates, but the ad-ministration in theUS is having difficultyimplementing carbon-capping legislation, which iscurrently stalled in the Senate. Manynations are calling for Washington

However, in recent weeks talkshave stalled due to a lack of com-mitment on the part of developednations to sufficiently reduce CO2

emissions, but also their reluctanceto provide financial assistance todeveloping countries.

Washington, in particular, has

THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE

With the Kyoto Protocol due toexpire in 2012, the global commu-nity is currently engaged in negoti-ations to agree its successor. TheCopenhagen climate conference,due to take place in December, is apivotal moment in the efforts to-wards agreeing a new treaty.

Many nations are calling for Washington to

promise strict reductions by

2020

Can December’s Copenhagen conference provide thekey to the climate challenge

Steam and fumes emerge from the brown coal-firedpower plant Niederaussem operated by RWE nearBergheim, Germany

UPFRONT EU INFRA 9:25 June 3/12/09 15:13 Page 18

UPFRONTTHE BRIEF 19

States for a numerical mid-termtarget and a clear commitment onfinance.”

Swedish Environment Min-ister, Anders Carlgren, agreedthat more action was neededfrom the US. Speaking to Reutershe said: “In the end, an agree-ment in Copenhagen will dependon an American number.Without a clear and ambitiousnumber the whole agreement willbe in danger.”

The US appears to bemaking progress on this issue,however, and following a sum-mit in China, PresidentBarack Obama madea statement inwhich he stressedthat Copenhagenshould end witha deal that hasimmediate opera-tional effect even if thegoal of a legally binding pactis no longer achievable. Ministersin Copenhagen saw this as willing-ness on the part of the US topromise clear 2020 targets.

However, developing na-tions, who feel that they are moreat risk of the possible effectsof climate change – heatwaves,droughts, wildfires, rising sea lev-els, disease and species extinction– are calling for a global body to beinstated to direct the world’s low-carbon transformation in sectorssuch as power, transport andheavy industry.

Suggestions by the G77 of theestablishment of a new central ex-ecutive, political body – withinthe existing UN FrameworkConvention on Climate Change –are not proving popular withEurope or the US, who wouldrather see a merely advisory body.These two nations in particular areworried that a strong politicalbody may end up channelling

funds into state enterprises ratherthan keeping a level playing field forall businesses.

Given what is at stake, especial-ly for developing nations, the G77are not convinced that an advisorybody would posses the necessarypower to drive through the dramat-ic changes required.

Speaking to The Guardian,Shane Tomlinson of environmentconsultants E3G said: “We knowthat to limit global temperaturerises to below 2˚C, we'll need astep change in global innovationand technology transfer. In the

period to 2020, it’s vital weavoid high carbon

lock-in. The infra-structure decisionsthat developingcountries are tak-

ing today, such asnew power stations,

are going to determinetheir emissions pathways for

20-30 years.” Such infrastructure changes do

not come cheap though and devel-oping nations are looking to devel-oped countries to fund thetransformation. In October, EUheads of state and government saidthat in total, €100 billion a yearwould be needed to fund emissionsreductions and adaptation in poorcountries. They estimated that in-ternational public financing wouldhave to cover between €22 and €50billion a year. However, they werereluctant to commit the EU to anyspecific sums before other partiescome clean with their own offers.

With the recent announce-ment by the US administration thatthey want to take action consistentwith the legislative process, but thatclimate change laws are unlikely tobe passed by the Senate beforeFebruary, all eyes remain firmly onCopenhagen and whether a politicalagreement can be reached.

A massive blackout across the southern half of Brazil in Novemberplunged tens of millions of people into darkness and prompted amajor police mobilisation amid fears of an opportunistic crime wave

1000 giant dominos are toppled at the Brandenburg Gate along theformer route of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 2009, as part of thecelebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall

NEWS IN PICTURES

Northside Bridge in Workington, Cumbria, is one of many bridgesto have collapsed during the severe weather conditions that leftmany parts of northwest England under water

To limit global

temperature rises to

we’ll need a stepchange in global

innovation

below 2˚C


STRATEGIC PLAN

Turkey is to receive US$30 billionof investment over the next fiveyears from Italian financial insti-tution UniCredit. The US$6 bil-lion annual payments will be usedto fund energy, transportation andinfrastructure projects in Turkey,according to Vittorio Ogliengo, amember of Unicredit’s executivemanagement committee.

At an international infrastructureconference held by UniCredit,Turkish Transportation MinisterBinali Yıldırım said that Turkeyhas 100 ongoing projects in ener-gy, transportation and communi-cation, worth US$400 billionbetween now and 2023. “We canallocate a maximum of US$150billion from our budget. We haveto obtain the remaining part fromexternal resources,” he said.

FLYING HIGHSingapore’s Changi Airport re-ceived five awards in September, in-cluding four ‘Best Airport’ titles.The readers of the UK edition ofBusiness Traveller, voted ChangiAirport the ‘Best Airport in theWorld’. This prestigious title wasawarded for Changi’s excellence inairport facilities and services. Sincefirst winning the title in 1988,Changi Airport has won the awardfor 22 consecutive years.

Closer to home, Changi Airport re-ceived the same affirmation fromreaders of Business Traveller’s Asia-Pacific edition, who also choseChangi as the ‘Best Airport in theWorld’ for the 18th consecutiveyear. In addition, Changi Airportwas named ‘Best Airport Duty-Freein the World’ by the magazine forthe 12th year running.

FREE FALL

The construction industry inRussia has been hit hard by theglobal economic downturn. In 2009the majority of construction pro-jects were suspended and virtuallyno new residential or commercialproperty projects have been started.For the first time this decade, thevalue of construction works willhave shrunk – by over 15 percent incomparison with 2008, –accordingto a report by research and consult-ing company PMR.

Without the buffer of a strong firstsix months, says the report, 2009has witnessed a fully fledged con-struction crisis, with output, em-ployment and other key indicatorsfor the industry falling sharply.

The report states that most con-struction contracts next year will berelated to infrastructure develop-ment projects, which will serve toboost the overall level of construc-tion activity in the country.

UPFRONTINTERNATIONAL NEWS20


NEW STIMULUS

President Obama recently an-nounced his plan to use US$3.4billion in stimulus funds to sup-port 100 projects aimed at mod-ernising America’s electricalgrid. The projects will includethe installation of smart electricmeters in homes, automatingutility substations, and installingthousands of new digital trans-formers and grid sensors.

Private contractors, utilities, andmunicipal governments areamongst those set to receivegrants of between US$400,000and US$200 million. The gov-ernment is expecting a furtherUS$4.7 billion in private invest-ment to match the taxpayersmoney, and predicts that thespending will create tens of thou-sands of new jobs.

BUILDING BIG

A project to build a dam on theRiver Mwache in Kenya is due tobe completed in 2012. With a ca-pacity of 205,000 cubic metres ofwater per day, it will serve 1.5 mil-lion people in the towns ofKinango, Kaloleni, and Mombasa,which regularly suffer from a lackof water.

The Chinese Government will befinancing the building of thedam, with a contribution ofUS$48.3 million. The total costfor the 188m tall dam – the high-est ever constructed in Africa – isexpected to be US$350 million.The dam will serve to improve ir-rigation and boost the produc-tion of electricity in the area witha capacity of 34 megawatts.

Nesbert Mangale, Director of theKenyan Coast DevelopmentAuthority, told the daily Nationthat a preliminary agreement hadbeen signed with the Chinesecompany Jiangxi, which will becarrying out the work, due to startin Q1 2010.

END OF THE WORLDThere was a point when many werewondering if the oil-rich MiddleEastern states were immune from theeffects of the credit crunch. That wasbefore they too succumbed to thestranglehold of the global downturn.Large developers are now feeling theeffects of the financing crunch andare having to put some of their flag-ship developments on hold.

The World – a multi-billion series ofparadise islands shaped like a map ofthe Earth – has seen work come to acomplete standstill in recent monthsas prices began tumbling.

However, developers Nakheel areadamant that work will recommenceon The World next year. GroupManaging Director, projects, forNakheel, Marwan Al Qamzi, said:“We are working with a core group ofpurchasers who are revising their de-signs to account for the changes in theeconomy. Scopes have been updatedto match their development strategiesand construction commencement isanticipated for Q2 2010.”

UPFRONTINTERNATIONAL NEWS 21


SAFETY FIRST

BP Bitumen is launching its SafetyFirst pro-gramme, which aims to achieve improvedsafety performance at load locationsand asphalt mixing plants. BPBitumen is committed to pro-viding a safe working environ-ment in all aspects of thebusiness. “This includes sharingbest practices that help to safe-guard our employees and contractorsbut also our customers,” says IngeborgSchröder, HSSE Advisor BP Bitumen Germany.

She adds: “We realise that Health, Safety andEnvironmental incidents in our industry canhave catastrophic consequences and we want toextend our working knowledge and best practiceto all those we work with.” This is why BPBitumen introduced the BP SafetyFirst initiative,based on a DVD which provides some best inclass industry practices to better understandsome of the main hazards associated with bitu-men storage and handling.

The BP SafetyFirst programme takes the view-er through the main processes from loading of bi-tumen trucks through to how to best dischargetrucks into storage tanks at customer mixing plants.

The DVD highlights some of the precautions totake during loading, from the dangers of workingat heights through to emergency procedures andhow to deal with bitumen burns. It also uses customanimations to alert users to some of the hazards thatcan occur with the storage and handling of hotbitumen and the correct PersonalProtective Equipmentto wear whenhandling it.

Available in multiple languages, the

SafetyFirst DVD can be used to provide aware-ness and training on how to safely manage therisks associated with handling hot bitumen and isan excellent tool to assist Safety Team meetings.

“We believe the SafetyFirst pro-gramme will introduce a new ap-

proach to safety management andhelp to drive a step change im-provement in how we and our cus-

tomers manage safety withinoperations,” says Schröder.

For more information please visitwww.bpbitumen.com

SEEKING INSPIRATION

The European Commission’s ‘Open Days’ tookplace in Brussels in October 2009 when local rep-resentatives and business leaders from the EUmet to discuss the future of so-called smart cities.

As the EU works on strategies for meetingits goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissionsby 20 percent by 2020, urban areas are in-creasingly being fingered as the main target.

Cities are responsible for two-thirds ofEurope's greenhouse gas emissions, whichmakes them a key element in delivering itsambitious climate agenda.

For inspiration the EU is looking toMasdar, a 100 percent renewable energy andzero-carbon city to be built in Abu Dhabi inthe United Arab Emirates. Masdar is to housearound 1500 clean tech companies, with 40,000residents and 50,000 commuters.

TOP 10

32

54

1

87

109

6

Germany

Hong Kong SAR

France

Singapore

Switzerland

United Arab Emirates

Canada

United States

Austria

Finland

10 countries with the best infrastructureas voted by the World EconomicForum in their Global CompetitivenessReport 2009-2010

COMPANY NEWS22UPFRONT

“We believe the

programme will introduce a new

approach to safety”

SafetyFirst


BP BITUMEN AD.indd 1BP BITUMEN AD.indd 1 2/12/09 15:11:182/12/09 15:11:18

UPFRONTIN MY VIEW24

Modern design teams are really all about collaboration, and theedges of the discipline can get quite blurred at times. This is es-pecially important in a global economy. What we try to do is bringa fresh approach into the design and development process thatisn’t blinkered by what we’ve done before as industry specialists,by having people from different disciplines working closely to-gether and sharing ideas and maybe incorporating best practicesor ways of working from other areas of the business. It allows usto innovate without taking unnecessary risks.

Our environment is becoming increasingly litigious, and that canprovide a cap on innovation as people are less willing to take un-known risks. Nonetheless, we always try to provide added value,and innovation plays a key role in this. For instance, we have a pro-fessional excellence programme across the group that we use tobring the latest thinking into the workplace. I suppose if I werereally honest about it, you’d ideally like to use ideas that have al-ready been successfully trialled in the market, where somebodyelse had a go and made them work, so you’ve got a precedent.And so really we’re looking at refining existing ideas and makingthem more accurate, and bringing more certainty into whatwe’re doing. On the construction side, it’s a case of refining whatwe’ve got, and the innovations are probably going to come whenlooking at how to improve the energy efficiency of the build andthe build process.

We believe that the best innovation happens when it becomesa by product of your company culture. In Mott MacDonald, wetry to make sure that each of our teams are adopting the sameworking discipline and values in different locations, and it’s likethat across Europe and everywhere we work. There is a strongculture of working together across geographical and technicalboundaries to provide best practice solutions to problems, so thatpeople can benefit from being part of a larger organisation thatis able to provide better direction, better training and a greaterunderstanding of what current needs are and what cutting-edgethinking is all about.

You wouldn’t necessarily get this if you were sitting by yourself inan office of three people. But by having a community of best prac-tice across the group, it enables those three people to feel part of,for example, a 200-strong team who all do the same thing but areremote from each other. And that 200-strong team has a criticalmass that enables each of those smaller teams to bring currentthinking and the expertise of the whole group into whatever pro-jects they are working on.

MIKE BARKER, MD of Buildings andStructures at Mott MacDonald, explainshow implementing a community ofbest practice can help to fosterinnovation and cutting-edge thinking.


TRADING DOWNThe UK Civil Aviation Authority(CAA) published its annual survey ofpassengers in October this year, pro-viding some worrying indica-tions for airlines. Businesstravel has been hitparticularly hardwith the number ofbusiness passengersusing Heathrow, theworld’s busiest inter-national airport, fallingby five percent last year.

The decrease in business passen-gers has had severe consequences forthe airlines operating out of Heathrow.

British Airways, Heathrow’s largestuser, lost £401 million last year as aresult of declining premium passen-

ger numbers.The CAA’s survey

also showed evi-dence of businesspassengers trad-ing down fromfull-service airlines

to budget airlines.At both Luton and

Stansted, primarily used bylow-cost carriers such as easyJet andRyanair, a one percent rise in busi-ness passengers was recorded.

The latest issue of US Infrastructure featured an article on theongoing efforts to rebuild flood defences in New Orleans fouryears after Hurricane Katrina.

To read more of the stories from this issue head towww.americainfra.com

PAY AS YOU GO

The Dutch government recentlyapproved a bill that will see driversin the Netherlands become the firstin Europe to start paying accordingto the kilometres they drive ratherthan for owning a car. The changein the system, which will see totalwelfare gains amounting to €1 bil-lion per annum, will affect nine mil-lion road users.

Beginning in 2012, the kilome-tre charge will replace road tax andpurchase tax, cutting the cost of anew car by 25 percent. However,drivers will be charged 0.03 eurosper kilometre in an attempt to re-duce traffic jams, fatal accidents andcarbon emissions in what is one ofEurope’s most congested road net-works. The tax will be increased an-nually until 2018, when it will cost6.7 cents per kilometre to drive inHolland. Legislation introducingrush-hour surcharges specific to alocation could be introduced at alater date.

The transport ministryexpects the number ofkilometres trav-elled todrop

by 15 percent as the charge on the dis-tance driven will lead people to optfor public transport, the use of whichis expected to increase by six percent.

Certain vehicles like taxis, busesand motorcycles will be exemptfrom the charge, while an alternativesystem will be set up for foreign ve-hicles. The kilometres will be trackedwith a GPS device to be installed inevery vehicle. This will record eachjourney and send the information toa billing agency.

Concerns about privacy weredispelled as the transport ministry an-nounced that the information sent viathe GPS device will be legally andtechnically protected. The authoritieswill not have access to any journeydetails and will not be able to trackany vehicles.

According to the transport min-istry, the proceeds from the kilometrecharge will go directly into the infra-structure fund, which will be used tobuild roads, railways and other typesof infrastructure.

UPFRONTCOMPANY NEWS 25

British Airways lost

last year as a result of declining

premium passengernumbers

£401 millionFAST FACT

The use of transport biofuelscould lead to a cut in carbondioxide emissions of

compared with fossil fuels50-60%

Source: Renewable Energy Association


FEELING THE HEAT

McManus, Chief Executive ofthe Electricity Supply Board(ESB), said that the car industry,equipment manufacturers, elec-tricity companies and con-sumers will benefit fromagreeing on a common infra-structure for plug-in vehicles.

Antonio Tajani, EUTransport Commissioner, wel-comed the commitment to

pressing ahead with practi-cal preparations for elec-

tric vehicles and saidthat the move willhelp put the EU atthe forefront of new

transport technologies.

At the end of October,Europe’s electricity suppliersmet in Brussels to discuss astandardised recharging infra-structure for plug-in electriccars. The move will pavethe way for motorists acrossEurope to refuel their vehiclesat standarised chargingstations.

Speaking on behalf ofEurelectric, which repre-sents the electricityindustry, Padraig

PLUG-IN CARS

UPFRONTCOMPANY NEWS26

Linear type heat detectors are today the stan-dard product for automatic tunnel fire detec-tion. The temperature sensor cable with discretesemiconductor sensors today is certainlythe system with the highest flexibili-ty in designing an installation. Itallows absolute temperature aswell as temperature change de-tection and provides data for vi-sualisation. Setup of segments ofsensors or different thresholds fordifferent sensors is very easy.

Now SECURITON pre-sents the new SecuriSens

MHD 535 system. Asthe pre-

sent model TSC 515 it is the fastest LTHD for tun-nels as proven in several independent tests. A fiveMW fire can be seen in less than 30 seconds evenunder high wind velocity of 10 m/s. The new MHD535 in addition brings increased availability by

using control units at both ends and sepa-rator modules to create segments in

the cable. This means that not onlyruptures, but any kind of damageincluding short-circuits, are cov-ered. In this way, only the part be-

tween two SSM is not available incase of damage. This is a significant increase in safety

and availability of tunnel temperature sensor cablesystems. The newly developed FT-NET (fault tol-erant network) allows the integration of severalprocessor units with attached temperature sensorcables on a failsafe network. All information essen-tial for fire detection such as alarm, alarm localisa-tion, pre-alarm, system failure, or system status are

transferred via this network. In the tunnel ap-plication, such networks might make sense

for tunnels longer than2000m or for complextopographies includingexits in the tunnel withseparate detectors.

For more informationplease consult

www.securiton.com

SMART SOLUTIONS

UK energy and climate changesecretaryEd Miliband recently announced govern-ment plans to have every UK home fittedwith a smart meter by 2020. The scheme,should it go ahead, will constitute theworld’s biggest smart meter project.

According to government estimates,putting smart meters in the UK's26 million homes could save cus-tomers and energy companies ap-proximately £2.5bn-£3.6bnover the next 20 years, but it willcost more than double this to buyand install the equipment.

“The meters most of us have inour homes were designed for a differentage, before climate change,” saidMiliband. “Now we need to get smarterwith our energy … so it's important wedesign a system that brings best value toeveryone involved.”

FAST FACT

It allows

temperature as well as temperature

change detection

absolute

In 2007, there were

people killed or seriously injured in railway

accidents in the EU-27

2566 Source: Eurostat

Britain’s Energy and Climate Change MinisterMiliband and Business Secretary Mandelsonunder a wind turbine in Kings Langley, England


securition_DEC09.indd 1securition_DEC09.indd 1 2/12/09 14:11:122/12/09 14:11:12


Rail is on average

more energy efficient thanroad, shipping and aviation

2-5 times

Airport Carbon Accred-itation was launched byACI EUROPE in Junethis year and LFV’sStockholm-Arlanda air-port has become the firstairport to receive thehighest possible accredi-tation status for its out-standing efforts to reduceCO2 emissions over thepast three years.

Stockholm-Arlandawas awarded the‘Neutrality’ level of ac-creditation in recogni-tion of its 50 percentreduction in carbonemissions through in-creased efficiency mea-sures and a switch torenewable fuels.

Kerstin LindbergGöransson, ManagingDirector of Stockholm-Arlanda Airport said:“Stockholm-Arlanda isalready seen as a rolemodel by many interna-tional analysts in terms ofclimate-changing emis-sions, and this accredita-tion provides furtherevidence that the workwe’re putting into thisalso yields results.” CA

RBON

NEUT

RAL

FAST FACT

Source: the Worldwide International Organisationof the Railway Sector

BAA recently announced thesale of London Gatwick Airport to GlobalInfrastructure Partners (GIP) – an independentUS$5.64 billion investment fund – for the price of£1.51 billion.

BAA announced its plans to sell Gatwick inSeptember 2008. Completion is anticipated inDecember 2009 and is subject to, among other

things, European Unionmerger clearance. Colin Matthews,

BAA’s Chief Executive, said that BAA will nowbe focusing on improving their other airports,including Heathrow.

Michael McGhee, the GIP Partner leadingthe acquisition, commented: “We will upgrade andmodernise Gatwick Airport to transform the expe-rience for both business and leisure passengers. Weplan to work closely with the airlines to improveperformance, as we have done successfully atLondon City Airport.”

SELLING UP

Those who use simulatorsas a way of training users ofTETRA technology have noticed how difficult – almostimpossible – it is to bring user competence to requiredlevel while using traditional training methods such asreal equipment and printed material. With simulatorsystems they can replicate the operational en-vironment and carry out various exercis-es that combine TETRA technologyand the organisation’s communica-tion procedures.

TETRAsim training systemenables realistic training with sim-ulators to TETRA networks and itsterminals. Parameters used inTETRAsim virtual network can be set tomatch those of the authentic operational environ-ment. Simulator training is measurable and easilycontrolled by the trainer and it enables objectivefeedback to be given to trainees. Both voice anddata messages are transmitted in the virtual envi-ronment between the trainees. Speech and data

messages are recorded for analysis by the trainerafter the exercise. In all aspects, TETRAsim systemgives the trainers powerful tools to control thelearning environment and ensure proper compe-tence development of the organisation.

These assets have already been recognised by au-thorities in 11 countries in Europe, the Middle East

and Asia which already use TETRAsimsimulators in their training for po-

lice, fire and rescue, border guard,civil defense, defense or anyother organisation usingTETRA in their radio commu-

nication. Their training scopevaries from learning of radio ter-

minal usage to communication with-in a group exercise using the operation

plan of the particular organisation.Boosted operational efficiency, along with in-

creased overall reliability among the TETRA users,are just some of the key advantages attained. Afterall, having made a fine decision to invest in TETRAtechnology, the vast potential available should beexploited to the utmost.

For more information on TETRAsim seewww.tetrasim.com

TETRAsim training system

enables

training with simulators to TETRA

networks and its terminals

realistic

SIMULATING COMMUNICATION


Tetraslim_DEC09.indd 1Tetraslim_DEC09.indd 1 2/12/09 14:12:322/12/09 14:12:32

Companies in this issue are indexed to the first page of the article in which each is mentioned.

Airport Consulting Vienna 10, 82Akzo Nobel 104Ansell Healthcare IFC, 110ARINC 58, 59Atkins Global 40Automated Precision Inc. 120, 121BOMAG 112, 113, 145BP Bitumen 22, 23 BTC Speciality Chemical Distribution GmbH 44, 45Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) 52Combibox 48Consorzio Venezia Nuova 32Costain 86Crossrail 92Dynapac 2, 114E.ON 116El-Far Electronics Systems 76, 77Eldan Recycling A/S 15, 139ERTICO 70European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) 52European Commission 60, 122

European Rail Infrastructure Managers 60European Renewable Energy Council 130European Tyre Recyclers Association (ETRA) 139GE Energy 122International Road Federation 70International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) 136ITS America 70Jotun 104KEMA Rail transport Certification 68, 69Kontron 62London Metropolitan Police Service 96 Medialounge 50, 51Metso Lindemann 134, 135Munich Airport 46Network Rail 86Officine Maccaferri SpA 102, 103Olympic Delivery Authority 86Optosecurity 80Orga Aviation 57OTN Systems 74, 75Planar 73Radio Frequency Systems 84Schiphol Airport 78

Securiton 26, 27Siemens 4 Skanska 100Steinbichler Optotechnik GmbH 120Stevo Electric 66, 67Terex Cranes 108, 109 TETRAsim 28, 29Tikkurila 104, 105Total Bitumen 146University of Padua 32Venice in Peril 32Venice Port Authority 32VidTroniX 54, 55Winland Electronics 64Zeag 6, 56

COMPANY INDEX Q1 2010


The A2 motorway in Poland is to be extendedfollowing a €1 billion investment by the EuropeanInvestment Bank (EIB). The 106kmextension will form part of the priorityTrans-European Transport Networkconnecting the Polish capitalWarsaw with the German CapitalBerlin. It will also completePoland’s East-West transport axislinking several major Polish citiesincluding Poznan, Łódź and Konin.

The EIB’s investment will provide 62.5 per-cent of the total cost of the project, which will be imple-

mented and operated by AutostradaWielkopolska S.A. (AWSA).

Marta Gajecka, EIB Vice-

President responsible for EIB lending in Central andEastern Europe, including Poland, commented: “It is apriority for the EIB to finance projects, that will con-tribute to the reduction of Poland’s gap in rail and road

infrastructure that needs to be filled in the comingyears. The connection of Poland with the

main trans-European networks of centralEurope is a key element for sustainableeconomic growth and creation of em-ployment in the region concerned as well

as in the whole country”. The EIB has been a major source of fi-

nance for the improvement of the transport net-work in Poland. Since 1990 it has co-financed sectionsof the A1, A2, A4 and A6 motorways and major na-tional roads along the Pan-European Corridors II, IIIand VI in Poland. The Bank has so far provided some€8.5 billion for the rehabilitation and extension of thePolish transport network.

THE ROAD AHEAD

The A2motorway

in Poland is to be extended following a

investment€1 billion

ACTION ON ENERGYEU Energy CommissionerAdris Piebalgs on the progressEurope is making in its pursuitfor sustainable, competitiveand secure energy supplies

STANDARD ISSUEEU Infrastructure sits downwith Skansa’s Peter Eiken tohear about the company’sefforts to standardise itsprocesses and the need forgreater specialisation

DON’T MISS...

60

100

126

THE NEED FOR SPEEDEU Infrastructure speaks toMichael Robson of EIM tofind out how high-speedrail fits into the widertransport picture


TOP 100 GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS BY SECTOR TOP 10

32

54

1

87

109

6

Toronto

Athens

New Jersey-EWR

London-LHR

Paris-CDG

Vancouver

Osaka

Vienna

Zurich

Berlin

World’s 10 most expensive airports

11%Electricity

8%Surface

Transportation

9%Airports

4%Water

& WW

7%Ports

13%UMT

16%Renewables

29%HSR

4%Oil & Gas

UPFRONTCOMPANY NEWS 31

GOING DEEPER UNDERGROUND

BRITAIN'S Serco Group becamethe world's biggest operator of dri-verless metros as the first part ofDubai's £4.5 billion Metro systemwas opened by SheikhMohammed bin Rashid AlMaktoum, ruler of Dubai, at 9.09on the 09 September –9.09.09.09.09. Serco, who alreadyhas experience of automated met-ros - Docklands Light Railway inLondon and Copenhagen Metro inDenmark – has started operatingDubai's Red Line. Initially serving10 key stations, including Terminal3 at Dubai International Airport,

the Financial Centre and the Mall ofthe Emirates, the Red Line will havea capacity of 3500 passengers everyhour. The remaining 19 stations onthe Red Line, which will run fromRashidiya to Jebel Ali, will beopened in phases over the next fewmonths and are due to be complet-ed by February 2010. The GreenLine, which will launch in June2010, is 22 km (14 miles) long andwill run from Eitisalat to Al Kourwith 18 stations. When fully opera-tional the Metro is expected to carryover 1.2 million passengers on anaverage day.

Serco's team in Dubai hasbeen working for two years as partof the build-up to the inaugurationand has reportedly delivered over50,000 training days to equip 3000employees with the safety andtechnical skills needed to deliver aworld class and safe railway.

The Chairman and ExecutiveDirector of the Dubai Roads &Transport Authority, Mattar AlTayer, said: “The launch of theDubai Metro brings to fruition thekey element of His HighnessSheikh Mohammed bin Rashid AlMaktoum's vision for developingDubai's transport infrastructureand has been completed in recordbreaking time.”

Source: CG/LA Infrastructure

Source: www.iata.org


SINKING

Rising sea levels and subsiding landthreaten the City of Light’s veryexistence. Can an ambitiousengineering plan provide a solutionor is Venice doomed to a waterygrave? By Huw Thomas

COVER STORY

THAT

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:34 Page 32

FEELING

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:35 Page 33

or more have become distressingly commonplace. At the time of writing,

Venice is recovering from a 131cm flood which struck on 30 November.

Venice is no longer the economic goliath it once was. In place of huge vol-

umes of international trade, the city now draws its wealth from the 20 million

tourists who visit annually. They come to bask in Venice’s sights and history

and they hugely outnumber the just 60,000 Venetians for whom the city is a

year-round home. If it is to remain both a holiday destination and a viable place

to live for residents, something needs to be done to halt the sea’s progress.

Historic buildings, their durable stone foundations already swamped, now

show telltale smears of green algae and blooms of salt crystals in their vulner-

able brickwork. Water bubbles up between flagstones in Piazza San Marco,

even on clear and flood-free days. This threat of rising waters led to the 2003

authorisation of the MOSE project. Both an acronym for Modulo Sperimentale

Elettromeccanico and the Italian name for the biblical Red Sea parter Moses,

MOSE is an ambitious plan to build mobile floodgates at the Lido, Malamocco

and Chioggia lagoon inlets. It will eventually cost almost €5 billion and hope-

fully protect Venice from the acqua alta for decades to come.

Stemming the tideOn the face of it, the MOSE system seems fairly simple. When unusual-

ly high sea levels threaten the city, floodgates will rise from the lagoon floor to

As any visitor to the city can attest, Venice is likenowhere else on earth. Its twisting network of canals,narrow streets and stately bridges have captivated vis-itors for centuries. Settled on a series of marshy is-lands in a huge lagoon on the Adriatic coast some2000 years ago, Venice’s position on the Adriaticcoast saw it become a major seafaring city state and

powerhouse of international trade. But now the proximity to water that enabled Venice to punch so high

above its economic weight threatens the city’s very existence. Venetians areno strangers to flooding. The so-called acqua alta (high water) has been a reg-ular feature throughout the city’s history, but its effects are becoming moreacute over time. Since the start of the last century, the land on which Veniceis built has subsided by an average of 23cm across the city, resulting in in-creasingly regular flooding. This subsidence has been accompanied by risingsea levels, a problem that is only set to get worse in the coming decades asglobal warming pushes tides even higher. Hard data offers a stark example ofthe seriousness of the situation; between 1926 and 1935, high water events of110cm or more occurred seven times. In the decade between 1996 and 2005,that number had grown to 53. It is not only the frequency of flooding that hasincreased during the 20th century, but the severity too. A 194cm event, theworst ever recorded, caused havoc on 4 November 1966, but swells of 140cm

34 www.euinfrastructure.com

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:03 Page 34

stem the flow. Coupled with better breakwaters and a number of other per-manent defences, the system should protect the city from the worst tidal ef-fects. But few things are that simple. From the beginning, MOSE has been amajor source of controversy, with numerous objections on environmental, fi-nancial and operational grounds. The organisation tasked with overseeing thishuge project is the Consorzio Venezia Nuova (New Venice Consortium), analliance of major Italian construction firms. Giovanni Cecconi is an engineerwith the consortium who has been working on the project since its inception.A construction effort of this size and type has presented plenty of engineer-ing challenges. “For instance the differential settlement, the foundation,” saysCecconi. “The technique is one of the most universal, but this has to be donein four different places, historical places, and we have to compact the soil andpredict the behaviour of these cases. You can find floodgates around theworld, but not a row of independent floodgates spread out around so many

inlets. This provides great flexibility and they can move each other, so the loadis transferred to the foundation, but you can have dynamical behaviour. Sowe had to do plenty of investigation in the resonance behaviour to avoid that.We modified the size and shape of the gates in order to have a system that can-not resonate through the normal weather, and also during the extreme flood-ing. We used mathematical modeling to define the domain of risk ofinstability. Then with the physical model we did the complete modelling ofall relevant phenomena, because the mathematical model has certain as-sumptions. These studies started at the very beginning and we finished themimmediately before the start of the project.”A striking feature of the project is its duration. Despite being approvedin 2003, the system is not expected to be operational until 2014. According toCecconi, it is not only technical challenges that have made the process ofbuilding MOSE a slow one, but also political considerations. The project hasbeen a football for various factions in Italy’s often tumultuous political land-scape, only gaining final approval when it was adopted by Silvio Berlusconi’sadministration. “When you have such a big project the decision is mainly po-litical and it’s like a flag,” says Cecconi. “The project goes ahead when oneparty is winning and the other is losing and so on. This takes time to build suc-cess, but because the project was very much ahead when Berlusconi went intopower it triggered the start-up because the project was ready and reliable. Theadministration took the opportunity to promote itself through the project.”

“Since the start of the lastcentury the land on which Veniceis built has subsided by anaverage of 23cm across the city”

www.euinfrastructure.com 35

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:03 Page 35

But Berlusconi’s approval hasn’t ended opposition. Now, nearly seven

years since its approval and still four years from completion, some continue

to see MOSE as an expensive way for the government to funnel money to its

friends in industry that fails to address the real issues facing Venice. Even the

city’s mayor, Massimo Cacciari, has added his voice to protests from conser-

vation groups and concerned residents.

While there seems to be general consensus that the MOSE gates will at least

be effective in protecting against the acqua alta, a key concern is the impact they

might have on the lagoon’s ecosystem. A natural flow of water through the three

inlets is vital to prevent the lagoon’s waters becoming stagnant and polluted.

This is a particularly big problem for Venice as the city has no municipal sewage

system and relies on the tides to flush waste into the Adriatic. However, Cecconi

believes that this should not cause too much trouble. “We have decided in the

environmental assessment to use the gates to preserve Venice for all the high

tide and also the exceptional ones, instead leaving the more frequent one to be

treated through local rising of the banks and local protection,” he says. “This

means that now assuming that we want to elevate a small number of time of clo-

sure, only three to five times a year for a few hours each time. This means less

than one percent of the time during the flooding period with very little impact

to the port because we have also navigational lock.”

But critics suggest that this is a short-sighted assessment. If global trends

continue, we could see sea levels rising considerably in the not-too-distant fu-

ture, which could necessitate the gates being in use far more often than cur-

rently planned. “The phenomenon of high waters could be further aggravated

by the predicted sea level rise due to climate changes,” says Luigi D’Alpaos,

Professor of Hydrodynamics at Padua University. “If the relative sea level in-

creased by about 50cm in the next century, in accordance with

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions for the global rate

of sea level rise, the barriers of the MOSE system would enter into operation

almost every day in winter, and for longer periods of time. Such an occurrence

will bear as a consequence relevant environmental problems related to the

strong reduction in the intensity of tidal currents and therefore to their role

in governing water exchange between different portions of the lagoon. It is

also worthwhile noting that port activities will suffer the more frequent clo-

sure of the inlets in the case of a marked increase in mean seal level. In fact,

operational continuity and accessibility to the port to commercial ships, with

the mobile gates raised, is ensured only through the navigation lock at the

Malamocco inlet, and this represents a limitation to port activities.”


When a tide of 110cm or more occurs, the MOSE gatesspring into action. Normally laid flat on the lagoonbed, the gates are filled with air and raise up to createa barrier to the incoming seawater. To minimiseenvironmental impact, the gates only remain in useuntil sea levels return to normal. They then fill withwater and sink once more to the bottom of the lagoon.While this is an adequate response to intermittentthreats of high waters, opponents of the system areconcerned about the impact on Venice’s ecosystem ifrising sea levels require their more frequent use.

MOSE IN ACTION

Lagoon Sea

Lagoon Sea

Emmission of air

Expulsion of water

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:03 Page 36

Port in a stormPort activity is a significant factor in the debate on safeguarding the city.

In September 2009, the Venice Port Authority released a report on plans tofurther develop Porto Marghera, just 4km northwest of Venice, into a majorshipping hub. To ensure that larger ships could access the port, the authorityhas proposed a programme of dredging, which includes deepening theMalamocco-Marghera channel to 16m. D’Alpaos expresses serious concernsabout the long-term effects such a move could have on Venice’s ecology. Themovement of sediment between the lagoon and the Adriatic is greatly influ-enced by shipping channels, with the asymmetry between ebb and floodmeaning that far more sediment is expelled from the lagoon than brought in.“In the ebb phase, once the current has moved beyond the heads of the jetties,it maintains a jet structure that moves out towards the sea, penetrating forquite a long distance into the open sea,” he says. “As a consequence, a sedi-ment plume forms, which flows out into the sea during the ebb phase, where-as only a small amount of sediments that were carried out to the sea duringthe ebb phase return to the lagoon during the following flood phase. Suchstrongly asymmetric behaviour has led to a very intense erosion of the tidalflats in the Venice lagoon, which is well documented by the comparison of thebathymetries starting from 1901.”

These effects are likely to be compounded by the impact more and big-ger ships would have on Venice’s environment. “Boat-induced wakes andcurrents, particularly in the case of large boats, further contribute to the ero-

sion processes taking place in the lagoon,” continues D’Alpaos. “This clear-ly emerges if one compares the elevation of tidal flats flanking theMalamocco-Marghera channel characterising the present configuration andthe bathymetry surveyed in 1970, immediately after the channel’s excava-tion. From all this, it follows that increasing the number and size of boatsentering the lagoon will inevitably enhance the erosion processes occurringon the intertidal areas flanking the navigable channels.”

It is here that the MOSE system enters the debate over port expansion.The Port Authority dismisses concerns over the effects of deeper shippingchannels by pointing to the mitigating factor of the new flood defences. In thereport on its plans for Porto Marghera, the authority simply states that: “Theproblem of the hydraulic equilibrium is solved because it will be manageablethrough judicious use of the MOSE system.”

But according to Professor D’Alpaos, the idea that the MOSE project canprovide an answer just doesn’t stand up. “The erosion process due to wind,waves and boat-induced wakes will not be mitigated by the MOSE system,”he states. “The gates, in fact, do not have any effect on the reduction of wind-induced erosion processes, which depend on water depth, wind climate, andfetch. All of these quantities do not feel the presence of the gates. As to the

boat-induced wakes within the Malamocco-Marghera channel, obviouslysuch a process is not influenced by the presence of the gates. It depends main-ly on the shape of boat keels and on boat speed.”

Venice Port Authority declined to be interviewed for this article, but itwould be fair to say that the authority’s President Paolo Costa is in general dis-agreement with those who oppose plans for port expansion. In response to areport from the charity Venice in Peril that highlighted the dangers freshdredging posed, Costa accused the fund of “pseudo-scientific profiteering”and insisted that the port expansion would bring both economic and envi-ronmental benefits.

Deep troubleThe growing disparity between a subsiding Venice and a rising sea level

remains a major issue, with some suggesting that the rate of subsidence isbeing underestimated by planners. Albert Ammerman is an archaeologist

who has been digging into Venice’s past for many years, with some surpris-ing results. Amongst other things, Ammerman’s excavations have uncovereda walkway of Roman tiles dating back to about 200 AD, which now lies about1.5m below current sea levels, indicating that the actual rate of subsidence isaround 13cm per century. In the past, Venetians would counteract these ef-fects by engaging in a constant process of construction. “What we can alwayssee in the archaeological record is the gradual, progressive buildup of the landsurface,” said Amerman in an interview with PBS News. “We can see five orsix floors, with just one after the other, six inches, a foot, gradually being builtup. Flooding would always be a problem, so their way to deal with it was es-


60

50

40

30

20

10

07 3

11

22

31

39

23

53

1926

-1935

1936

-1945

1946

-1955

1956

-1965

1966

-1975

1976

-1985

1986

-1995

1996

-200

5

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

The 20th century has seen a dramatic rise in the number of110cm or higher floods in Venice

“Despite being approved in 2003,the MOSE system is not expectedto be operational until 2014”

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:03 Page 37


Construction of a lock at the Lidoinlet, which will allow the passageof small craft and emergencyvessels when the gates are raised

Building work at the Malamocco inlet

The area at theChiogga inlet wheregates will be located

Completed outer breakwater; with the 90 percentcomplete Chiogga inlet in the background

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:04 Page 38

sentially to come in and continually be adjusting the ground level up-ward, layer after layer after layer.”

However, Venice’s status as a historical destination has seen suchefforts grind to a halt. “One of the fascinating things is that, since es-sentially 1800, the time of Napoleon, the fall of the Venetian republic,they have stopped doing that,” Ammerman continued. “Venice hasbecome, in some sense, a museum. It's become fossilized. The life ofthe city, also the notion of preservation heritage, stops people fromdoing what was the thing that Venetians always did; that is, build upthe ground level.”

This illustrates the biggest challenge facing the city, that of safe-guarding Venice without destroying what makes it worth protecting. Ifcurrent predictions are in any way accurate, the only way to effectivelyprevent the city being submerged will be to completely seal off the inletsinto the lagoon. Along withthe environmental problemsof such a plan, there wouldalso be significant economicimpact, as access to cruise andcargo ships would be severelyrestricted. This would give riseto a whole new range of engi-neering challenges if the citywere to remain viable.

But there remains onemore option. Instead of enter-ing an arms race with risingsea levels, why not raise theland up instead? It’s not asbizarre an idea as it sounds.Venice is built on spongyswampland. Over the years,the weight if the city haspushed down, squeezing outwater and compressing theearth below. Borrowing tech-niques used in oil exploration to access hard-to-reach deposits, a re-search group at the University of Padua has suggested that salt watercould be pumped into a sandy layer 600-800m beneath the lagoon. “Thisplan could lift Venice by up to 30cm in 10 years, and Venice could beraised safely by using actual technology,” says D’Alpaos. “This plan iscontested by some people, but I think it deserves much more attention,and that analyses and studies on such a direction need to be supported.After all, the process of lifting the city with advanced technologies couldmimic the actions undertaken by the ancient Venetians, who used to de-molish whole islands and rebuild them over the rubble at higher eleva-tions.”

If it works, this solution offers perhaps the best hope for Venice’sprolonged future, allowing the city to stay dry while keeping its archi-tectural magnificence sealed in amber. The MOSE plan can certainlystem the tide for now, but if Venice’s 2000-year history is going to en-dure for further millennia, it is only the first step in an ongoing engi-neering challenge. n

The three lagoon inlets at Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia are800m, 400m and 380m wide respectively. The inlets aremarked by long jetties that were built during the 20thcentury. Structural work through the 1990s has strengthenedthe jetties so that they will be able to support the flooddefence system.

MOSE: VIEW FROM ABOVE

VENICE_27nov 03/12/2009 15:04 Page 39


EU Infrastructure Editor Huw Thomas meets Atkins Global CEO Keith Clarke, and hears that the construction industry needs to embrace low carbon now if it is to remain fi t for the future.

The Atkins dietCopenhagen Metro Oxford Circus, London

Millennium Staduim, Cardiff

Bahrain World Trade Center

COVER STORY

Keith Clarke.indd Sec1:40Keith Clarke.indd Sec1:40 3/12/09 15:13:423/12/09 15:13:42


Th is change in attitude is having a major impact on the way business is done. For Atkins, this entails what is essentially an awareness cam-paign, both for the fi rm’s people and its clients. “It’s really an education process to bring people down that journey of where climate change is, why it’s just not ordinary corporate social responsibility, why it’s diff er-ent,” says Clarke. “Th e next bit is basically research, so you give people the tools that they can use to calculate decarbonising projects, and then we’ve found we need to do a third stream, which is about teamwork. You can’t do this with your normal group of skills, so actually it’s about knowledge transfer and teamwork. Th e fi nal element is how do you talk to clients about that, and what we’ve found is that those four areas, you can’t answer any one of them. You drift down all four streams simultane-ously and sometimes go backwards a bit, but you need to make a journey down them. You can’t give people the answer to any one of those streams. Th e answer doesn’t exist yet, and that’s the big challenge.”

Th e move towards sustainability and a carbon-based economy ne-cessitates a huge leap into the unknown. Quite simply, the framework for this new economy has to be built entirely from scratch. “Th e accounting of carbon doesn’t exist in any meaningful fashion,” Clarke continues. “On the one side that is really exciting. On the other side, it’s pretty in-convenient because your clients are going to have to decarbonise. Th ey’re going to be regulated. Carbon is going to be rationed. It’s going to be priced and it’s going to be traded in diff erent ways everywhere. Clients have very legitimate questions. Th ey want to be given a design tool, but actually they’ve got to help us invent it.”

Clarke is realistic enough to understand that the solutions to the challenges posed by sustainability and climate change won’t arrive overnight. Any systems or innovations that do appear aren’t going to be perfect in their earliest incarnations. “Once you’ve invented it, it’s probably not going be exactly right,” he says. “It’s going to be a little bit

“Climate change is a reality and the consequences are devastating – rising sea levels, decreasing fresh water resources, extreme droughts, storms and fl ooding. Th e human suff ering and fi nancial costs of the impacts of cli-mate change are enormous, aff ecting rich and poor alike… Even if greenhouse gas emissions were stabilised today the climate would continue to change as it adapts to the in-creased emissions over the past 30 years. Th e world’s popu-lation must prepare to minimise the inevitable impact of climate change.”

It’s a powerful statement, but what makes it particularly strik-ing is that it doesn’t originate from an organisation like Green-peace or Friends of the Earth. Instead it is an excerpt from the programme of the 2009 FIDIC conference, an international gathering of some of the biggest names in construction, engi-neering and consultancy.

“It’s stunning progress,” says Atkins Global Chief Executive Keith Clarke when I catch up with him at the event. “It really cheers you up to see it. As opposed to the idea that somebody else has to do it all, FIDIC has come out and said, ‘It’s us. We’re part of the future. Get on the stage.’”

As one of the keynote speakers at the 2009 event, Clarke is a popular presence on the conference fl oor, and securing a bit of time with him requires a degree of perseverance. Just a cursory glance at some of the projects in Atkins’ portfolio quickly demonstrates why Clarke is in such demand. From metro systems in Dubai and Copenhagen, to airport ter-minals in China and traffi c management in London’s Oxford Circus, the fi rm has its fi ngers in a huge number of pies.

Despite the pressure he is undoubtedly under, Clarke is excellent company. Plainly spoken and refreshingly untroubled by a desire to toe the corporate line, what really shines through is his commitment, both personal and professional, to the concept of sustainability. “It’s probably the biggest challenge we’ve ever had,” he says. “But what’s interesting is that if you go back 24 months, you wouldn’t see a special page on green technology in Th e Sunday Times’ business section as a matter of course. It’s becoming mainstream at such a rate that you can see in a year’s time there won’t be a green page for the business section. It’ll be embedded in all the aspects as a matter of course, and you’ll get the odd bit that isn’t. Th e fact that the FIDIC conference is about sustainability and is talking about anti-corruption, quality and engineering futures in the context of climate change for the engineering profession couldn’t have happened fi ve years ago.”

“If you want an excuse not to

change, you can always fi nd one”



won’t get through it. If anything, it’s a spur towards our less performing companies disappearing.”

Th ough Clarke takes no pleasure in the fact that some of Atkins’ peers might fall by the wayside, he believes that a diffi cult environment can at least eventually lead to a stronger overall sector. “Tough markets tend to show who has the ability to adapt and cope with them,” he con-tinues. “If you’ve got a major design determinant like carbon coming in, those that can cope with that are going to do well. Th ose that wait for

someone to turn the standard; there’s nowhere for them to hide.”

Clarke expresses a fervent hope that those reluctant to innovate don’t become the dominant voices. Aft er all, no society ever improved its lot by settling for the status quo. Quite simply, change is coming and those who don’t get on board risk being left behind. Clarke compares the new carbon economy’s impact on the construction and design industry as comparable to the eff ect the internet is having on print media. “I like a newspaper, but sure as hell you’re not going to stop it being web- based on my phone,” he says. “You can’t stop it and I think decarbonising the world is reaching the point where enough of the major players in the world are saying that it is an imperative. We’re

going to make lots of mistakes on the way, but that’s something we’ll have to deal with.”

Th is forward-looking attitude from Clarke doesn’t mean that Atkins has been entirely untouched by the eff ects of the downturn. On the

right, and it’s going to be better than nothing, but as engineers you’re going to hate that imperfection. But a partial solution is better than no solution at all. If progress isn’t made the long-term consequences are potentially ruinous.”

What’s the priority?As much as the consensus about the necessity for new, sustainable

ways of working is building, it comes at a time when other challenges are clamouring for attention. With the global downturn continuing to bite, construction is one of the sectors that has been hardest hit. If organisations are focused on weathering the storm, how much energy will they be able to devote to fundamentally altering the way they work? For Clarke though, economic conditions should be no barrier to the indus-try revolutionising itself. “Th at’s the thing about innovation, the companies that do it, do it regardless,” he says. “Th ose that don’t do it either don’t do it because there’s a reces-sion or they don’t do it because they’re too busy. If you want an excuse not to change, you can always fi nd one. Th at’s the brutal re-ality of it. We’ve previously had sustainable growth in some parts of the world, and elsewhere it’s been a good market for 10 years. If you haven’t innovated during that time, you sure as hell aren’t going to suddenly start. I think companies are beginning to realise a long-term recession means if you don’t improve your business, you

“In a year’s time there won’t be a

green page for the business section.

It’ll be embedded in all the aspects as a matter of course”

Trafalgar Square, London



“Dubai is not far behind. Oman’s waking up to environmental codes and most of the emirates are on the journey of seeing it as an integral part of being a world destination or a world fi nancial centre. If you’re going to play in the global marketplace, you’ve got to be seen to be responsible, and they’ve signed up. Th ey’ve signed up to Kyoto, and I think if you look at their policies, they don’t get credit for what they’ve done.”

Ultimately, Clarke is hopeful that the drive to sustainability will have positive eff ects outside just the environmental sphere; the industry too stands to benefi t from this shake-up. “It’s an accelerating curve, so I think it’s really interesting,” he says. “If we can crack it, some of the age-old chestnuts for the construction industry get changed as well, like interdisciplinary working, like knowledge transfer, like communication down the supply chains or the suppliers in embedded technology. You can’t get there without doing all that better than we’ve ever done it before. We’ve always had an excuse to dance around before, but the good news now is that it’s really diffi cult and that makes it unavoidable as opposed to being really diffi cult and avoidable.”

contrary, the last year or so has seen some big changes in the business. “We have had diffi cult choices,” he says. “Last October I was going to the Middle East to tell clients why I didn’t have the capacity to do work because we couldn’t grow quickly enough to service the market at the quality we demanded of ourselves, so we were resource-constrained. In November, we weren’t resource-constrained any more.” Th is has meant cuts in staff numbers which are still ongoing, but not an overall change in strategy. Investments that need to be made continue to go ahead and the fi rm’s commitment to sustainability remains as strong as ever. “We take the view that this is not ‘a hold your breath’ recession,” continues Clarke. “You can’t just think it will go away and defer a few training courses and conferences and hope it will be all right in six months. It won’t be. Your business has to perform in this environment, which could be the environment for a couple of years. And in those couple of years, improve your product. It’s time to manage. It’s not time to watch.”

Taking the leadManaging through the upheaval generated by a move to a more

sustainable way of working is going to require leadership. Traditional opinion on who is going to provide this leadership has generally come down to an either/or proposition between government and private busi-ness. However, Clarke rejects this polarised approach and advocates a more collaborative strategy. “Th e reality is there’s a dynamic between private companies, governments in their broadest sense as policymakers and leaders as elected representatives to society and academia, the people who do research and the people who teach,” he says. “Th ere needs to be the right relationship between industry, universities, higher education establishments and government. Th is is the only way you can spin this enough so that you can get a relationship to an evolving policy, policy implementation and new skills, and keep it going.” Clarke describes an optimal system as one where legislators and industry feed off each other. “Instead of government deciding that they’re going to do something and the private sector saying that it isn’t very good, we engage in a diff erent way in formulating not the policy but the implementation of the policy,” he continues. “I think if you can do that it’s a stunning opportunity for the UK because we have enormously strong world class universities. We have a world class engineering history.”

Clarke singles out the UK as one of the better countries with regard to climate change policy, though concerns remain over the ability to ef-fectively implement it. However, he reserves some of his strongest praise for a region that has not traditionally been associated with green issues. “We started investing in some of our carbon source three years ago in the Middle East before we did it anywhere else,” he says. “We sponsored a Chair of Sustainability at a university in Dubai. We’ve done it for four years, and we did it there because we thought that they were capable of changing the question quicker than anybody else, and they have a vested interest. At some point, most of those economies aren’t going to have oil, Saudi Arabia apart.

“Th e rest of the emirates could easily run out of resources in their view of their economy, which is quite long term. Th ey have a resource issue. Secondly, if you look at Abu Dhabi and the ruler’s statement on the environment, he wants to be a world leader on environmental issues. He staked his ground with Masdar and other developments.

Stimulus responseIs infrastructure investment really the answer to the economic crisis?

Keith Clarke: It’s something you should only do in extremes. It would be appalling to go back to the 1960s when construction was seen as an economic regulator. We’re doing it because we are in a world crisis in terms of fi nance. It’s inevitable the UK is going to get US$3 million in input. That’s pretty serious.

You’re not going fi x it by building a few more roads. You’re going fi x it by having a banking system that works. That’s the fi rst priority. It just has to be, because look at the amounts that have gone into that to stabilise it. You must have a banking system that works responsibly. After that, some short term stimulus is fi ne, but you need a view of infrastructure that’s more than market cycles.

It just takes that much longer and if you can look at decarbonising, you’ve got to look beyond that in terms of investment. I think the same would be true in America. A stimulus package is, frankly, at the margins. Part of it is to make people feel good. If they feel good, they get more confi dent. There is a lot to be said for doing things that numerically don’t make a big enough difference but give confi dence to other people who then do things. Unfortunately, I don’t think the stimulus package has done that in either country.



Moving people and goods quickly, effi ciently and cheap-ly is a central tenet of the EU’s goal for a dynamic economy

and cohesive society. Th e transport sector gen-erates 10 percent of EU wealth in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and provides more than 10 million jobs. Th erefore sustainable road construction is an important issue for the European economic system.

With the European transport system as it stands at present, there are no signs of individuals or companies turning away from road trans-port, and traffi c is continuing to increase at the rate of two percent a year. Th e constant growth in mobility puts severe strains on transport systems. In the EU, 44 percent of goods go by road, against 39 percent for short-sea shipping routes, 10 percent for rail and three percent for inland waterways.

Road dominates even more for passenger transport (largely car jour-neys) accounting for 81 percent against rail’s six percent and eight percent for air. As far as road transport is concerned, properly planned and

constructed roads are the connecting veins of our markets and countries. Fast and safe trans-portation of our daily goods without frontiers and traffi c hold-ups are the daily challenge of many companies.

But roads are not even roads. Th ere can be high diff erences between the quality and life-

span. BTC – a group com-pany of the world’s leading chemical company BASF – supplies the asphalt indus-try with high quality asphalt modifi ers for sustainable and eco-friendly road con-struction. Our Butonal SBR polymers for asphalt modi-fi cation are manufactured in a highly automated state-of-the-art facility, ensuring consistently high quality products. Th e products are successfully used in both hot mix and asphalt emul-sions applications, both domestically and globally.

Our excellent technical capabilities and knowledge

allow us to work closely with our customers creating value added solutions. Our research eff orts continue to push the frontier in asphalt polymer innovation. Add to this consistent and

accurate invoicing, consistent product qual-ity, and our excellent on-time delivery record. BTC is the ideal partner in business. With our polymers, roads have a high temperature performance – also in Southern Europe where the climate is hot and mostly dry or in Nordic regions where the weather is mosty cold, wet and frosty.

BASF Butonal polymers have long been a leader in asphalt modifi cation. Our Butonal polymers greatly enhance hot mix asphalt performance including the production of per-formance-graded asphalts. Modifi cation with these elastomers widens the asphalt’s useful temperature interval to improve resistance to rutting at high temperatures and decrease the susceptibility to thermal cracking at low tem-peratures. Th e resulting binder also displays superb resilience to improve the pavement’s fatigue behaviour, diminishing the cracking attributed to wear and tear.

All of these performance benefi ts are at-tained easily as Butonal polymers are readily dispersible into the asphalt without the need for high shear milling, with the fl exibility to be added to both the asphalt binder or fi nal mix. Chip seal and surface dressings BASF Butonal polymers have set new chip seal performance standards, being highly effi cient and enhanc-ing both early and long-term performance in chip seal systems. Th ey are easily dispersible into asphalt emulsions and can be added to the soap solution or co-milled along with the soap or directly injected into the asphalt line during milling. Research shows that it is imperative that the polymer is in the water phase of the emulsion to attain maximum benefi t and Bu-tonal polymers make this possible.

Th e use of BASF asphalt modifi ers is not limited to paving applications. Th ey are also used in water proofi ng membranes, pipe and tank coatings, roofi ng applications, sealers, automotive sound deadening and underbody protection. Th e addition of BASF asphalt mod-ifi ers improves the properties of the specialty coatings. Th ese include improved stress-strain properties, fi nal strength and long lasting elas-tometric properties.

Using the right asphalt modifi ers – like Butonal – guarantees a safe, eco-friendly and sustainable development of our actual and future European transport system. BTC com-plies with it.

Built to lastBTC’s Franz Saif explains the importance of using high-quality, high-performance materials in the construction and maintenance of Europe’s roadways.

Franz Saif is Director and Head of International Business, Procurement & Logistics at BTC Speciality Chemical Distribution GmbH in Cologne, Germany. He has many years of experience in the Butonal business and in international procurement in general. He joined BASF 29 years ago and over the past 10 years he has added value for BTC in Cologne.

INDUSTRYINSIGHT

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It is undeniable that airports have suff ered from falling passen-ger numbers since the economic crisis took hold. But taking a longer-term view is not something that Th omas Penner is par-ticularly worried about. “We are not so pessimistic about the fi gures. Numbers are increasing, very slowly, but in comparison

to a year ago they are increasing,” he says.And he is confi dent that the situation will not get much worse. He

believes that people need to interact and not just over the phone. Th ey have gotten used to travelling inexpensively and are no longer happy to just stay home.

Th is is pretty evident given passenger numbers at Munich airport, which, despite the general downward trend, are actually on the up. Th is begs the question as to what makes Munich Airport diff erent from the rest and how has it managed to resist the wider decline.

One of the main explanations for Penner is that there has been an

AIRPORTSERVICES

FLYING HIGHThomas Penner, VP Passenger and Terminal Services at Munich Airport, explains how passenger experience is an integral part of ensuring an airport’s success.

increase in the number of airlines operating out of Munich. Oman Air is one example he gives and he explains that, whilst other airports may have lost connections between certain destinations, Munich has managed to retain or add them. It has therefore seen an increase in the number of people using Munich as a hub airport. Th is does go some way to explain-ing why, since October, fi gures for Munich Airport are looking up. But there must be something more.

Penner puts it down to the customer experience, which he believes Munich excels at providing. “We are constantly talking to our clients, doing surveys and analysing the lifestyles of our customers and in this way we are well prepared to satisfy the passengers,” he says.

“A couple of years ago people came to an airport for the simple reason of travelling somewhere else and they liked it to be quick and easy,” he says. “In the meantime though, lifestyles have changed and people expect more from an airport. Th ey like to be able to get nice, fresh,

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trendy, modern food, so they like to fi nd a variety of restaurants, bars and especially shops.”

He believes that the ability to shop is very important for many pas-sengers, even if they don’t actually buy anything, and it’s the variety of shops that’s sets one airport apart from another. “Th at’s the reason why we have a tremendous amount of diff erent shops and work closely with our retail partners,” he says.

However, there aren’t many international airports that don’t pro-vide the services that Penner has described. So this alone can’t explain what sets Munich apart from its competitors. But apparently the answer is in the extent to which Munich attempts to meet the needs and desires of its passengers.

“We are very close to the user. For example we know he likes to have his car nearby, so we provide a valet parking service. We also have a curb-side check-in service right in front of the terminal, for the use of both business and leisure passengers. You then only need to carry your luggage about three metres inside the build-ing before you can check it in and pick up your boarding pass, if you haven’t already printed one out at home,” he explains.

Munich also off ers other services to make the airport experience as helpful as possible, such as a cloakroom service. “ If it is snowing here in Munich and you are on your way to the Maldives, you don’t want to take your fur coat and winter boots with you. So we take care of it and you only have to invest a couple of euros for this service,” explains Penner.

But it is not only the range of services on off er at Munich that help to enhance the customer experience. Technology also has a role to play in this. Internet facilities are available at the airport including WLAN, which is particularly valuable for business travellers. As is the new technology that allows passengers to have their boarding pass sent directly to their mobile phone. Th is state-of-the-art technology uses 2D barcodes that can be read from the screen of a mobile phone, eliminating the need to print out a paper boarding pass. Th e automation of this process helps to further speed up the fl ow of passengers from check-in to boarding. Th is is something that a number of large airlines now off er and that Penner sees as becoming more wide-spread in the future.

On the issue of security Penner explains that Passenger Services cooperate closely with the security authority at Munich airport in order to ensure a balance between safety and passen-ger experience. “We have a lot of meetings with the authorities to discuss how we can improve our service. Personally, I’m more than happy that our authorities are so open towards Passenger Services and passenger orientation. In this way we are able to promote better understanding and dialogue and we can act in a more passenger-oriented way,” he explains.

He points out that lengthy discussions are on going regard-ing check-in procedures and the equipment that is used for security purposes. All German airports have now decided to standardise the information they provide regarding how pas-

“You don’t have the feeling of getting

lost and there are no confusing

tunnels like at other airports”

sengers should proceed through security checks. Penner believes that this standardisation will help remove passenger confusion as they will get used to seeing the same information and experiencing the same se-curity procedures at all of Germany’s airports.

Ensuring safety at the airport is obviously paramount, but for Penner a fast and stress-free passage through security is obviously in the best interests of both the airport and its passengers. Making the security pro-cedures as painless as possible is therefore one of the top priorities and

again communication is key. Discussions with the security authorities take place on a very fre-quent basis and security staff are off ered train-ing. Penner explains that this training is very important as the staff come into close contact with passengers and so need the correct guid-ance. Th is can also include training in foreign languages and how to approach security checks for passengers of particular ethnic origins who may have diff erent religious and cultural cus-toms that need bearing in mind.

According to Penner, research shows that Munich airport is on the right track when it comes to customer experience. Th is has been

backed up by the fact that Munich was voted the best airport in Europe, for four years running, in Skytrax’s World Airport Awards. Th e inter-national awards are based on a survey of over 8.5 million passengers, covering 190 airports and over 97 diff erent passenger nationalities. From 2005 until 2008 Munich held the coveted title but this year was pipped to the post by Zurich. When asked what his strategy was for regaining the title, Penner joked that he didn’t want to reveal all his secrets, but did concede that this is something that is in constant discussion.

“We think that one of the most important factors is the human being, the travellers, the passengers. Th ey want to be treated nicely by the airport staff . Th at is the reason why we will shortly be starting a new


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programme involving all the people who work at the airport. We don’t have a name for it just yet, but maybe it will be something like the ‘Am-bassador Programme’,” explains Penner.

He notes that Munich already has a good track record regarding cus-tomer service, but he believes that there is always room for improvement. “I personally am convinced that the moment we do not think about how we could do better, we are no longer any good.”

From the sales people, to shop assistants, restaurant porters to civil servants and Federal Border Police to customs offi cials, Penner believes that all play an important role as helpers and need to identify themselves as such. Th is is something that the new programme hopes to address.

However, security and customer service aren’t the only issues that aff ect passengers. As Munich is an international hub airport that wel-comed over 34 million passengers in 2008, it is also essential that pas-senger traffi c can pass smoothly through the airport.

“Its not a question of the number of passengers, but rather your processes. You have to ensure that you have adequate resources, space and productivity – this is the secret. If you provide space as well as the opportunity to enjoy the time spent at the airport through shopping, this will make passengers happy,” explains Penner.

He also believes that ensuring smooth passenger traffi c through the airport is simply a question of easy pathfi nding especially for those passengers in transit. “Th ese passengers are not coming to Munich to be in Munich and they are not interested in Munich. Th at’s the reason we have to make it easy for them to fi nd their way to their connecting gate, not only through signage but by rethinking the passes and pas-sageways,” he says.

Munich also off ers a meet and assist service whereby people who will be transiting through Munich, but who are wary or apprehensive of making the connection, can book a guide who will meet them from one

fl ight and accompany them onto their connecting fl ight. Th is service is open to everybody and those with reduced mobility can use the service free of charge.

Although the passage through the airport, according to Penner, should be extremely straight-forward. “One of the wonderful ad-vantages we have is our self-explaining architecture. You don’t have the feeling of getting lost and there are no confusing tunnels like at other airports. We have one easy, simple and very clear system,” he says proudly. And again the passengers seem to agree as Munich was voted third best international transit airport in the world according to Skytrax’s 2009 survey.

So, for an airport that is already consistently found atop lists of Europe’s best airports and was this year voted fifth best airport in the world, what will Munich be doing in future to further enhance the passenger experience? “The majority of future service improvements will take place at the airport on the ground. It is here that we have the possibility to develop a programme to meet customer’s wishes. And that is what we try to do – surprise you and do more than you expect.”

World’s Top 10 Airports2009 2008

1 Incheon International Airport, South Korea 3

2 Hong Kong International Airport 1

3 Singapore Changi 2

4 Zurich 8

5 Munich 5

6 Kansai, Japan 6

7 Kuala Lumpur International Airport 4

8 Amsterdam Schiphol 11

9 Centrair Nagoya, Japan 12

10 Auckland 20

Source: Skytrax



The result of banning smoking totally is secret smoking in corridors, in toilets, by potted plants and in aircraft s, not to mention the rush at the security checks by last minute outdoor smokers trying to catch their plane. Not only does this mean

an unhappy and dissatisfi ed group of customers – on average about a third of the total – it also constitutes a major fi re hazard.

Th e Swedish company Medialounge hear about these problems daily, problems that can end up with a very costly surgery on the infrastructure of an airport. Medialounge specialises in solving the smoking problem at airports – with a twist: they do it without any costs.

A subtle, but yet very costly, not to mention hazardous event, is that passengers seeking to get round the smoking ban actually tear down fi re detectors in washrooms and toilets. “Th ese are the latest reports coming from the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway and Sweden,” says Roberts. Also many airports that have dedicated rooms for smoking are now experienc-ing the problem of keeping a room suffi ciently ventilated allowing for many to smoke in it at the same time.

With an average of 30 percent of the passenger population in Europe being smokers, this constitutes a large number of customers for both air-ports and airlines. Airlines are now starting to complain about the lack of smoking services at airports, as smoking in airplane toilets has become a common event again.

Creative ideas “As all successful companies, Medialounge continuously develops

the products and business off ers, even if the current products meet the standard very well,” says Roberts. “We are now launching a new product series and when we started the development we set the aim high – we want the Medialounge solution to heighten the overall image of an air-port,” exclaims Roberts with a big smile. ”By turning the Medialounge unit even more into an infotainment lounge, as well as a high-tech air-port solution, it will be appreciated by everyone concerned: airports, pas-sengers, airlines and advertising concessionaires selling advertisements on the Medialounges.”

Th e new model takes the Medialounges a step further in all directions; a more stylish appearance, higher air cleaning capacity, better media chan-nel abilities, and better scalability to fi t the needs of various locations and of course more welcoming for the actual user. Better still, no interference with the airport infrastructure is needed. “We are very fortunate to have the best solution on the market right now, when most of the world suff ers a slump in demand as a result of the fi nancial crisis,” says Roberts. Th e Medialounge solution can even heighten the commercial potential of the airport by managing the passenger fl ow more effi ciently, she says.

INDUSTRYINSIGHT

The new Medialounge unit

The new Medialounge smoking lounge series has matured into an elegant infotainment lounge with groundbreaking air-cleaning performance and many new creative features for example:

- New exclusive and elegant design, sturdy and spacious. - Modular concept. Modules can be added to reach a capacity

from eight people at a time to 60. - No infrastructural modifi cations are necessary at the airport. - The air-cleaning consumption will be impressive and just one

fi lter tower will clean about 1200 m3 of air per hour, removing all harmful substances and odours leaving just clean air. The air in the lounge will be exchanged up to 2.5 times per minute.

- Self-sustained, just plug it in. - Illuminated advertising signs outside and digital displays

inside, ensuring the fi nancing of this solution.- Low energy consumption and noise level. - Self-closing sliding doors.

A simple solution to smokingAirports that completely banned smoking on their premises a year ago are now experiencing costly problems associated with not offering services for their smoking customers says Jeanine Roberts, CEO of Medialounge.

Jeanine Roberts has managed companies since 1992. In 2002, she started a company that built and marketed smoking lounges in Sweden. The smoking lounges were placed at large work places like Atlas Copco and the bank SEB. This was to be the predecessor to Medialounge advertising solutions AB of which Roberts is now CEO.

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AVIATION

TO INTEGRATIONAlexander ter Kuile, Secretary General of CANSO, explains the issues currently facing the aviation industry and what the future holds for the sector.

The economic crisis is clearly aff ecting the aviation industry very heavily at the moment. Th e main issue is the loss of demand – both passenger and cargo. Th is leads to over capac-ity, which in turn leads to a very quick low-ering of fares in order to stimulate demand. Th ose two eff ects together are leading to a very signifi cant, in fact unprecedented, loss

of revenue for the aviation industry. Th is is aff ecting not just airlines. Airports and air traffi c control organisations have all lost between 20 and 25 percent of revenues. We have never in the history of aviation seen a crisis of this magnitude. Th e growth of aviation has had a setback of about fi ve years due to the economic crisis.

However, there are other challenges facing the aviation industry at the moment. If you focus specifi cally on air traffi c control, then the main challenge is the severe fragmentation of the air space that results from the international agreement that each state is responsible for its own airspace. Fragmentation is increased as each state seeks its own solutions to the provision of air traffi c control.


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Safety is an area that is less of an issue at the moment due to the fact that air traffi c is down. Because demand is so low, the capacity issues that we had two years ago are now on the back burner. Th e main issue now is to contain costs and increase revenue, but once air traffi c growth returns – and it will take a few years to get back to the level of demand we saw in 2008 – then capacity and safety will again be on the front burner. Th ey will be priority issues as congestion is always around the corner and in a congested aviation en-vironment, safety and safety management are key issues. One of the key safety issues is actually congestion on the ground, surprisingly. It is issues related to runway incursions that are our biggest safety issue. We have inci-dents on the ground more than we actually have incidents in the sky.

Th e key safety issue at European level however, is that due to legisla-tion coming out of the European Commission, we are transitioning from a national aviation regulatory and oversight environment to a European one, where the new European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is respon-sible for a harmonised aviation safety approach in Europe. Th is is having a big impact as we are now fi nally bringing the entire aviation value chain under one European regulatory body and all 27 EU Member States now need to work under regulations that EASA will be providing to all sectors of aviation, eff ective from 2013.

Th is contributes towards our eff orts of achieving a single European sky, which is still a paper environment at the moment. It is legislation that is in place, but we are still to see the implementation of it, and therefore we are still some years away from seeing the impact of a harmonised Europe-an airspace. We are making progress in developing the airspace proposals for a single European sky, and we’re working towards implementation by 2012, but the full eff ect will not be visible until all technology is harmon-ised and fully interoperable, and that will not be until the 2020s. So we still have more than 10 years to go until society will fully benefi t from a single European sky.

But the main obstacle to this is not technological. Technology-wise we have everything available to us. Th e SESAR Programme is a vastly complex one aimed at harmonising the air traffi c control technology in Europe. It will be a programme that takes 10 to 15 years to fully come to fruition, so the timelines and complexity of delivering it are huge. But this is the fi rst time in European history that we have had such an agreement, across both the political and the operational spectrum of aviation, on the direction we should be heading in. It is extremely positive that we have been successful in creating it and setting it up, but we must be realistic and not expect the fruits for at least another eight to 10 years.

Th e main obstacle to the creation of a single European sky is in fact political and institutional and this is what is holding us back. With the single European sky we have come a long way towards achieving this at a European level, but at the global level we need to get 180 governments to think similarly and that is a gigantic task that will take generations.

Air traffi c management is a very political service. It is closely re-lated to national defence and national sovereignty and therefore it is not something that civil providers can just resolve by themselves over

night. It is something that requires full political sup-port to address and we need our military partners on board to achieve some of the future visions that we have. Government has a tremen-dous role to play in this. Th e

diffi culty that we see is to get all the various parties on one line in order to achieve the results in an acceptable time frame.

In the meantime, aviation has proved itself to be the most suc-cessful industry sector, historically, in reducing its CO2 and noise on a per unit basis. We have reduced consumption per unit by 75 percent over the past 25 years and will continue to invest in the research and development to further improve both noise and CO2 emissions on a per unit basis.

What aviation has very successfully done, and again we are the only industry sector to achieve it, is to set ourselves very clear targets for the coming 40 years. We have stated publicly and announced so in advance of the Copenhagen summit of the UNFCCC in December, that aviation will improve its fuel effi ciency by one and a half percent per year until 2020. Th en we will see carbon neutral growth post 2020 and we should see a halving of our CO2 emissions by 2050 in comparison with today’s level. We believe that we are the only industry that has been totally unanimous in setting our own goals and our track record shows that we have signifi cantly reduced noise and emissions over the past 25 years and we will continue to improve our performance.

Alexander ter Kuile has been Secretary-General of CANSO (Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation) since January 2001. He joined the organisation after a distinguished aviation career including positions at KLM, Fokker Aircraft, the RAND corporation, and latterly was a Director at the Consultancy Simat Helliessen & Eichner. He is a board member of ATAG, and a Governor of the Flight Safety Foundation. CANSO is the global voice of the companies that provide air traffi c control. Founded in 1996, it represents the interests of the Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) worldwide.

“Th e SESAR Programme is a vastly complex one aimed at harmonising the air traffi c

control technology in Europe”


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In an uncertain business environment, many airlines arelooking for ways to reduce costs and increase flexibility.What role can baggage tag/boarding pass solutionsplay in these efforts? Stan Peterson. In May 2008, VidTroniX launched a cam-paign offering a five percent discount on all new printer or-ders. Soon after, the Pay-Per-Print service was set intomotion. With this innovative plan, VidTroniX supplies theprinter, paper stock and related print materials; the cus-tomer pays only for each document printed. The flexibilityof this arrangement allows the client to add to, relocate, orremove the printer and paper stock from the locations asthe need of the client dictates. Each printer possesses a fulllifetime warranty, thereby alleviating the cost of partsand/or repair. There is no capital investment required bythe customer. The expense of printing tickets is purely op-erational and therefore 100 percent tax deductible.

How are technologies such as RFID being employed in airport baggagetags? What particular benefits can these technologies bring? SP. Currently there are a few airports around the world that are utilisingRFID within their baggage handling operations, with the two main locationsbeing Las Vegas and Hong Kong. VidTroniX was initially involved with theLas Vegas project and is in talks with other airports and airlines for furtherdevelopment of the technology. While the read rate for RFID bags is near-ly 100 percent on working tags, the price of the tags and cost of infrastruc-ture are currently too great for the struggling airline market to bear. Inaddition, once the baggage and cargo leave the RFID-enabled facilities, thetags are essentially a standard baggage tag unless they arrive at anotherRFID-enabled facility.

What impact is the growing trend of travellers printing their own board-ing passes having on the industry? Do more traditional boarding passsolutions have attributes that newer online alternatives are unable toprovide? SP. Over the last 10 years, the airline industry has moved away from the ex-pensive mag stripe tickets in favour of the 2D bar code. In 1999 VidTroniX,in association with Southwest Airlines, followed shortly by Alaska Airlines,made the decision to move directly to 2D primarily due to the amount of datathat could be included on the document. When the 2D barcode is printed onticket stock, it is as secure as the magnetic stripe, but when printed at home,security issues arise. While having the option to print boarding passes at homeis very convenient, it is also fraught with potential fraud, as it is not difficultto manipulate the data to bypass initial security and if the scanner is down atthe gate, to board the plane. Most airlines and airports use specialised secure

stock that airline and TSA representatives are familiar with rather than a stan-dard white sheet of copy paper. In addition, the barcodes via a PDA device orphone can also be similarly manipulated to bypass security, as they are sim-ply an electronic version of the print-at-home ticket.

Having the right tool for the job has a big impact on the overall efficien-cy of any operation. What factors do potential purchasers need to con-sider when deciding on a baggage tag and boarding pass solution? SP. As with any industry, cost, reliability and service are important when se-lecting the right product for your company, but within the travel industrythese factors are essential. Unlike a typical company, an airline is spreadacross the country – sometimes the world – and therefore must ensure thatthe products they rely on for their business are not only priced right to beginwith, but also that they are reliable and don’t need continual service, whichin some cases can cost more than the product over its lifetime. Due to thereliability of VidTroniX’s products, our repair department consists of es-sentially two people for over 65,000 printers in the industry today. One ofour newest customers actually cancelled their worldwide service contractfor their printers, as it is more cost-effective to simply ship the small print-er back to us for any repairs that may be needed. One of the many uniquefeatures of the VidTroniX ATP printer is that all parts for the new printerare backwards compatible with the first version of the printer. Not only areparts of the new printers interchangeable with the older models, but a moredated printer has the ability to be upgraded to an ATP3 by simply adding anew main board. n

All aboard


Stan Peterson of VidTroniX answers questions on the technology solutionsfor boarding passes and baggage tags.

EXECUTIVEINTERVIEW

Stan Peterson is the owner of VidTroniX LLC.

VIDTRONIX EXEC_18nov 03/12/2009 15:05 Page 54

VidTroniX, LLC has been associated with the airline industry since 1972. We are a skilled leader in product design, manufacturing, direct sales, parts supply and maintenance of Baggage Tag/Boarding Pass/ATB1/ATB2/, Gate Readers/BGR/, Custom Kiosk, and many other specialty product printers that utilize direct thermal print technology. VidTroniX specializes in every aspect of these products; from original design, to fi eld installation and beyond.

To date VidTroniX has installed 65,000 printers in locations throughout the world and we work diligently to defi ne ourselves as a company driven to excel at and evolve with the most up to date technological advances in the travel industry.

VidTroniX has expanded its presence in the global marketplace with the addition of fl ight information display systems (FIDS), keyboards, BGR imagers, monitor/displays, cleaning cards and baggage weighing systems.

VidTroniX has recently purchased a 7000 sq/ft building to streamline our ever-increasing production. With a reputation for top quality and reliability, VidTroniX is proud to have supplied our customers an on-time delivery schedule of 9000 printers, with $12,000,000.00 in revenues for 2008. In the future, the travel industry can expect VidTroniX to continue to broaden its reach and maintain the level of excellence that our customers demand.

Printers for the twenty-fi rst century

6607 Martindale RoadShawnee, KS 66218

www.vidtronix.com

Stan Peterson (Owner)E: [email protected]

T: 816-591-4124

Ryan Mang (Sales)E: [email protected]

T: 913-441-4124

Branson Baggage Claim

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The Wirral Hospital in the United Kingdom provides a compre-hensive range of healthcare services from two main hospital sites – Arrowe Park Hospital in Upton and Clatterbridge Hos-pital in Bebington. It is one of the biggest acute NHS trusts in

the North West, with a workforce of almost 6000 staff serving a population of 400,000 across the Wirral peninsula, Ellesmere Port and Neston.

The challengeWith over 1250 visitors each month, Wirral Hospital needed to

upgrade and unite two car parking systems and facilities at the Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge Hospitals. Th ey required a parking solution that would connect and improve the existing parking facilities and soft ware management with minimal disturbance to staff , patients and visitors. Th e new system would need to provide connectivity whilst making the parking experience easier for visitors and for staff to monitor parking and equipment. It would also need to ensure parking was more profi table for the hospital. Aft er reviewing all options, Wirral Hospital chose to work with Zeag because of its innovative approach to their requirements.

Eliminating costly groundworks“One of the biggest costs associated with car parking facilities is the

need for groundworks, whether this is to connect to the existing network or to supply electricity to payment stations or barrier gates,” said David Jones, Director at Zeag.

Zeag used Wirral Hospital’s existing Wi-Fi network to connect the two sites and implemented the Pay-on-Foot Parking Revenue System.

When entering the car park, visitors use the Zeag-Orion exit-entry barriers and pay stations. Th e Zeag Management Soft ware (ZMS) suite connects over the Wi-Fi network to transmit ticket numbers and entry time from the Orion products. When exiting the car park, details of how long the visitor has stayed, what the tariff is for that length of stay and how much to charge is all communicated over Wi-Fi from the payment station to the control station.

“Zeag’s innovative solution made it possible for the entire imple-mentation of equipment and soft ware to take only four weeks,” said Bob Jones, Design Manager at Wirral Hospital. “Th e cost savings of using Wi-Fi for this project rather than spending weeks on groundworks saved the hospital tens of thousands of pounds. We now have in place a profes-sional and innovative system that’s able to generate an alternative source of income for the hospital.”

The implementationImproved equipment means making parking simple, so Zeag in-

stalled the Zeag-Orion equipment to provide a straightforward parking system to maximise profi ts and minimise costs at Wirral Hospital. Th e system is reliable, advanced, secure and fl exible to give visitors a simple parking experience. Products installed include: Zeag OrionXR Entry and Exit Stations, Zeag OrionXR Pay Stations and Zeag Management Soft ware (ZMS).

All pay stations, entry and exit stations and barriers can be viewed on a single screen, complete with status details on all. Any problems are instantly fl agged up on screen with audible alerts if necessary. Upcoming maintenance, such as ticket levels, can also be seen, allowing even the most complex parking operation to be monitored by a single manager.

Statistics from these machines are collated to provide unparalleled management information on occupancy, busy times, monies taken, etc. Correct use of this information can improve revenues signifi cantly and also provide clients with useful information on footfall.

The resultsBy using an innovative Wi-Fi

solution, Zeag was able to save Wirral Hospital thousands of pounds by eliminating the need to install underground duct work for data and intercom cabling for the parking equipment. Furthermore, both hospitals were connected by the ZMS solution, allowing visibility of all car-parking facilities from one central location.

“Every hospital needs more money and parking can be a source of this extra revenue,” said David Jones. “By installing and maintain-ing reliable and secure parking fa-cilities, we are able to help generate this income without the headaches that can be involved.”

PROJECTFOCUS

David Jones is Chief Marketing Offi cer of Zeag Group. After he successfully spearheaded Zeag UK to success, Jones was promoted to Zeag Group to expand global growth. His remit is to work with Zeag’s subsidiaries and partners around the world to drive awareness of Zeag’s innovative professional parking solutions.

Smart savingsZeag’s David Jones outlines the company’s involvement in upgrading two hospital car parking facilities in the UK and how this helped save thousands of pounds.

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The demands on the European transport sector have never been greater, thanks to the rapid growth in mobility of both people and

goods. While excellent for the economy – the sector’s annual turnover is estimated at around €400 billion – this inevitably throws up plenty of operational challenges.

One of the greatest is the protection of critical infrastructure – the solid transporta-tion and service delivery platform on which we depend for travel and the delivery of utility services. Due to our interlinked global society, any disruption to these essential services can have a massive impact that can ripple around the world within hours. Yet this vital infra-structure is potentially vulnerable to a host of threats, including cyber crime, physical attacks, environmental and natural disasters and terrorism.

At ARINC we recognise the immense burden this places on managers responsible for security at airports, seaports, railways, metros, highways, coach stations and international bor-ders. We appreciate that, for eff ective protec-tion, they need fully integrated systems that can not only maximise the effi ciency of disparate

legacy equipment but also easily adapt to new technologies. In short, they need to meet today’s security needs as well as providing the fl exibil-ity to accommodate tomorrow’s challenges.

Th is is precisely what master systems inte-grator ARINC off ers with its proven Advanced Information Management (AIM) platform, a market leader in the USA’s critical infra-structure security industry. AIM’s command-and-control soft ware enables a wide range of security technologies and functions to be in-corporated into fully-managed, cost-eff ective and scalable solutions.

AIM has been successfully confi gured for the protection of nuclear power facilities, mass transit systems, airports, seaports, government facilities, military installations, education campuses and, most recently, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites.

Now facilities across Europe can benefi t from this tried-and-tested security technology. By seizing the middle ground between budget-busting, custom-built, one-off designs and pre-packaged, one-size-fi ts-all off erings, AIM can provide a cost-eff ective security solution for organisations of every size. A key aspect of implementation is ensuring that security solu-tions are optimised for specifi c threats and to leverage investment in legacy systems.

Scalable across single or multiple zones within one or more facilities, AIM provides sophisticated monitoring of all sub-system ac-tivities and alarms, giving operators a common picture of their facility. Th is capability can also

be extended to handheld devices, allowing fi rst responders to receive video and data for real-time decision-making on the front line.

Off ering interfaces for intrusion detection, access control, video surveillance management, physical security information management (PSIM), credential management, biometrics-based identity management, closed-circuit television (CCTV), vehicle identifi cation, asset management and integrated geographical in-formation systems (GIS), AIM is a powerful and reliable device for any site that depends on real-time awareness for the safety of its personnel, customers and facilities.

For sites where quick deployment and straightforward integration with existing infrastructure are primary concerns, a scaled-down version, AIM Enterprise Security Plat-form (ESP), allows organisations to manage their own migration to newer types of security technologies at their own pace. Th is version is also useful for any facility with changing se-curity needs or where fast response to threats is crucial.

AIM ESP also provides security integrators with a ‘technology bridge’ for those seeking a newer and open security enterprise environ-ment while maximising the return on their existing investment in security infrastructure.

With the growth in traffi c between member states of the expanding European Union forecast to double by 2020, the security of transport infrastructure is an ever-present challenge that cannot be ignored. In today’s world, economic competitiveness relies on the fast, easy – and, above all, safe – movement of people and goods.

AIM provides the complete solution, backed by ARINC’s unrivalled expertise in communications, engineering, systems inte-gration and project management. A pioneer of air travel technology 80 years ago, the compa-ny remains a trail-blazer, providing engineer-ing solutions to a range of industries with over 150 innovative products and services designed to attain the highest levels of operational ef-fi ciency and reliability.

AIM for infrastructure

securityWhy the security of transport infrastructure remains an ever-present challenge in an expanding European Union.

ARINC EMEA has launched a physical security business providing protection for critical infrastructure under the leadership of Andy Nicholson, who joins as Security Business Development Director. Nicholson was previously VP of International Business development at CMS and Steelbox Inc. Prior to that he worked at Telindus, managing the Global Physical Security Solutions teams focusing on Critical Infrastructure.

ANDY

NICHOLSON

ASK THEEXPERT

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HIGH-SPEEDRAIL

As high-speed rail gathers speed on the European agenda, plans for a trans-European network seem to be on track. EU Infrastructure spoke to Michael Robson of EIM to fi nd out how high-speed rail fi ts into the wider transport picture.

THE NEED FOR SPEED

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“Th ere is the opportunity for the airlines to work with the railways and

perhaps become providers of

high-speed rail themselves”

Super fast trains have been zipping passengers around Europe for over two decades with an estimated 50 million passen-gers using high-speed services annually. However, as Europe expands, the need for a pan-European rail network becomes more of a priority and high-speed rail features prominently

on the European Commission’s radar.Michael Robson, Secretary General of the European Infrastructure

Managers, believes that the time is now right to invest in high-speed rail. In his keynote speech that he delivered at the Elmia Nordic Rail conference held in October in Jönköping, Sweden, he said: “Th e time is defi nitely right for high-speed rail for two simple reasons. Firstly, an in-creasing concern for the environment – and rising fuel costs – is prompt-ing governments, consumers and business to look into more sustainable modes of transport. Secondly, the fi nancial crisis is an opportunity for high-speed rail. Government stimulus packages have made funding available for investment in new sustainable infrastructure.”

Many European countries are now taking full advantage of this opportunity. Th ose who already have a high-speed rail network are investing in upgrades and extensions, while others are starting to explore the advantages that building a high-speed network could bring. Th e potential exists to completely redraw the European transport map and create a continent where national boundaries are eroded by a pan-European network. Th is process is already gaining momentum.

“High-speed rail is a key player in the wider trans-port picture,” says Robson. “Obviously as low-cost airlines have developed, we have reached a point where airports are having to build more runways. Th e UK is a classic example with Heathrow perhaps having to do this. With high-speed rail this can be traded off if networks are properly developed.”

Robson cites some of the major airports in main-land Europe – Charles de Gaulle, Schipol, Zaventem and Frankfurt – which are linked with high-speed rail and play an integral role in moving passengers from the country to the central hubs of airports for inter-continental fl ights. Th is is something he sees as a vital role for high-speed rail in the future.

In this respect Robson highlights the fact that de-veloping the high-speed network need not necessarily represent an outright rival to airlines. “I think it could be a threat, but I think it could also be an opportunity for them. We could see a reduction in domestic fl ights and fl ights between European cities where there is a good high-speed rail network and existing examples of this are obviously London to Paris, London to Brussels and Brussels to Paris where fl ights have virtually disappeared because of high-speed rail,” says Robson.

“But there is also the opportunity for the airlines to work with the railways and perhaps become providers of high-speed rail themselves,” he explains. He believes that it is completely plausible that airlines such as Air France, Luft hansa and Virgin, which incidentally already has its own rail network, could have their own fl eet of high-speed trains on which

they could transport passengers to their hub airports in one seamless journey using through-ticketing, which would allow passengers to book air and train tickets in one simple transaction. Robson suggests that the liberalisation of the passenger market, which is due to begin in January of next year, provides the perfect opportunity for new players to enter the market making the scenario above a reality.

However, there will of course be a certain amount of competition that will inevitably arise between high-speed rail and aviation, and there is already an alliance that is working to ensure seamless rail travel across Europe at a standard that can rival the airlines. Railteam’s mission is to make high-speed rail travel more competitive by improving travel infor-mation, frequent traveller benefi ts and high-speed network connections.

For Robson it is evident that high-speed rail is already starting to off er some of the traditional incentives used by airlines. “Th ere is already a EuroStar frequent traveller card. Th ere is a Th alys frequent traveller card and Rail Team are looking to combine them into a single frequent

traveller card,” he explains. “Th ere are also lounges for EuroStar customers and Deutsche Bahn in Germany has got lounges for fi rst class customers, so those sort of things are developing. You can add on to that free car parking, and the fact that you can also now buy electronic rail tickets or you can buy them over the phone.” But for Robson the important thing is to make the journey seamless and to make passengers feel like valued customers.

Whether high-speed rail becomes a true competi-tor or a partner to aviation, the geographical scope of the European network will have to be extended. Th e main priority, as Robson sees it, is to extend to the rest of Europe and in particular the new EU Member States, where much of current state funding is going on improving road transport networks and where air travel is very much on the rise.

One reason why extending the network is so important is political in part. In his keynote speech in Sweden, Robson said: “Territorial cohesion is a key plank of the European Union development policy. In a nutshell, it involves ensuring that all regions, espe-cially peripheral ones, are able to reap the benefi ts of the internal market, and to ensure that all regions reach a certain level of economic development. High-speed rail has a signifi cant contribution to make to this goal in sustainably opening up regions to make them more competitive while reducing congestion in other modes.”

And there are regions where this has already proven to be successful. “Spain is probably the best example of where high-speed rail has really revolutionised transport within a country,” says Robson. “Before there were not good road links or airports, but the high-speed network in Spain has really brought about social cohesion in the country and has developed mobility dramatically,” he continues.

However, extending the network is one thing, but in order to estab-lish a high-speed network that is truly pan-European, issues of interoper-


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Speaking at the Elmia Nordic Rail conference held in Jönköping, Sweden from the 6-8 October, Michael Robson explained the state of play in Europe.

High-speed rail has long been popular in a number of western European countries and many pioneering developments took place on this continent. The French TGV, for example, was one of the world’s fi rst true high-speed rail systems. Jean Dupuy, the ‘father of the TGV’ was the recipient of one of the fi rst European Railway Awards in 2007. Germany has also had a long-standing relationship with high-speed rail – its high-speed ICE service has been running since the early 1990s.

Spain is also a member of the high-speed rail club, having operated passenger services since the mid 1990s. These services have proved popular and competitive. In Spain, the AVE service, which reaches speeds of up to 300km/h has taken a huge share of the domestic air market, particularly on the Madrid-Barcelona route.

Portugal also operates fast Pendolino services on a number of lines and is planning to build a true high-speed line that will allow mixed traffi c to travel up to 350km/h between Lisbon and Madrid.

Italy’s high-speed network has grown since the fi rst route between Florence and Rome was opened in 1978. A new high-speed network on the two main axes Milan-Bologna-Florence-Rome-Naples and Turin-Milan-Verona-Venice-Trieste is being built. Connections with neighbouring countries are also being built, although these will rely on conventional services for the moment.

The United Kingdom benefi ts from a high-speed rail link to the continent via the Eurostar. The domestic services will soon be able to take advantage of this high-speed line from the coast to London, while a serious debate is continuing about building a second high speed line linking London to the coast.

Belgium and the Netherlands are upgrading their networks to provide a high-speed service between Brussels and Amsterdam. The Netherlands is planning the construction of an “HSL-East” link between Amsterdam and the German border. Belgium has also recently opened new high-speed lines improving connections with Germany and the Netherlands.

Poland has received EU funding to build a “Y” shaped network, linking Warsaw with ód , with branch lines connecting to Wroc aw and Pozna . The total cost of the project will be in the region of €6.9 billion. Work is also in progress to upgrade a number of existing lines to enable them to handle traffi c travelling at speeds of 250kpm/h.

Romania is investigating the possibility of building a high-speed line to connect to the European network and is seeking European funding to support a feasibility study. This line would probably run from Bucharest to Budapest in Hungary and form part of a planned Paris-Constanta transport corridor.

In Scandinavia, there are not as yet any true high-speed services, though research is being undertaken into the feasibility of developing high-speed links in Sweden and many conventional lines in Sweden, Denmark and Norway have been upgraded to carry passengers at up to 180-200km/h.


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ValladolidZaragoza

Vitoria

Madrid

Valencia

Barcelona

Pristina

Podgorica

Sarajevo

Skopje

St.Petersburg

Oulu

Tampere

Turku

Napoli

Roma

Nice

Torino

Marseille

Málaga

Lisboa

Sevilla

Tirana

Thessaloniki

Zagreb

Bologna

Ljubljana

Sivas

Sofia

Ankara

KayseriKonya

TallinnStockholm

Helsinki

Riga

Minsk

PoznanBerlin

Budapest

Praha

Gdansk

Warszawa

Katowice

Wien

KrakowNürnberg

Bratislava

ZürichMünchen

Strasbg

Milano

Bordeaux

Toulouse

Alicante

Coruña

FkftLux

KölnKiev

Chisinau

Bucuresti

Athinai Izmir

Brux

Moskva

Lyon

Oslo

Göteborg

Kobenhavn

Nantes

Paris

Hannover

Hamburg

Amsterdam

LondonBristol

Dublin

EdinburghGlasgow

Bursa

Istanbul

Vilnius

Vigo

Porto

Beograd

However, if these challenges can be met and overcome, the benefi ts are multiple. High-speed rail provides smooth connections from city centre to city centre. For journeys of 150 – 400km, from door to door, high-speed rail is much faster than air as rail stations are more conve-niently located than airports, there is less waiting time and fewer cum-bersome security procedures. High-speed rail maintains this advantage over air for journeys up to 800km, aft er which point air travel is more time effi cient. It also negates the need to build further regional airports or more runways.

High-speed rail also off ers the advantage of its environmentally friendly credentials, says Robson. Being electrifi ed, the network could make use of renewable energy forms. It also has a reasonable low envi-ronmental foot print in terms of land-use, using only a third of the land needed to build a motorway but moving far more people.

Robson also mentions the inherent advantages for business users. “Th ere is the ability to have Wi-Fi access all the time that you are on the train, so that you can continue working. You can eat on the train and get newspapers or tea and coff ee. Or, indeed, you can organise to have a meeting with your colleagues around a table so you can use the time productively. I think it’s much more user friendly.”

ability must be solved to ensure that international services can connect across borders. Robson views interoperability as a challenge certainly, but he does not believe that this will necessarily hinder developments and points out that the Eurostar currently operates seamlessly across the infrastructure of three diff erent countries and Th alys has no prob-lems either.

“It is easier to ensure interoperability when you are building new lines, because we already have technical specifi cations for this. Th e diffi culty comes when you are going to use parts of the old lines,” he explains.

So if interoperability is not the greatest challenge in the eyes of Robson, what is? “I think the main challenge in some countries will be actually getting permission to build a high-speed line because while rail is seen as environmentally friendly, a lot of people don’t want it built near their property. So, in the more densely populated countries, I think that could be an issue,” he says.

“Whilst high-speed rail is environmentally friendly, the Achilles heel is sometimes said to be the noise, so we need to work hard at making both the infrastructure and the trains quieter to reduce the level of noise. A further challenge will be integrating high-speed networks into the centre of cities at a speed that still allows them to be high-speed.”

V 250 km/h V 250 km/h Planned 180 v 250km/h Other Lines

EUROPEAN HS NETWORK As of Febuary 2008

Information provided by the railways



STEVO Electric Ltd. is a company with its main activity specialised in the delivery and support of test equip-ment used in HV networks for the BENELUX market.

Since 2003 it has also been active in the develop-ment of equipment for carrying out tests and controls of high-speed DC breakers. As a result, STEVO Elec-tric supplies a mobile high-current generator, which

has been on the market since 2004, for adequately testing high-speed DC breakers in the transport sector, such as are found in trains, sub-ways, trams and trolleys. Th is includes infrastructure as well as trac-tion substations and rolling stock.

Th is activity includes development, production and commerciali-sation of what is actually STEVO Electric’s second important market segment. Th e DC current generator BALTO 6.000A is a high current generator of which the development is chiefl y based on the functional specifi cations of diff erent railway companies.

Since 2004, STEVO Electric has been testing the BALTO 6.000A system worldwide in several traction domains – traction substations and rolling stock – to which high-speed DC breakers are applied. More-over, STEVO Electric maintains close contacts with manufacturers of high-speed DC breakers, which is essential for testing the equipment in question.

Th ese contacts – along with market research – have led to the de-velopment of an innovative system, which will make it possible to meet every specifi c requirement.

BALTO 6.000A/13.000A DCTh e BALTO 6.000A system has been designed to generate very

high test currents for operational testing of high-speed DC circuit breakers. Th ese high test currents are injected on the main circuit of the high-speed DC circuit breakers. With these tests, complete circuits of current transducers, current conducting parts, connecting parts and protection relays can be checked.

For the construction and assembling of the BALTO system, special care has been taken for ease of transportation between diff erent traction substations and switching panels. Th is mobility is a major practical ad-

vantage for carrying out tests on high-speed DC circuit breakers, which are installed on rolling stock.

Installation, assembly and connection of the BALTO system can be done rapidly and without extensive training. All components are por-table and transport is convenient and easily carried out.

Th e BALTO 6.000A system has three operation modes – an auto-matic mode, a manual mode and a micro ohm measurement mode; each one with registered measured quantities. For injection currents up to 13.000A DC, two BALTO 6.000A systems are parallel connected, in a master-slave confi guration.

AC applicationConcerning the AC applications, STEVO Electric has a gamma of

test equipment at its disposal for controlling the AC Vacuum Circuit Breaker 50Hz for traction vehicles.

In the fi rst instance, the intention of STEVO Electric was to dis-tribute test equipment for the energy sector – high and low voltage – in Belgium, Luxemburg and for some representatives in the Netherlands.

Th e contacts in the transport sector showed a need for mobile test equipment for testing high-speed DC breakers. Representatives at inter-national congresses and venues have equally put these needs forward.

Stefaan Volkaert is founder and General Manager of STEVO Electric, which was founded at the end of 1999. Volkaert previously spent fi ve years working with ABB in the robotics domain. Since 1989, he has been part of the sales team working in the domain of high-voltage equipment, such as security, net control and SCADA.

INDUSTRYINSIGHT

Current affairsStefaan Volkaert of STEVO Electric outlines the company’s latest developments.

“Th ese contacts – along with market research – have led to the development of an innovative system, which will make it possible to meet every specifi c requirement”

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The opening sentence of the ProgressReport on the Implementation of theRailway Safety Directive (2004/49/EC)and the Railway Interoperability

Directives (96/48/EC and 2001/16/EC) that waspublished by the European Commission onSeptember 8, 2009 says: “Recent difficultiesnotwithstanding, rail plays a significant part in theEuropean economy. In 2004 in EU-27, rail trans-port had an estimated turnover of €60 billion andbrought €34 billion added value to the economy,accounting for over 900,000 jobs.”

The report gives an excellent overview of thestate of affairs and summarises the development. Itis therefore not my intention to repeat it here. Iwould rather like to look ahead at some particularissues that require focus in the next period of time.

Legal frameworkProgress has been achieved in establishing

the legal framework. Today we may concludethat the legal framework is almost complete.Almost, because some very important TSIs aremissing. The TSI for Conventional Rolling Stockis urgently needed. Step one is to complete theTSI. In freight transport the success of the corri-dor approach becomes visible. Locomotives arenow being operated over complete corridors.KEMA Rail Transport certification is very proudof its contributions in this area. But the experi-ence of using Cross Acceptance criteria based onthe MoU for the DACHINL Corridor andBENEFLUCH Corridor shows us that it still re-quires a very high degree of discussions with allthe national safety authorities on a corridor. TheTSI Rolling Stock can end this, at least for newrolling stock.

In one or two years the legal framework willbe sufficiently complete. It will include everythingthat is necessary to create and operate a safe, reli-able, in short, interoperable railway system. Thisis a good job done. But it is based on a somewhatartificial structure of the so-called ‘StructuralSubsystems’. In the real world the interfaces be-tween the Structural Subsystems do not corre-

spond with the interfaces between the stakehold-ers, which effectively form the market. Thereforemy suggestion for step two is to rearrange thelegal framework to reflect the market conditions.

ImplementationThe momentum for implementation of in-

teroperability is increasing rapidly. But why am Ileft with the idea that the introduction ofERTMS/ETCS as one of the main drivers of in-teroperability is still very much a national argu-

ment and not a European one? Numbers ofrolling stock put into operation with ETCS aregrowing. In particular in the Netherlands, for in-stance, virtually all freight locomotives now haveor will soon have ETCS. These locomotives aremeant to cross borders, not to stay in theNetherlands. Could we not improve the intro-duction by giving ETCS an important, and maybefor now in many countries, sole function to man-

age the STMs? EYCS on board equipment re-ceives the information that is necessary to man-age the STMs from the trackside balises. So thiscan be achieved simply by putting transitionbalises at the borders between the national railwaynetworks in Europe. This should be included inthe European ETCS deployment plan as the firstactivity. Step three is to make use of the existingETCS function to manage the STMs.

SustainabilityWhere the railway system is seen as a solu-

tion for sustainable transport, it is very interestingto see the important progress report, to which Ireferred above, start with the economic perspec-tive. Sustainability and how the essential require-ment for environmental protection is met, is nota topic in the progress report.

Sustainability must be created and improvedthrough innovation within the boundary condi-tion of the legal framework. The current legalframework for interoperability defines some con-crete goals for emissions. It does not recognisesustainability as part of an essential requirement.Here is an opportunity for improvement. Stepfour is therefore to introduce the concept of sus-tainability into the essential requirements.

And now we are working to create theprogress that will be detailed in the next report. n


ASK THEEXPERT

Interoperability of the European railway network is seen as the necessarycondition to support the liberalisation of the railway market, says Frank

Walenberg, former Director of KEMA Rail Transport Certification.

Interoperability gains momentum

“The momentum forimplementation ofinteroperability is

increasing rapidly”

KEMA ATE_18nov 03/12/2009 14:57 Page 68

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Can you give us an idea of how ITS solutions are evolving to meet the challenges of congestion, safety and transport effi ciency?Caroline Visser. From a congestion and effi ciency standpoint, I would say that nowadays, managing a road network without an ITS infrastruc-ture is unimaginable. So for road operators, it’s a really vital tool. Th ere are so many ITS applications in either monitoring and data collection to see what’s happening on the road, options to guide traffi c through dy-namic signaling and travel information. Road operators are very much dependent on ITS for not only congestion management and demand management, but also road safety.

How is the IRF contributing to research and deployment of ITS sys-tems?CV. Today we’re at the stage that it’s more the deployment or the imple-mentation side that seems to be hampered. Th is was the reason the European Commission set up an ITS action plan. For me, research is

no longer the problem. It’s more about taking your research results and making them deployable on a large scale.

We have set up a policy committee, which is an IRF working group dedicated to transport policies, and the relation with ITS. It is necessary because our feeling was that the positive impacts of IRS are sometimes overlooked. Personally, I’ve been working with the Dutch government on ITS implementation, and although it has many good benefi ts related to the transport policy objectives, it is somewhat lacking visibility, and it’s not usually a very sexy topic with politicians.

So what we tried to do with the policy committees to raise the profi le of ITS with really the high-level decision makers, so I’m talking about ministers, transport secretaries, and their immediate advisors, the high-level civil servants responsible people for policy decisions.

Th at is raising awareness also for having enough budget for ITS research, but it’s mainly focusing on explaining the benefi ts of ITS. It’s also about kind of demystifying it. ITS has a technology label attached to

Caroline Visser of the International Road Federation details the benefi ts intelligent transportation systems can bring, both for travellers and the environment.

INTELLIGENTTRANSPORT

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it, which can frighten people a bit. It’s such a wide concept. Th ere are so many applications and technologies which are encompassed in the single word or single acronym ITS. So that’s how we try to infl uence the decision-making community, which also includes decisions about research.

So do you think the technology side of it is pretty much there and it’s now really more a case of raising awareness and persuading people to adopt ITS?CV. Th e technology is there, and it’s ever-evolving, so that shouldn’t be our main worry, so to speak. Th at’s the motivation and intention of this policy committee, and we have now. We launched it last year during the ITS World Congress in New York, which was in November, and we’re now kind of structuring the work and what topics we are really going to address.

What are you doing to establish best practices and exchange ideas of what works and what doesn’t in what particu-lar context?CV. Th at is actually the core business of the IRF as a federation, but we don’t only do that for ITS. We also do that for fi nancing roads, for envi-ronment, for road safety, which is a very important pillar of our work. Th e IRF brings together stakeholders from all angles, so have many gov-ernments, ministries of transport as members. We have many industry members from the road sector, research institutes and associations. Our mandate is to organise knowledge management activities and share best practice among our members.

For ITS specifi cally, we have a policy committee where we not only link among IRF members, but we also opened it up to ITS associations, either national or global regions, like ITS America or ERTICO, the Euro-pean association. We work closely together with the network of national ITS associations, which is sort of a global forum of ITS associations, and policy committees also open to representatives from international institutions like the World Bank, United Nations, who are now embark-

ing on something in ITS, especially from their role in standardisation. We have close contacts with European Commission. So it is the IRF, in general, that brings together already quite a number of stakeholders to exchange these best practices and then, specifi cally in the policy committee, we link also to some outside the IRF membership from organisations which are very relevant, to share this knowledge.

Are there any countries that particularly stand out in their use of ITS?CV. Each country has its focus, so I wouldn’t be able to give you a top three of successful coun-

tries because it diff ers very much between countries and even regions. I’m sure you’re aware of the London condition charging scheme – but there’s also an active traffi c management project near Birmingham, where they are using the hard shoulder during peak hours and all kinds of ITS applica-tions around it to monitor so that it’s being done safely, to inform travellers of what is coming up, to tell them what the speed limit is.

Some emerging economies, like South Africa, Brazil, Chile and India are developing. For South Africa there’s sort of an artifi cial deadline for ITS implementation because of the World Cup. For example, it’s now intro-ducing electronic fee collections throughout the public transport modes, a bus rapid transit system, which is quite challenging because there’s a lot of opposition by the taxi industry.

Latin America has more tolling. Th ere are a lot of toll roads in Brazil and Chile, where they use electronic tolling on a large scale. I come from the Netherlands, so I’m quite familiar with the situation over there, and I think it’s also an interesting case because of its physical characteristics. I mean, the Netherlands is a small country, densely populated, and we don’t have room to expand the network just like that. So the Netherlands – the Dutch government has been forced to look into effi ciency gains on the ex-isting road network already for some decades.

Th ey also have invested a lot in incident management systems to clear the road quickly aft er incidents occur and to reduce congestion. I think everybody’s eye is now on the Netherlands also because they’re planning to introduce a national road-charging scheme, which adds another dimension to ITS in the Netherlands. I don’t know all the details of it, but it is planned to be a scheme where you pay based on the type of vehicle you drive, so it’s like an environmental classifi cation of your vehicle, where you drive and at what time. It would replace some of their existing vehicle taxes. So in the end, the plans of the ministry are that it shouldn’t cost more for travellers, the objective is that it rationalises the demand, the mobility demand, so to speak. So heavy users pay more and light users pay less, while diff erent charges are levied between peak and off -peak hours.

“Th e technology is there, and it’s ever-evolving”

Go slow

One of the key applications for Intelligent Transportation Systems is reducing urban congestion. A quick look at Europe’s most traffi c-clogged cities suggests that better implementation of ITS is long overdue.

Rank City Average vehicle speed (km/h)

1 London 18.9

2 Berlin 24.1

3 Warsaw 25.9

4 Manchester 28

5 Edinburgh 29.7

6 Rome 30.1

7 Glasgow 30.5

8 Bristol 31.5

9 Paris 31.8

10 Belfast 32



It’s from the point of view of demand management, I would say. And these are just some examples. Th e Alpine countries have a policy specifi cally focused on getting freight off the road, and so both Swit-zerland and Austria have electronic truck tolling in place. So there are many examples, but I think it’s important to point out every country and region has its own context in terms of policy, but also in terms of needs and priorities.

With environmental considerations currently enjoying such a high profi le, what’s the IRF doing to promote a green and more sustain-able use of the road network, and what role is ITS playing in this regard?CV. IRF is quite active in this fi eld. Road transport doesn’t have a very good image. It contributes to 74 percent of all transport emissions of CO2.

But the road industry is very proactive in this sense, and many of our members embark, on voluntary basis, on initiatives to reduce their own carbon footprint and to come up with all kinds of innovations to make road construction, maintenance, and operation greener. We have several initiatives within the IRF itself. We’re developing a greenhouse gas calculator, which is an instrument that monitors emissions during the lifecycle of a road, and it is a tool that will enable members to calcu-late their emissions.

For example, when they make a bid to construct a road, they can al-ready include an assessment of the emissions that it will give. Th is could

Caroline Visser is Road Finance and ITS Programme Manager for the International Road Federation.

also become a factor for competition, because we already see that some countries, such as New Zealand, impose these kinds of assessments in the bidding process.

So I think that’s a very important tool, it’s modular and we have I think one or two modules already in place, but it’s in continuous develop-ment. We have our working group, a bit like a policy committee for ITS, but this is a working group focused on greener roads or environment, which is really a forum for exchange of best prac-tice and experience. Th is working group also just published a compilation of best practice, which is called Innovative Practice for Greener Roads. It’s a CD-ROM with around 60 best-practice cases on it in all stages of the lifecycle of a road.

From the road infrastructure point of view, ITS is helping because we think that traffi c man-agement and congestion reduction where ITS plays a big role is a very important way to make roads and road transport more effi cient and sustainable. Th e technologies I already mentioned, especially electronic tolling, these traffi c management sys-tems combined with emissions monitoring have a high potential in contributing to this.

Also, to a certain extent, road-user charging has a part to play. It’s under discussion in quite a few countries. It rationalises the mobility demand. It will not be a miracle solution for addressing

transport growth, for example, but it might do something. It’s proven in Stockholm, where they introduced user charging in the city, that there have been substantial gains in reducing emissions.

Finally, looking at private and public transportation, we are expect-ing to see exponential growth in both over the next decade. How do you think this will impact policy decisions around the implementa-tion of traffi c management solutions?CV. First of all, it’s very important to note that we have not succeeded in decoupling economic growth with growth in transport demand. Al-though we’re currently in an economic crisis and transport is slightly down, the world will come out of it and transport will go up again. Th at’s very important to take as a starting point. We have to look at realistic options to handle this growth in transport demand.

And this would also mean a bigger shift away from hardware consid-erations. Rather than just extending roads to accommodate this trans-port growth, we need to look more to soft ware and more ITS-geared and effi ciency-geared measures and mobility management. In our point of view, this will have a great impact on policy decisions, because it will be all about effi ciency of the road networks in place, or the transport networks in place. ITS and traffi c management can contribute to that, but maybe it is only part of the solution.


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Not to mention the legacy equipment that still might be out there with its traditional (analogue) interfaces. To make things even more complicat-ed, you don’t want any of these applications to interfere with one another.

Imagine a surveillance system bringing your SCADA down due to unforeseen high traffi c – completely unac-ceptable. Hence, choose a system that can guarantee 100 percent separation between every single application.

Superiority of fi bre opticsInstalling fi bre has become nearly as easy as

pulling a copper cable. Th e connectors available on the market today make a fi bre installation really plug and play. Th e benefi ts of fi bre are numerous. Th e bandwidth provided is virtually unlimited, as are the distances that can be spanned. We are no longer talking about Gbps (Gigabits per second) but Tbps (Terabits per second), far beyond the bandwidth that is currently needed to run the daily operations. But who knows what the future will bring?

Also, fi bre cable is immune to electromagnetic interference. EMC is oft en a nightmare for equipment manufacturers as well as for end users. So, keep copper

cable to a minimum, for the short distances only. Today, fi bre cable has become a no-brainer in the industry.

Transport network It should operate round-the-clock and be impossible to break into.

Th e latter is easier said than done. Open standards have brought us in-teroperability and the internet, but also hackers and fi rewalls. Th e train operator’s worst nightmare is that someone breaks into the network and accesses the train signalling or safety applications. Not only could it stop the system from operating but it could also put lives in danger. My rec-ommendation: take all possible precautions and select a system that is designed for the worst case scenario.

Full of fibre

Wim D’Hooghe of OTN Systems explains the importance of secure telecommunication networks in transportation

The most important telecom subsystem for metro organi-sations, intelligent motorways, bridges or tunnels is the fi bre optic backbone. It carries all the information needed to run the daily operations. Needless to say that the network should be ex-

tremely reliable and provide maximum resilience to cope with the inevitable faults that will occur, such as cable breaks.

Another important requirement of the network is that it should be easy to manage. Actually, it should be child’s play. Unlike enterprise equipment, network (soft ware) upgrades should be avoided. In most cases there’s simply not enough time to switch back to the ‘old’ confi guration, so why take the risk? Also, make sure the backbone has a guaranteed life span of at least 10 years, preferably 15.

Connect all applicationsTh e last thing you want to do is install multiple

networks for the diff erent applications. It would not only cost an arm and a leg but it would also become very hard to manage and lead to a high OPEX (Op-erational Expenditures). Keep things simple and choose a network that can combine all the applications without jeopardising the performance of any of them.

A metro environment is probably one of the most complex ones be-cause of the wide variety of applications encountered, including safety applications, security, train control, passenger information, station management and so on. Moreover, each of these applications have their own specifi c requirements towards the transmission network. Th e CCTV application can only tolerate a maximum delay of 150 milliseconds (from camera to control room display – for pan-tilt-zoom purposes), the radio network might require synchronous links, the SCADA system might need a process control type of connection.

Wim D’Hooghe is co-founder and CEO of OTN Systems. Prior to that he was in charge of all indirect business and the industrial market at Nokia Siemens Networks and, at Siemens, was in charge of the OTN Business Unit.

ASK THEEXPERT

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vast experience in implementation provides us with a substantial competitive edge,” he concludes.

El-Far ranges of products includes smart fence solutions that are capable of detecting any attempted intrusion of the fence whether by climbing, cutting or opening of the struc-ture within a +/-10 metre resolution, and provides visual and audible alarms against any such unauthorised access.

Making sensors work in the outdoor envi-ronment is the hardest challenge. To maintain uninterrupted coverage with a low false alarm rate, outdoor sensors must face up to extreme environmental conditions. El-Far’s smart sen-

sors (vibration, seismic and ultrasonic sensors) incorporate smart technology that overcomes this challenge. “Th ey add a signifi cant protec-tion layer to any existing solution,” says Iosub. “Th e amalgamation of technologies and ensu-ing data fusion with other sensors results in data that is more accurate, complete and reli-able,” he concludes.

In addition, El-Far off ers a range of pe-rimeter security products to provide a com-plete solution to a wide range of applications including command and control soft ware, video management, analytics and recording, access control systems, and other perimeter infrastructure security products.

Founded and managed by a team of Israeli defence community veterans, El-Far is a global company that delivers its advanced perimeter security technologies and integrated solutions to customers around the world, in a range of military and civilian applications.

Maj. Gen. (Ret) Herzel Iosub, Co-Owner and Manager of El-Far, points out that a multi layered protection approach to perimeter and intrusion detection systems could prevent or at least, alert authorities to potential threats before they happen. El-Far’s industry-leading patented technologies, real world experience,

impressive install base and application of ad-vanced technologies make them a world leader in their fi eld. In 2003, El-Far’s systems were authorised by the Israeli Defense Force’s Tech-nological Unit, having undergone rigorous testing in radical environmental conditions and severe operational scenarios.

Iosub believes that El-Far maintains a competitive edge across its product line. “Our products are designed to provide custom-ers with reliable, accurate and cost eff ective perimeter protection solutions. Th e products

are presented as modular systems that allow for effi cient installa-tions or integrations with exist-ing infrastructures.” Clients do not want to replace perfectly good equipment or entire sys-tems due to compatibility issues, he says. “El-Far’s technological leadership and expertise and our

INDUSTRYINSIGHT

HOLD THE LINEHerzel losub explains why protecting critical infrastructure from security breaches has never been more important.

Using the correct technology to defend against potential threats is essential. Th e rising threat of global terrorism in the last

decade has undoubtedly increased awareness of perimeter security and security in general, especially for key sites such as critical infra-structure, airports, train stations and borders to name a few.

Global terrorism is not the only threat. Sab-otage, vandalism and other criminal activities continue to challenge site security. An example of such an incident occurred when Greenpeace activists broke onto the grounds of a Dutch nuclear reactor and painted a giant crack on its outer shell – a protest aimed at exposing the danger of nuclear energy. Around 30 demonstra-tors climbed a fence and scaled the walls of the high-fl ux Borssele reactor, the focus of decades of protests in the Netherlands. Th is example dem-onstrates how easily a security breach can occur in even the most sensitive of sites.

Th e main challenge facing perimeter se-curity applications is the fact that these sites typically encompass a wide area and pose a physical challenge to security personnel, as the perimeters require effi cient monitoring to enable a rapid respond to any security breach. In addition, each application diff ers enormous-ly in their individual security requirements. For example, airports are multi-jurisdictional, making airport perimeter security a daunting task while borders need to manage the legiti-mate fl ow of people and assets while counter-ing smuggling, economic migration and other illegal activities.

Maj. Gen. (Ret) Herzel Iosub is Co-Owner and Manager of El-Far. He held senior executive positions in the Israeli Police Force and the Israeli Ministry of Public Security. As Head of the Planning and Budget Department at the Homeland Security Offi ce and Israeli Police, Iosub was responsible for the budgeting and planning of a wide range of installations and projects.

El-Far Electronics Systems.indd 76El-Far Electronics Systems.indd 76 3/12/09 14:57:053/12/09 14:57:05


vast experience in implementation provides us with a substantial competitive edge,” he concludes.

El-Far ranges of products includes smart fence solutions that are capable of detecting any attempted intrusion of the fence whether by climbing, cutting or opening of the struc-ture within a +/-10 metre resolution, and provides visual and audible alarms against any such unauthorised access.

Making sensors work in the outdoor envi-ronment is the hardest challenge. To maintain uninterrupted coverage with a low false alarm rate, outdoor sensors must face up to extreme environmental conditions. El-Far’s smart sen-

sors (vibration, seismic and ultrasonic sensors) incorporate smart technology that overcomes this challenge. “Th ey add a signifi cant protec-tion layer to any existing solution,” says Iosub. “Th e amalgamation of technologies and ensu-ing data fusion with other sensors results in data that is more accurate, complete and reli-able,” he concludes.

In addition, El-Far off ers a range of pe-rimeter security products to provide a com-plete solution to a wide range of applications including command and control soft ware, video management, analytics and recording, access control systems, and other perimeter infrastructure security products.

Founded and managed by a team of Israeli defence community veterans, El-Far is a global company that delivers its advanced perimeter security technologies and integrated solutions to customers around the world, in a range of military and civilian applications.

Maj. Gen. (Ret) Herzel Iosub, Co-Owner and Manager of El-Far, points out that a multi layered protection approach to perimeter and intrusion detection systems could prevent or at least, alert authorities to potential threats before they happen. El-Far’s industry-leading patented technologies, real world experience,

impressive install base and application of ad-vanced technologies make them a world leader in their fi eld. In 2003, El-Far’s systems were authorised by the Israeli Defense Force’s Tech-nological Unit, having undergone rigorous testing in radical environmental conditions and severe operational scenarios.

Iosub believes that El-Far maintains a competitive edge across its product line. “Our products are designed to provide custom-ers with reliable, accurate and cost eff ective perimeter protection solutions. Th e products

are presented as modular systems that allow for effi cient installa-tions or integrations with exist-ing infrastructures.” Clients do not want to replace perfectly good equipment or entire sys-tems due to compatibility issues, he says. “El-Far’s technological leadership and expertise and our

INDUSTRYINSIGHT

HOLD THE LINEHerzel Iosub explains why protecting critical infrastructure from security breaches has never been more important.

Using the correct technology to defend against potential threats is essential. Th e rising threat of global terrorism in the last

decade has undoubtedly increased awareness of perimeter security and security in general, especially for key sites such as critical infra-structure, airports, train stations and borders to name a few.

Global terrorism is not the only threat. Sab-otage, vandalism and other criminal activities continue to challenge site security. An example of such an incident occurred when Greenpeace activists broke onto the grounds of a Dutch nuclear reactor and painted a giant crack on its outer shell – a protest aimed at exposing the danger of nuclear energy. Around 30 demonstra-tors climbed a fence and scaled the walls of the high-fl ux Borssele reactor, the focus of decades of protests in the Netherlands. Th is example dem-onstrates how easily a security breach can occur in even the most sensitive of sites.

Th e main challenge facing perimeter se-curity applications is the fact that these sites typically encompass a wide area and pose a physical challenge to security personnel, as the perimeters require effi cient monitoring to enable a rapid respond to any security breach. In addition, each application diff ers enormous-ly in their individual security requirements. For example, airports are multi-jurisdictional, making airport perimeter security a daunting task while borders need to manage the legiti-mate fl ow of people and assets while counter-ing smuggling, economic migration and other illegal activities.

Maj. Gen. (Ret) Herzel Iosub is Co-Owner and Manager of El-Far. He held senior executive positions in the Israeli Police Force and the Israeli Ministry of Public Security. As Head of the Planning and Budget Department at the Homeland Security Offi ce and Israeli Police, Iosub was responsible for the budgeting and planning of a wide range of installations and projects.

El-Far Electronics Systems.indd 76El-Far Electronics Systems.indd 76 4/12/09 09:48:444/12/09 09:48:44

Elfar AD.indd 1Elfar AD.indd 1 2/12/09 14:04:022/12/09 14:04:02

Security’s next wave


Ron Louwerse tells Marie Shields about the futuristic technologythat is helping to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport fight terrorism.

SECURITY

Louwerse ed:18nov 3/12/09 14:59 Page 78

In these times of heightened terror threats, one of thetoughest jobs has got to be that of an airport’s director ofsecurity. How to thwart a potential attack while ensuringcustomers are not unduly inconvenienced?

One answer is to invest in up-to-the-minute technology,something that is in evidence at Amsterdam’s SchipholAirport, where advanced body scanning machinery calledthe ‘Security Scan’ was introduced in 2007. The machinesproduce an image of the body contours using millimetrewave reflection technology, which alerts security staff to thepresence of unauthorised items on the body.

Schiphol’s Director of Security Ron Louwerse explains theadvantages of this technology: “The main benefit is that the ma-chine scans all objects that people have on their body. A metal de-tector only scans metal, and then we have to do a random searchto look for explosives. This machine looks for metal, explosivesand non-ferrous items. The big advantage is that, with the scan,you deal with all possible threats people can carry with them.”

He points out that it is also very fast. “The actual screeningonly takes three seconds. In the current system, the agent needsabout nine to 10 seconds to look at an image if there’s somethinghe has to go investigate further. This is a different agent from theone standing next to the machine. They communicate through awireless system, and when something is not okay with the ankleor whatever, he only has to say, ‘It’s not okay with the ankle.’ Theactual body frisking can be minimised to a specific location, in thiscase the ankle, which makes it much more passenger-friendly be-cause it doesn’t involve a search of the whole body.”

Some passengers were understandably a little apprehensiveabout the machines when they were first introduced: Louwersesays they were viewed like “some new science fiction thing, likesomething from Star Trek.” Now, however, they have becomeused to it and airport staff have found the system to be very pas-senger-friendly, with a normal throughput of about four pas-sengers per minute, a speed Louwerse calls “acceptable”.

Airline passengers have been taking the machines in theirstride, but that hasn’t stopped privacy-related questions beingasked about them in the European Parliament. “They were wor-


Mutual cooperationThe International Air Transport Association’s Steve Lott explains theassociation’s role in international airport security.

One of the International Air Transport Association’s main objectivesis to ensure that international security requirements are mutuallyaccepted between European member states. How do you go aboutdoing this?Steve Lott. IATA proposes that states carry out a detailedcomparison of their security measures, to assess whether theirsecurity levels are equivalent or not. This can be accompanied byaudits at each other’s airports. Should they prove to be atequivalent levels, they should conclude Security RecognitionAgreements that can then lead to one-stop security.

One-stop security has been in place in Europe for a decade now,but the system has not moved outside of this area. What benefitswould one-stop security bring and how could the concept beexpanded outside of Europe?SL. Europe is indeed a specific case, because the security rules hereare set jointly by the EU member states, and kept under supervisionby the European Commission. However, IATA is convinced that one-stop security can expand beyond the EU’s borders, between like-minded countries and based on equivalence of measures. The EU iscurrently negotiating one-stop security agreements with the US andCanada, for example. We believe the main airports in Asia should alsobe a test-bed for one-stop security.

Where does the responsibility lie for aviation security and funding?Are there any actors you believe should be playing an enhancedrole regarding security?SL. As a principle, IATA believes that security measures that are setby lawmakers to protect people against terrorism should be paidfor by the state – anti-terrorism is a key government function. Inpractice, this is not done. Too often, the aviation industry andpassengers are asked to bear the cost of security measures. Theaviation industry fully understands the role it needs to play inimplementing strict security standards – but the responsibility forfunding should be more justly shared with governments.

Will it be possible to achieve a harmonised implementation ofglobally recognised security standards?SL. Harmonisation is a fundamental objective in aviation security,but we recognise that states can be under different threat levelsand may have to implement additional measures to cope withhigher risk. Since global security is as strong as its weakest link, allstates should at least adhere to the baseline security standard setby ICAO Annex 17. Beyond this, we encourage states that havedifferent security regimes to at least recognise each other’ssystems and cooperate closely. The response of a number of keystates to the liquids and gels threats in August 2006 is an exampleof international cooperation and mutual recognition.

All the world’s a stageSecurity theatre consists of measures aimedat giving the feeling of heightened securitywhile doing little or nothing to actuallyimprove it. The term was coined by BruceSchneier in his book Beyond Fear, but hascome to be used particularly for describingairport security measures. It is also used bysome experts such to describe the securitymeasures imposed after the terrorist attacksof September 11, 2001.


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Look me in the eyePrivium, Schiphol’s service programme for frequent fliers,offers members the opportunity to travel by plane withoutthe need to show their passports, thanks to its futuristiciris-scanning equipment.

On joining the programme, both of the passenger’s eyesare scanned. Their iris details are saved on a chip on thePrivium membership card, and at border passage the dataon the chip are compared to the eye of the persontravelling. If the information matches, the passenger isallowed to proceed.

According to Schiphol authorities, scanning the iris doesnot pose any risk to eyes or health. The iris scan can readinformation if the person is wearing glasses, contact lensesor coloured contact lenses, although it does not workthrough sunglasses.

The iris scan was developed by Schiphol according to theairport’s specifications. The required software was developedin close cooperation with the Department of Immigration andNaturalisation, and the Dutch Military Police.

ried about the image being seen by other agents,” Louwerse explains. “That’swhy, with the company who manufactures the machine, we have tested new soft-ware in which there is no image for an agent to see. It’s a fully automated detec-tion device: on a kind of outline next to the machine it bleeps up on the ankle oron the knee or on the shoulder or whatever. There’s no communication with thetwo agents and there’s no agent who looks at it.”

Human errorWhen airport security breaches do happen, they are often blamed on

human error, which may be why Schiphol’s motto, as quoted by Louwerse, is“technology where possible and people where necessary”. “That’s the way wetry to fulfill all security obligations,” he says. He cites 100 percent control ofstaff when they enter security-restricted areas, and the use of a central loca-tion to minimise the number of agents required to look at X-rays, as beingvital to maintaining high levels of security.

One of the big issues facing airport staff is how to keep passengers happyduring increasingly lengthy security procedures. What are the challenges inmaintaining security but also maintaining a good customer experience?Louwerse says that the most important element is passenger-friendliness:“When we train our people, we always emphasise the need for being friendlyand polite and showing respect,” he emphasizes.


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they feel they’re being treated like criminals. He notes the difficulty of findinga balance between those two feelings.

Despite these challenges, in 2007, the British Business Traveller magazinevoted Amsterdam Airport Schiphol ‘Best Airport in Europe’, based on passen-

ger experience. Schiphol also earned fourth place for‘Best Airport in the World’ on the same list. And inJune of this year, it was designated best airport inEurope by the European airport association, ACIEurope. When asked what part he thinks security hasplayed in this recognition, Louwerse says, “One of theadvantages we have is that we are responsible for theactual carrying out of the measures and the legisla-tion, so we are able to integrate them in our otherprocesses.

“It’s the government that’s checking on the com-

pliance and the level and the quality, but it’s up to usto determine how and where we put in the security. Ithink that’s an advantage over other airports thathave a lot more government involvement.

“We have very good cooperation with govern-ment institutions. We are both aware of the need todeal with security in a proper way – efficient, not toocostly, and passenger friendly. That’s also the gov-ernment’s concern.”

The difficulty with European legislation,Louwerse says, is that it’s an advantage and a disad-vantage at the same time. It applies to all Europeanairports and all European countries, attempting toapply one standard to a very diverse industry.

“National governments are allowed to put inmore stringent measures than the EU states,” hepoints out. “This can make it difficult for some pas-sengers to travel between certain countries. For ex-ample, in some countries, it’s always necessary to takeyour shoes off; in others it’s not. That’s the disadvan-tage of having one European legislation on one handand still the freedom for local governments to put intheir own measures on the other.”

Louwerse pins his hopes on new developments intechnology to ease the stress that can often exist dur-ing current airport security procedures, moving to-

ward a time when passengers won’t even notice they’re being screened.“We’re not there yet,” he says. But with its forward-looking approach, there’sno reason why Schiphol shouldn’t continue to lead the field of airport securi-ty into the future. �


No matter how advanced the technology gets, there will always be ahuman factor in making sure the customer experience is a good one. “It canbe a difficult task, because you have to screen a lot of passengers on a dailybasis. Not all passengers act friendly towards you, and it can be difficult some-times to maintain your composure. The main chal-lenge is to keep the whole process passenger friendly,but still it has to be a security process.”

Although our awareness of terror threats re-mains relatively high, Louwerse admits that there isalways a danger that complacency can creep in. Inorder to combat this, Schiphol uses ‘mystery’ pas-sengers and other programmes to ensure staff re-main alert to possible breaches. “I think it’s a normalhuman reaction. When the threat is not immediate,it could slip in. If we see this happening, we act im-mediately,” he says. “We’re on a good level.”

In addition to preventing threats introduced bypassengers, there are other crucial areas where secu-rity needs to be maintained, including the airport’sperimeter. Schiphol has about 55 km of fencing,which Louwerse says is a large area to maintain. Theairport uses modern radar and camera technology toprevent intrusion, and also works closely with thelocal police authority, which carries out surveillancearound the whole area.

Acting outAirport security is often accused of being reactive

in nature, and this does appear to be true. After 9/11,more control was introduced around cockpit doorsand sharp objects were banned from cabins. Followingthe ‘shoe bomber’ incident, many airports started re-quiring certain types of shoes to be scanned. A threatfrom liquid explosives materialises and suddenly rulesrelating to liquids are tightened up.

It’s easy to point fingers and say these measureshave come too late, but how can we protect againstthings we haven’t even thought of yet? “You have tothink the unthinkable,” Louwerse says. “That’s aparadox I can’t solve. It’s very difficult. You shouldbe alert; you should look not only for compliancewith regulations, but as a security agent or a securitydepartment, you should look for the actual threat.That’s just being aware at the spot, at the time, at themoment of what’s happening. Then we’ll be okay.

“You could say a lot of this is theatre. Which in away is true, because 99.9999 percent of our passengersare not the ones we are looking for. But you still haveto check and control them. It looks like theatre, but in the end, there’s a reasonyou’re doing it. It’s not really theatre at all.”

Louwerse agrees that part of the function of security checks is to makepassengers feel as though something is being done. He says this works bothways: it makes some passengers feel secure, but then others complain because

FACTS & FIGURES (2008)

Annual passenger capacity 60-65 MILLION

Aircraft parking stands199

Car parking spaces36,299

Shops 121

Catering outlets75

Aircraft movements446,693

Passenger movements(x1000)

Scheduled 43,540

Non-scheduled 3,851

Transit-direct 38

Total47,430

Scheduled destinations262

Ron Louwerse is Director of Security for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

“Louwerse pins his hopes on newdevelopments in technology to easethe stress during current airportsecurity procedures”


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LONDONIN FOCUS

INSIDEP86 JOHN ARMITT

Chairman, Olympic Delivery Authority

P92 TERRY MORGANChairman, Crossrail

P96 AILSA BEATONCIO, Metropolitan Police Service

A closer look at the people and projects reshaping the UK Capital

LONDON SUPPLEMENT (X3):18nov 3/12/09 14:42 Page 85

THE OLYMPICS

prizeThe Olympic Games are a seriousbusiness. EU Infrastructure talks with

the Olympic Delivery Authority’sJohn Armitt about London’s run to

the 2012 finish line.

Race for the



On 27 July 2012, the starter’s pistol on one of theworld’s biggest sporting events will be fired inLondon. The Olympics are coming to the UK cap-ital and preparing the city for the massive influx ofparticipants and spectators is the biggest game intown. Venues, transportation and accommoda-

tion all need to not only be built but connected into a seamless whole. Itis an undertaking with global significance and one not without its con-troversies. From an original budget of €2.6 billion, the anticipated costhas risen to €10.2 billion. There has also been a huge debate about whatbecomes of the Olympic facilities in the long term. The memory ofLondon’s generally unloved Millennium Dome has not faded and no-body wants to end up with a series of expensive white elephants once theathletes have headed home.

As Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, the body tasked withmaking sure the games happen as planned, John Armitt is mindful thatworld’s eyes will be concentrated on London in 2012, watching closely forany slip ups. He is also conscious that a project with so many disparate ele-ments presents a similar number of opportunities for things to go wrong.But perhaps the most significant feature of a project like the Olympics, whencompared to other major construction works, is the finality of its deadline.If you’re building a hotel or shopping centre, overruns are costly, inconve-nient and best avoided. If you’re building the venues and infrastructure fora giant international sporting event, flexibility is not an option. When theOlympic torch is lit you simply have to be ready.


recycling. “Itwas the first time I had ac-

tually seen that in action,” he says, visibly impressed. “Even the cementmanufacturers were looking at ways in which they could reduce theirCO2 footprint in terms of the firing up of the plants necessary for pro-ducing the cement. It has been interesting that when you ask people tohelp they do respond.”

In fact, this response to the sustainability challenge has been one of themost striking features of the Olympic project for Armitt so far.Organisations are more open to new ideas than has traditionally been thecase, recognising that a company’s record on these matters is taking on ever

“Time is the one thing that we don’t have,” agrees Armitt when wemeet up with him in London. “One of our fundamental drivers is ensur-ing that we are not held up for decisions and, given that government isfunding the bulk of everything that we’re doing, it is obviously importantfor government to be involved in those decisions. To be fair, governmenthas not held us up, but I think without that absolute end date peoplecould prevaricate their decisions.” Despite a career spanning more than30 years which has included stints as Chief Executive of Network Rail andCostain, Armitt freely admits to being in unknown territory as Chairmanof the ODA. “London 2012 is the first project I have been involved inwhere it absolutely has to be finished to a fixed deadline,” he says.However, operating under the pressure of immutable delivery dates hasnot been without its benefits. “It’s interesting to see what good disciplinethat brings to the process,” he continues. “Agreeing the budget was oneof the most challenging areas early on, as it was perceived as an increaseon the price in the bid book which didn’t include inflation and VAT.Since achieving a budget, which included contingency, we’ve been ableto work within it.”

While wrangles over the budget have been extremely vis-ible in media discussion of London 2012, Armitt is adamantthat the biggest challenges from his perspective have beenlogistical rather than financial. “The Olympic Park work-force will peak at about 11,000 in 2010, and we have alorry coming into the site every minute,” he explains.“We have created off site holding centres so lorries can-not come direct to site but go to a logistics centre outside ofLondon to be registered and given a delivery slot which istracked and managed to prevent congestion.”

To cope with the flow of traffic the ODA has split theproject up into a series of island sites such as the OlympicStadium or a particular bridge. “Knitting that all togetherthrough the services and through the road layouts, for ex-ample, has been a challenge but has proved to be quite asensible solution,” says Armitt. “It is a massive project andcertainly people that are unfamiliar with the industry have dif-ficulty comprehending the volume of activity, but by breaking it upinto a series of manageable chunks we are proving it can be achieved.”

Green goalsAside from just getting the work done, the Authority also has

a stated aim to make London 2012 the first sustainable games,setting a new standard for events of this type. As a result, the en-tire undertaking has been laid on a sustainable foundation.“We’re building it in through a whole series of targets whichwe set fundamentally right at the outset to the designers of each in-dividual building,” Armitt explains. “Rainwater harvesting for grey waterusage is something which we’ve focused on to reduce the amount of potablewater that’s required in the buildings. We’ve got a 40 percent reduction tar-get and the CO2 footprint is to be kept down by 50 percent on 2006 levels.”

The use of rail and waterways for transportation was another specifictarget, as well as asking suppliers what they could do to help limit the pro-ject’s energy use. Armitt reports some impressive responses to this request,with the aggregate industry standing out in its pledge to provide 25 percent


WORKING FIGURES

Figures as of September 2009

7270

Peoplecurrentlyworking forcontractorson theOlympicPark

4842 1478 Trainees whohave passedthrough NationalSkills Academy

631 Peopleplaced intoworkthrough jobbrokerage

People working on

Olympic Park and

Village


greater significance. “In the current environment companies are probablymore willing to listen because they know it’s good for them in terms of theircorporate responsibility and to how they’re perceived in wider society,”Armitt confirms. “Young people can see that a company is engaged with thegreen agenda, they’re more likely to want to work for them.”

Outside of the ODA’s responsibility to bring Olympic facilities in ontime, Armitt also sees the project as an opportunity to promote betterpractices across the construction industry. A job of this scale gives a clientlike the ODA a huge amount of leverage over its suppliers, allowing themto play a vital role in effecting change. “For example, in training, if youwere to say as a client, ‘Look, I want you to have three percent of your em-ployees in training,’ then contractors will do their best to achieve that,”says Armitt. “But if nobody says anything, then you take the softer option,

which is just to use the agencies and get in labour as required. That is justone of the big problems and challenges that the construction industry has.We have an ageing workforce so getting more young people in throughtraining schemes is vital, and you can in fact change that through yourprocurement processes.”

This focus on training is a big issue for Armitt and the ODA, tying intothe wider idea of ensuring London 2012 is sustainable in every sense. Thegames themselves only go on for a couple of weeks, but it is hoped that theireffects will be felt for much longer. “It’s a major objective for us, particular-ly because of the area in London that we’re building,” he explains. “There isa lot of expectation, that the games are going to bring lots of jobs. Well, yesthere are, if you’ve got the skills, and that is why to a certain extent we’ve hadto say that we’ll take unskilled people and provide skilled training. We’ve


“The stadium’s legacy willprobably focus on the athletics side

with a sporting academy associatedwith the stadium so it’s used by

schools as well as by elite athletes”


put several hundred now through plant operator training. They haven’t alljoined the project. Some of them have gone to work on other sites, but thatdoesn’t matter. At least they now know how to drive a back actor and theycan get a job, which before they wouldn’t have been able to do.”

Built to lastJust as important as establish-

ing a long-term skills base are ef-forts to ensure a durable legacy forthe venues and facilities that willplay host to athletes, spectatorsand members of the media in 2012.Fifty percent of the OlympicVillage accommodation has al-ready been sold into a housing as-sociation while the remaining halfwill be sold on the open market.“The design of that housing has fo-cused on the long-term use andwe’re actually temporarily fittingout the accommodation for thegames,” says Armitt. “The individ-ual homes will then be reconfig-ured in legacy to what is requiredby families, so there will be a lot offour and three bedroom flats there post the games. A lot of attention isbeing given to the design of the village to try and ensure that it is a suc-cessful regeneration project.”

A different question is posed by some of the other facilities being putin place for the games, notably the sporting venues. Armitt is confident thatboth the aquatics centre and the velodrome will be viable in the long term,

citing the success of similar facilities in post-Commonwealth Games Manchester.

However, the issue of what be-comes of the Olympic stadium

has proved more problematic.“The agreement with the IOCwas that we would leave aninternational quality athletic

stadium,” he says. “That wewill do. The question is, what

else do you do with the thing andhow do you get maximum usage from

it? It’s not proved possible, so far, for ex-ample to finalise football or rugby as ten-ants. The legacy will probably focus onthe athletics side with a sporting academyassociated with the stadium so it’s used byschools as well as by elite athletes.”

The Olympics’ status as a genuinelyglobal event actually means that represen-tatives of the media will outnumber ath-letes by almost two to one through the

course of the games. This has necessitated the building of a truly massivebroadcast centre. At nearly 100,000 square metres it is the second largeststructure on the site after the Olympic Stadium. Ensuring that this centre has

“We’re on

time.We’re on

budget”

Work continues on the Olympic Stadium


gone up as much as we expected. Onthe one hand we’ve got some benefitsbecause demand has been less. Priceshave held out. On the other hand,we’ve had to finance several hundredmillion pounds of work out of the pub-lic purse, which we’ve been able to dothrough savings, and by not using asmuch contingency as we’d expected.”

With less than three years to gountil the games get underway, Armittcould be forgiven for feeling the pres-sure. However, he insists that every-thing remains on schedule and the solidprogress is being made. The structuralsteelwork for the Olympic Stadium wascompleted a few days prior to the threeyears to go celebrations and the roof forthe aquatics centre has swiftly followedsuit. “We’ve now got all the permanentbuildings started and our target for thenext 12 months is to actually have allthe major buildings structurally com-plete,” he says. After that, the work

moves inside, as a growing workforce arrives to fit out all the structures.There’s a long way to go before London 2012 is ready to open its doors tothe world, but this kind of project is a marathon rather than a sprint. Armittat least is confident that the ODA has paced itself correctly for a successfulfinish. “We’re on time. We’re on budget,” he says. �

a life beyond 2012 has re-quired a great deal of for-ward planning. “Thechallenge has been to try anddesign it in a way whichgives maximum flexibilitypost games for subsequentuse,” says Armitt. “The otherarea is the parklands. We’vegot over 100 acres of park-lands, and there it’s been aninteresting question. Whatlevel do you pitch the quali-ty? We have gone for a veryhigh level quality, particular-ly of the hard landscape, try-ing to create a benchmark,because not all the OlympicPark will be developed forthe legacy. There will beareas which subsequentlycommercial developers willcome into, and so by settinga high level of design forour landscaping areas, we will influencethe quality of the green spaces to be cre-ated when the rest of the Olympic Park isdeveloped. The challenge becomesmaintenance cost, as high quality land-scaping does require a higher level ofmaintenance cost.”

The issue of cost cannot be over-looked. The build up to London 2012 hascoincided with another event of global sig-nificance in the shape of the financial col-lapse and subsequent downturn. Whatimpact has this had on the Authority’swork? “The major impact was on how wefinance the village and broadcast centre,”Armitt replies. “Originally, they were goingto be privately financed. When the finan-cial offers came in, the cost of guaranteesthat were being sought, particularly by thebanks, just made it nonsensical. If I’mgoing to pay you and guarantee your risk,then I might as well fund it myself and thatis what the government has decided to do.Government is funding for the time beingand when the financial climate is better we will go back to the private sector.”

In fact, the slowdown actually brought a few benefits along with itsinconveniences. “Inflation has been less than we forecast,” Armitt con-tinues. “Worker availability is easier than we might have expected if theboom had continued in the construction sector. Material prices have not


POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONSJOHN ARMITT explains why an anticipated change inUK government ahead of the Olympics isn’t causinghim too much concern.

“We’ve kept very close contact with theConservatives, particularly and the Liberal Democrats,and we brief them regularly so there are no surprisesfor them in terms of what’s going on. We had thetransition of course from [Mayor of London] KenLivingstone to Boris Johnson, and Boris has been assupportive as Ken ever was. Different styles, but thelevel of support has been just as great.

Of course by that time, assuming the electiondoesn’t take place until next year, we’ll be withina year of completion and on track to complete allthe construction by 2011, a year before the games.So the opportunity for somebody to come alongand say that they want massive changes will justnot be possible.”


The city is a living organism. The way humanity flowsthrough its roads and tunnels mirrors the circulationof the human body and, just as within our own bod-ies, clogs and congestion can have a serious impact. Asanyone who has had reason to cross London duringrush hour can attest, sometimes the UK capital’s over-

loaded transport arteries most closely resemble those of a fast-food ad-dicted couch potato. This is an image at odds with London’s status as amodern, fast-paced and internationally significant place to live and work.It is also one of the key reasons why Crossrail Chairman Terry Morgansees the project he leads as so important. “London is the global city,” hesays. “In the last 10 years it’s just been a fantastic period of growth.There’s obviously been an economic challenge over the past 18 months,but I’m still very confident that London is going to remain a powerhousein the world economy. But London has to improve its infrastructure andits transportation. Previous to Crossrail, I worked on the underground,so I know what the pressures were there. It’s carrying record numbers of

As projects go, running a new rail link right through the heart of

London is as big as they come. CrossrailChairman Terry Morgan explains why

all the hard work is worth it.

CROSSRAIL

C R O S S T O W NTRAFFIC


passengers. It’s been going through a huge amount of additional invest-ment, but when you look at the forward projections that take you out to2015, 2020, there is insufficient capacity to meet the demand.”

London just keeps on growing. Already home to 7.5 million people,the population is forecast to rise by a further 600,000 by 2016. Existinginfrastructure, stretched to breaking point by current inhabitantsand visitors, simply cannot cope with this new influx. If tra-versing the city becomes ever slower and less efficient, itseconomic development will be stifled. London needs atransport system that can match its ambitions. “WhatCrossrail brings is 10 percent more capacity,” saysMorgan. “It deals with one of the constraints of mov-ing across the centre of the city to the east, and as wedevelop the southeastern route that’s obviously gothuge potential. Going to the west, Heathrow to CanaryWharf is often used as an example. Travel time will be cutquite extensively from around 70 minutes to around 40 minutes.It’s a big efficiency driver, which makes London more attractive to inter-national business.”

There is a huge amount of work to be done before Crossrail opens itsdoors to passengers in 2017. The biggest civil engineering project in theUK, it is going to have to bring in some concrete benefits if it is to justify

its €17.9 billion price tag. Morgan is confident that this investment in thecity’s transport infrastructure will ultimately provide these benefits. “Thisis a huge project, and whilst the need for the railway is the primary needin terms of justification, it also brings with it huge opportunities in termsof regeneration,” he says. “It’s a well known fact that railways in them-

selves bring regeneration with them. It’s also true to say that withthe huge amount of money we have to invest on the central

stations, that this also creates opportunities to redevelopthose areas too. There’s a combination of meeting a

transport need and regeneration opportunities that issomething Crossrail brings to London.”

Quite aside from its huge costs, the project posessome major logistical and organisational challenges.

Running a new rail route directly through the centre ofa city as densely populated and heavily developed as

London is an extremely complicated process. “There are alot of stakeholders and I don’t think anybody should be sur-

prised, given the scale of this project,” Morgan continues. “Part of my roleis to try and understand the different needs of each of the stakeholdersand to best serve the interest of the project by engaging with those stake-holders in a positive way. Have we had challenges? I think there’s a com-mon purpose within London that this is a project we need to do, and a lotN

Crossrail will cut journeytimes by up to

43%

Visions of the future: how Crossrail should look by 2017


whilst I’m confident we could get the skills, I’d like to make sure we get asmuch from London as we can because that for me is a double whammy.You’ve got the skills and people development opportunities bringing eco-nomic regeneration to the difficult areas.” In his previous role as ChiefExecutive of Tube Lines, Morgan oversaw a similar initiative centredaround signalling, so he is confident such programmes are worth the ef-fort. “I just know the value it brings, both from the point of view of givingyoung people opportunities, and from helping people have the opportuni-

ties to grow their skill set. It’s very important. If you do it in theproper way, you improve retention. You get a higher quality

of individual. Retention rates are better. It just makes sensethat we’re going to invest in people.”

In addition to providing opportunities for the peo-ple of London in the short term, the Academy willoffer an invaluable pool of talent for future tunnellingprojects, both in the city and elsewhere. “I think the

need for infrastructure investment continues to be ahigh priority,” Morgan continues. “In terms of our tunnel

academy, we want to develop it as a standalone business thatis able not just to depend on Crossrail, so when you talk to the

likes of Thames Water or you talk to EDF or BAA, there are opportunitiesto broaden this into an industrial capability and there will be programs.Who knows what London’s needs will be in the future because I think thatwhat’s available above ground is very limited, but there are still solutions

to be found underground.” Preliminary work on

Crossrail is already underway,but the project will really kickinto gear in 2011 when the tun-nelling begins in earnest.Morgan explains that there isstill plenty of work to be donebefore the tunnelling machin-ery is fired up. “In terms of tun-nelling, we’re doing an awfullot of work,” he says. “As youwould expect in a project ofthis nature, there were a num-ber of assumptions made withregard to how the tunnellingwould be done. What we’re try-ing to do right now is to put alot more meat on the bone in

terms of actually understanding in detail the conditions that we’re going tohave to deal with. There will be surprises, but what we’re trying to do rightnow is to take away as many of the unknown factors with regard to the tun-nels as possible.”

But as well as the project is progressing, there remains one threat thathas the power to derail things. The coming general election is widely ex-pected to put a new government in power within the next year. Speakingof the project, likely future Prime Minister David Cameron said, “I backCrossrail. I want Crossrail to go ahead. I think Crossrail has that transfor-mational capability to make London a more effective and economically

of people making very positive comments about the criticality ofCrossrail. It’s less easy sometimes to explain to people who perhaps arenot close to the railway itself what benefits it brings but it does, and thereality would be that Crossrail will employ a lot of people, bring eco-nomic wellbeing to lots and lots of different parts of London. I’ve heardthe mayor of London talk many times about the sense of opportunity thatexists for London and those that really touch the edges of the city.”

Building support and enthusiasm about Crossrail among the peopleof London is almost as important as the actual engineering work. Inthe current climate, an expensive undertaking such as thiscould quickly lose the local backing which is so importantto it, especially as it will be the best part of a decade be-fore many of its biggest benefits will be demonstrated.Morgan acknowledges the difficulty: “There is thepressure of trying to create some excitement aroundthe program to get some understanding of what we’redoing,” he confirms. “It’s very difficult when you’re in2009 to try and get people excited about the prospect of aprogram that’s going to get delivered in 2017.” Recognisingthat this is a long-term process, the organisation has set up YoungCrossrail. This initiative engages local schools with curriculum approvedlearning materials and design-based contests related to the project. In ad-dition to building an immediate sense of community engagement, YoungCrossrail is designed to have other, more long-term effects. “We just thinkthat by actually reaching out toyoung people, first of all, it cre-ates a level of interest and un-derstanding,” says Morgan.“In many regards, we’re hop-ing that by increasing theknowledge of what Crossrailrepresents, it might also influ-ence people in what they’rethinking about in terms oftheir career, where they live,and how they can make a con-tribution to Crossrail.”

It’s a bold move thatdemonstrates the multi-yearplanning at the heart of the pro-ject, but it is not the only one.Space above ground in Londonis extremely limited, so forCrossrail, the only way is down. All in all, the project will carve out 42kmof tunnels below the capital’s streets. Such a feat of engineering requires anextremely skilled workforce, one that doesn’t necessarily exist right now insufficient numbers. To counter this, Crossrail is setting up a TunnellingAcademy that will not only provide skilled employees for the project butalso serve as a centre of excellence for the global tunnelling industry. “In amarket environment of the sort we operate, skill shortages frequently willresolve themselves but maybe not quite with the levels of solutions thatyou’re looking for,” says Morgan. “Crossrail brings economic regeneration.It brings job prospects to areas that have not had those advantages, so


BILLION BUDGET

OF NEW TUNNELS

DAILY COMMUTERS INTOLONDON BY 2025

TONNES OF WASTE TOBE REMOVED BY RIVER

Crossrailbrings

10%more capacity

BILLION ESTIMATED BENEFIT TO UK ECONOMY


successful city.” However, he also offered the qualifica-tion that, “Everything has to pass the value-for-moneytest. But we want it to go ahead.” This is a slightly luke-warm endorsement from the leader of a party notknown for its deep commitment to the funding of pub-lic transport. Morgan remains bullish that, come 2017,Crossrail will be rolling through the city, but under-stands that it is vital that the project keeps making a casefor itself. “I think the importance of ensuring that the ar-guments for Crossrail are prosecuted as hard as they can

be is critically important,” he says. “It’s very easy with along-term program of this nature to assume that youcan delay things. We’ve started the program and wehave to make sure that we put this project in the bestpossible light to those who will have to make some dif-ficult decisions in the future. My viewpoint is that in-frastructure investment, the jobs and the regenerationopportunities that come with it are all part of a recoveryprogramme. They are more than just a project.” �


FOR THE BIRDSA key spoke of Crossrail’s sustainability strategy centres around

a collaboration with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds tocreate a wildlife sanctuary at Wallasea Island in Essex usingexcavated spoil from the construction. Five million tonnes of chalk,clay, sand and gravel will be transported by boat to help transforman area of arable land back into coastal marshland. When finished,the reserve will cover nearly 6.5 square kilometres and provide aninvaluable habitat for threatened species of birds and animals, aswell as mitigating the effects of anticipated rises in sea level.Speaking of the project, Graham Wynne, Chief Executive of the RSPBsaid: “Wallasea will be the RSPB’s most ambitious and innovativehabitat recreation scheme. It will create a huge new area for birdsand other wildlife whose existing habitats are being damaged andlost because of climate change. This is a ground-breaking dealbetween one of the UK's leading enterprises and an environmentalcharity. It is absolutely wonderful news for wildlife.” It’s an excellentexample of how the business of construction and sustainability canactually work together, with both getting something out of thedeal. Simon Phillips, Crossrail’s Construction Liaison Managerechoed the RSPB’s enthusiasm, saying: "We have been looking for a

good way to reuse the excavated materialfrom Crossrail for some time and we

believe that we could not havefound a better home for it

than the RSPB scheme atWallasea Island. Crossrail isthe largest civilengineering project inEurope and we believe that

by contributing towardsEurope’s largest new coastal

wetland we will leave anappropriate and fitting legacy.”

“Infrastructure investment, thejobs and the regeneration

opportunities that come with itare all part of a recovery

programme. They are more thanjust a project”

From left: Transport Secretary Lord Adonis, LondonMayor Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Gordon Browninspect plans for Crossrail’s Canary Wharf station


METROPOLITAN POLICE

ROBOCOPS


www.euinfrastructure.com 97www.euinfrastructure.com 97

There aren’t many CIOs who spend their spare timepounding the beat on the streets of London. But forAilsa Beaton there’s no better way to understand the ITrequirements of her organisation than to volunteer as aspecial constable. As CIO of London’s MetropolitanPolice Service (MPS), Beaton’s remit is vast, and in-

cludes supporting 50,000 employees with 30,000 desktops, controlling a€350 million IT budget and ensuring officers are equipped with the tech-nology they need to fight crime. She describes IT as the “lifeblood of the or-ganisation”, underpinning modern policing methods from the controlroom to the street patrols. Its growing importance within the organisationcomes at a time, however, when the organisation is facing tight economicconstraints and Beaton admits one of the most challenging aspects of herrole is balancing increasing demands with depleting resources. “The biggestchallenge is for us to make the police service the best it can be with shrink-ing resources. In absolute terms, the money may not have been cut. Butwe’re being asked to do more with it than we’ve ever done before.”

Project pipelineThe “more” Beaton refers to includes being tasked to deliver service im-

provements and savings in the region of €58 million and spearheading amajor overhaul of the Met’s IT and communications infrastructure. This wasthe aim of the C3i programme, which was completed in 2006 and involvedintegrating the force’s communications and monitoring systems, includingits 32 borough control rooms. Describing the project, Beaton says: “We’vetaken five call receipt centres, 32 borough control rooms and integrated theminto three operational centres that handle the 12 million inbound calls eachyear, whether they are 999 or non emergency calls. The centres also co-ordi-nate the dispatch of officers whether it’s an immediate blue light situation orless urgent scenario. We despatch not just by voice, but through mobile dataterminals in police vehicles and we monitor alarms across London. It was verycomplex and as such, took a great deal of time from the inception of the idea

Pounding the beat is only part ofpolicing London’s streets. As

Metropolitan Police Service CIOAilsa Beaton tells Diana Milne, it

also requires a €350 million ITbudget and some of the world’s

most advanced technologyinfrastructure.



through to delivery. But as a project it ran to time and budget and we’re verypleased with the outcome.”

As well as C3i, another huge focus for the MPS is mobility and ensuringpolice officers on the beat have easy access to all the information they needwhen they attend an incident. With this in mind, the Metropolitan Police isrolling out PDAs to officers so that they can get information on the moverather than having to return to their patrol car to the mobile data terminal orradio a colleague. “Through mobile data terminals the information we’re ableto give police officers has changed beyond all recognition,” says Beaton. “Butalthough the information is available over the radio, and they may have mo-bile data terminals in the cars, we were left with a bit of a gap for officers onfoot. So we’re rolling out PDAs to officers which will allow them to conductvarious business processes such as checking people’s details on the PNC(Police National Computer) while they are on the street.”

The bigger pictureAlthough her main focus is on the Metropolitan Police area, Beaton is

also involved in implementing nation-wide improvements to policing andis a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers and Head of theInformation Management Business Area. One of the biggest projects she isinvolved in within that capacity is the migration from the PNC to the PoliceNational Database (PND). The PNC has been used since 1974 and consistsof several databases containing millions of police records that are accessible24 hours a day. The PND is a new and improved version which, says Beaton,will provide access to more data about individuals, detailing not just crim-inal records but police intelligence about a person, including ongoing in-vestigations and suspicious activities. She explains: “The PNC will tell youif somebody has a criminal record. It will know if they are wanted or miss-ing or if a vehicle is stolen or missing. But what it can’t tell you is about in-telligence that has been gathered through investigative work we’ve done. Forinstance, if we think a person may have been linked with the sale of illegalweapons. The PND will give broader picture of what we know, for examplethat someone is suspected of conducting illegal activity with underage chil-dren, or being involved in a paedophile ring. When you know that addi-tional information you might take some different actions or ask somedifferent questions to help in the investigation.”

While Beaton is satisfied with the improvements that are being madeto the information that can be accessed by police officers, she admits thereare gaps that must be bridged in terms of accessibility to information by thepublic. This particularly applies to witnesses and the victims of crime: “Ithink the information available to victims and witnesses has improvedtremendously, but more can be done. The gap we’ve got is that face-to-faceinteraction is not always the way people would prefer to receive that infor-mation. Currently we are unable to provide information to the public elec-tronically so people can see how their case is doing for example. That’s

THE ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTUREOF THE METTerritorial Policing: London’s local policeFollowing a recent restructuring, most of the day-to-daypolicing of London is the responsibility of 33 boroughoperational command units (BOCUs).

Specialist Crime DirectorateIn addition to policing London’s streets, the Met hasvarious specialist units dedicated to reducing all aspectsof serious and specialist crime.

The intention of Specialist Crime Directorate is toplace a renewed emphasis on working collaborativelywith communities, boroughs and partners to identifyeffective solutions to serious crime problems.

Specialist OperationsThe Met has various specialist units that work across thecapital or which fulfill a national role.

A number of these are grouped into a section of theorganisation known as Specialist Operations. They dealwith tasks such as intelligence, security, protection ofpoliticians, embassies and royalty, and the investigationof certain categories of serious crimes, including racialand violent crime and terrorism.

Central OperationsCentral Operations consists of a number of specialistunits that provide a broad range of policing functions.These units effectively provide an integrated,collaborative and community focussed service to London.

With Capital City Policing at the forefront of itsresponsibilties, it also has the remit for delivering thesecurity arrangements for the 2012 Olympic andParalympic Games in London.

Administration and supportAn organisation the size of the Metropolitan PoliceService could not function without various management,administration and support functions. For this reasonThe Met has thousands of staff, including police officersas well as civilians, who work behind the scenes toensure that the front line units can do their job. Theirfunctions include recruitment, training, personnelmanagement, provision of information technology,publicity and communications. Some functions, such asvehicle maintenance and aspects of informationtechnology and telecommunications, have beencontracted out to the private sector.

“Being a special constable makes mefeel much more connected to the

frontline business than I would if Iwas just a board member”


largely because we haven’t separated what the police need from what thepublic need in the case process and we are unable to give members of thepublic access to absolutely everything there is about a case, because wewould jeopardise the case.”

Policing efficiencyIn her role as ACPO member, Beaton is also involved in efforts to bet-

ter co-ordinate working practices across the UK’s 43 independent policeforces as part of the nationwide Information Systems ImprovementStrategy (ISIS) programme. “This is about all 43 independent forces work-ing together to get the most out of Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) in policing, and in the most cost effective way.We’re working very closely with the ISIS lead, the NationalPolicing Improvement Agency (NPIA). We’ve got to the stagewhere we’re starting to find solutions to help support local policing,without having the cost implication of all 43 local forces doing theirown thing.” Achieving this sort of efficiency and cost effectivenesswithin the police service is an integral part of Beaton’s role. However,to free up the group to focus more on information management andusing technology to meet the Met’s objectives on the frontline, back-office IT procedures were outsourced to Capgemini in 2005 as part ofa seven-year £50 million deal. “What we outsourced to Capgemini waswhat I called the standard IT, such as phones, desktop computers andapplications.” She goes on to say that the contract has resulted in bothcost savings and service level improvements. She reveals that a previousoutsourcing deal didn’t take account of the round the clock requirementsof the Metropolitan Police: “Our first generation outsourcing didn’t takeas much account as I think it should have done of us being a 24-hour,seven-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year business and was far too geared to whatI would call a standard office way of working.”

On the frontlineUnderstanding the unique needs of the police service is key to suc-

cessfully aligning information management with crime fighting. Beaton’ssecret weapon is her voluntary work as a special constable which she saysgives her the best possible insight into the IT needs of the police andwhether the systems her team have put in place are really working: “Beinga special constable makes me feel much more connected to the frontlinebusiness than I would if I was just a board member. When I’ve done anupgrade to mobile data terminals or I’m putting out PDAs or talkingabout how good the radio service is I’ve experienced it all first hand sohave a greater appreciation of how technology is meeting the needs of theservice.” As well as keeping in touch with the technology used by officerson the front line, an important part of Beaton’s role is understanding thetechnology that is being used by criminals to commit offences: “We mustkeep aware of all the things that are being made available through the in-ternet whether it’s deceiving people into parting with money or setting upvarious scams around it. It’s also a way of criminals communicating witheach other maybe without ever meeting, which changes the way that weinvestigate crime.”

Beaton’s passion for her role should, she hopes, serve as an inspira-tion to other aspiring female CIOs in an industry which remains heavilymale dominated. She is keen to encourage women to follow her example


THE BOYS AND GIRLS IN BLUEThe Metropolitan Police Service is by far the largest ofthe police services that operate in greater London (theothers include the City of London Police and the BritishTransport Police). Founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1829,theoriginal establishment of 1000 officers policed a seven-mile radius from Charing Cross and a population of lessthan two million.

Today, the Metropolitan Police Service employs 31,000officers, 14,000 police staff, 414 traffic wardens and 4000Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) as well as beingsupported by over 2500 volunteer police officers in theMetropolitan Special Constabulary (MSC) and its EmployerSupported Policing (ESP) programme. The MetropolitanPolice Service covers an area of 620 square miles and apopulation of 7.2 million.

Above: Met Police adverts to raise awarenessof terrorism

and is involved in initiatives in the UK such as Computer Clubs for Girls:“I don’t think it’s been particularly more difficult for me than for any-body else,” she says. “But we’re in a challenging position, and I think onlyabout 15 percent of the British Computer Society is female. So the num-bers of women going into computing is frighteningly low. I sit on theSector Skills Council for Information Technology (e-skills) which sup-ports activities like Computer Clubs for Girls to try to get girls when theyare at school to realise that this isn’t just a boy’s thing.” They need toknow that it’s actually very interesting and it’s not just about computergames. There are lots of ways of using technology that are useful and worth-

while,” a point she has provenvery successfully herself. �


What have your key priorities been of late? What big projects have youbeen working on?Petter Eiken. We have been working hard on reducing capacity. Not only re-ducing capacity, but also improving the efficiency of the organisation, takingout levels of administration and improving the performance. We are work-ing hard on productivity because the productivity has not been improved inthe latest year, so it’s time to focus on that. One of theother important issues then is standardisation, so weare – especially when it comes to residential construc-tion, working hard on standardisation. The last thing Iwould like to mention is the green initiative because wehave to include our knowledge when it comes to lifecy-cle’s impact, in what we are doing.

In your recent speech at the FIDIC conference inLondon, you spoke about Skanska’s work on stan-dardisation. What are the challenges of this processand what will its ultimate benefits be?

PE. It’s quite hard to implement standards in a construction company. Peoplebasically do what they want, so it’s a huge effort, but I expect the output to beof enormous value. I think it’s like the car industry if you go back to the 1920s.Every car then was different so they had a huge range of potential problemsand were very expensive. Today they are efficient, not that many defects andthey are cheap. I think it’s the same thing that will happen in the construction

industry, but it will take time to make it change inpeople’s minds.

The benefit that comes to cost and quality is ob-vious, but I think the biggest challenge is to still keeparchitecture attractive so people want to buy what weare building. People don’t want to buy a box.

Construction has been one of the areas hardesthit by the economic downturn. Skanska has hadto make layoffs and there are apparently morecoming. What sort of impact has this had on yourbusiness?

STANDARD ISSUE


EU Infrastructure sits down with Skanska’s Petter Eiken to hear about the company’sefforts to standardise its processes and the need for greater specialisation.

CONSTRUCTION

SKANSKA BY NUMBERS

Founded in 1887

Established first internationaloperations in 1897

60,000 employees in Europe, USand Latin America

12,000 projects delivered annually

€13.7 billion in revenue in 2008

PETTER EIKEN_18nov 03/12/2009 15:01 Page 100

PE. We had to lay off approximately 30 percent of the people, and it’s not overyet. I think next year will be even harder than 2009, and the worst thing hereis that some of these people will start to leave the industry and never comeback again. If we suddenly have an upswing, then we have a lack of capacity.A lot of experience is gone from the industry, which could lead back to badproductivity and bad quality. We are trying as hard as we can to keep youngpeople, to keep the most talented people, but that’s a hard job. We are tryingto do that in cooperation with the unions but it’s not always that successful, Ihave to admit.

You’re currently changing your approach to leadership and looking fornew types of leaders. How is this process progressing and what advan-tages is it bringing for the company?PE. We are focusing hard on diversity, and that’s to get rid of the hierarchical,martial type of organisation that we are used to having because in a martialorganisation people don’t learn from each other. Also we are hiring a lot ofwomen these days. We have been doing that for many years, and that is to cre-ate a more diversified and more innovative organisation that is suited foryoung women as well as for young men.

Have there been any challenges involved in these efforts to in-crease diversity?PE. It’s not hard to recruit women but it’s harder to keep them. Wehave to careful where we put them. We have to put them togetherwith leaders that really want to work for diversity. This is not easy.I have to admit that.

How are you at Skanska working to build greener and moresustainable processes? You mentioned the modular planningof the building, what are the other things that you’re doing inyour construction and planning processes?PE. We are doing a lot of small things like educating people on eco-nomical driving. You have a green toolbox on the internet with thevarious ideas for the sites, so it’s all aspects and the bigger andsmaller issues using IT tools as an indication platform.

You mention IT tools. How are you using IT to make the wayyou work more efficient?PE. When it comes to Building Information Modelling (BIM), weare demanding that of all projects that we are developing ourself.We are controlling the whole value chain and ensuring that theyuse BIM as the tool in the program. For us, it’s quite obvious thatBIM will revolutionise the construction industry. BIM is somethingthat we’re really pushing at the moment. We don’t develop anysoftware in Skanska. We use standard software so that we have a

global initiative driving through the company and during this year, it will bethe standard tool in all self-developed projects.

Finally, what do you think Skanska’s priorities are going to be over thecoming years?PE. I think you will see an even more specialised Skanska. We used to saythat we build everything everywhere, but we have to focus more on our re-ally core competence and workflows to survive. For instance, our consul-tants can’t look at things as one-off agreements. We have to make long-termcommitments.

Is this a direct result of perhaps the difficult economic situation, or is itsomething that you think would’ve been happening anyway?PE. I think it’s easier to drive change during these conditions, but the challengeis that knowledge from a project evaporates and doesn’t transfer that easily tothe next one, and that’s something we have to solve. n


Petter Eiken is President of Skanska Norway and previously held the role of Executive VicePresident of Skanska AB. He is responsible for the company’s construction activity inSweden, Norway and Finland as well as being in charge of procurement and IT in theSenior Executive Team.

“The biggest challenge isto still keep architecture

attractive”

Petter Eiken

PETTER EIKEN_18nov 03/12/2009 15:02 Page 101

encased in a protective polyethylene sheath. Having been in use for over 25 tears, Paralink has excellent performance and durability credentials.

Of the retaining walls built so far, with various heights and lengths, Wall 6-7 in section 1 at km 19 is particularly interesting, both from a tech-nical point of view – with its height of 40m – and from an aesthetic one, as

it fi ts perfectly into the mountainous landscape.During the design – and once the assumption of a

new bridge had been rejected – the contractor appointed Offi cine Maccaferri to design the support works that would enable the motorway to run at the design elevation along the mountain slopes. Th e result was a reinforced earth structure in which Maccaferri used its considerable know-how and demonstrated the feasibility of a struc-ture, which, at fi rst sight, might have appeared somewhat unachievable.

During the design of such structures it is absolutely essential to correctly identify the potential failure mecha-nisms in the soil in order to assess the stability contri-bution off ered by the presence of the reinforcements. A correct design of a reinforced earth structure therefore implies a correct choice of the length and vertical spacing of the reinforcements necessary to guarantee stability, with known geotechnical parameters for the structural embankment (friction angle, specifi c weight) and the mechanical characteristics of the reinforcements (failure load, soil adhesion factor).

Th e examination of the stability conditions of the embankments was carried out using the limit state methods. Th e evaluation of the stability safety factors was carried out with the MacStar2000 soft ware package (developed by Offi cine Maccaferri for reinforced earth struc-

tures) in which the search for the critical surfaces is carried out by the automatic generation of a high number of potential slip surfaces.

Moreover, on the slopes above the walls, rockfall protec-tion, erosion control and re-vegetation measures were installed to protect the motorway below. High tensile strength, Steelgrid MO150 was used for rock face surface stabilisation in conjunc-tion with anchors and rock bolting. Th is was supplemented with Maccaferri MacMat R16822GN in locations where rapid establishment of stabilising vegetative cover was required. In critical locations where installation of these measures was not feasible, the 500kJ high-resistance rockfall barrier CTR 05-07-B was installed as rockfall protection. Specialist design assistance was provided by Maccaferri.

INDUSTRYINSIGHT

Offi cine Maccaferri’s Claudio Ferracuti explains how the engineering principles that inspired the design of a motorway in Albania demonstrate that structures built using reinforced earth technologies can be large and safely inserted into complex environmental situations which need to be protected.

The motorway connecting Durazzo – the main Albanian port on the Adriatic Sea – with Kosovo is the largest proj-ect ever fi nanced in Albania. Th e motorway will enable the border to be reached in just two hours instead of six along hazardous mountain roads, and it will be a major

stimulus for the development of this area.Th e 64km section from Rreshen to Kalimash was

awarded to the international construction consortium Enka Bechtel. Th is section, which included 70 retain-ing walls with a total length of 6.4km, was substantially completed in June 2009 aft er a construction programme of just over one year.

Offi cine Maccaferri SpA has been a global reference point over the last 130 years for the design and construc-tion of state-of-the-art solutions for erosion control and retaining works. It was responsible for the design, supply and installation (the latter through its local sub-contract partner Albania Draht) of 30 reinforced earth walls with a total surface area of approximately 35,000m2.

Th ese walls were designed and constructed as hybrid reinforced earth structures with the combination of two Maccaferri products. Th e fi rst, Terramesh System – as the secondary reinforcement – consists of horizontal fl at reinforcement elements, made from double twist hexago-nal wire mesh (8x10 cm) and 2.7 mm diameter steel wire protected with Galfan alloy and coated with a polymeric layer to guarantee the maximum service life of the project.

Th e second, Paralink 300 – as the primary reinforcement – is a uniax-ial geogrid (produced by Linear Composites Ltd. of the Maccaferri Group) consisting of strips of densely packed, high tenacity polyester fi laments,

SAFE AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND


Claudio Ferracuti is a civil engineer who has specialised in geotechnical, basal reinforcement, paving, rockfall protection system and landfi ll throughout his career. Over the last 12 years he has branched into the commercial sector in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, now working as the Export Manager for Offi cine Maccaferri S.p.A, responsible for coordinating solutions related to strategic development across the Maccaferri export business.

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Maccaferri_INFRAEU_DEC09.indd 1Maccaferri_INFRAEU_DEC09.indd 1 2/12/09 14:06:192/12/09 14:06:19

There is currently a trend towards sustainability and greener construc-tion throughout Europe and beyond. How is this trend reflected in thepaints and coatings industry? Dave Russell. I believe it’s a trend that’s here to stay and it’s having a huge im-pact on what we are doing already. Jotun has developed several new productsthat meet the challenge head on. For example, our heat reflecting paints helpsave energy and our water borne, lead free and solvent free coatings are notonly technically brilliant, they are also better for the environment. One lead-ing project Jotun is heavily involved in is supplying Masdar City near AbuDhabi – headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency(IRENA) and the world’s first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city.

Petri Järvinen. There are big differences in Europe when talking about trendstowards sustainability and greener construction concerning paints and coat-ings. Nordic Countries have been the forerunners with environmentally com-pliant products for several years and the majority of the products used inconstruction industry are based on water-borne or high-solids technology.However, these products are not so commonly used in the Eastern European

POSITIVE COVERAGE


EU Infrastructure asks three industryexperts how the protective coatingsindustry is stepping up to the challengesof sustainability, durability and education.

ROUNDTABLE

Dave Russell is Regional Director for Protective Coatings atJotun Paints Europe Ltd., responsible for mainland Europeand Russia. Previously he worked for Sigma Coatings andprior to that as a specialist in business transformation andnew territory implementations at various companiesworldwide. Currently he is developing Jotun’s presence in theprotective coatings market.

Petri Järvinen works as a Vice President in Tikkurila's SBUIndustrial Coatings and he is responsible for Technology andBusiness Support functions. He has undertaken differenttasks and positions in the paints and coatings industry andhas close to 30 years’ experience in this specific area.

Stephen Drew gained a first-class honours BSc in ColourChemistry in 1977 and a PhD in Organic Photochemistry fromthe University of Leeds in 1980. He was also awarded aDegree in Business Administration from the University ofNorthumbria in 1986. He joined Akzo Nobel in 1980, and nowhas more than 25 years’ experience in powder coatings. Hehas held a number of senior management positions in AkzoNobel, and is currently Global Sales Manager for FunctionalPowder Coatings.

THE

PAN

EL

PAINT RT_18nov 03/12/2009 15:00 Page 104

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ing time between paint layers and the reduction of the number of layers in theprotective paint system. In addition, new high-solids products have enabledus to reduce the number of paint layers without sacrificing the durability andthe corrosion protection performance.

SD. The cost of many infrastructure projects has until recently risen steadilyover the past decade and the design lifetime of such projects has also in-creased. This has required coatings suppliers to evolve their product devel-opment to meet the increased coatings performance specifications, and has

become a global trend in the infrastructure in-dustries. In the oil and gas industry, majorpipelines are now expected to last up to 40years in service before rehabilitation.AkzoNobel continues to be at the forefront ofcoating developments and testing to ensurethat pipelines are protected both externallyand internally with its Resicoat anti-corrosionFBE product range to meet these require-ments. In the architectural aluminium indus-try for building construction the mostdemanding coatings standards now requireguaranteed performance for 25 years.Akzonobel Powder Coatings has driven suchdevelopments with its Interpon D3000 novelfluoro-polymer product range which easily ex-ceeds these requirements.

DR. Jotun delivers long-lasting coating sys-tems to the infrastructure market. Longer lifecoating systems increase maintenance cyclesleading to less time and cost in maintenanceand refurbishment, reduced energy con-sumption on recoating and less impact on theenvironment.

The difficult economic situation is having abig impact on the construction industry andputting budgets under a great deal of strain.Why would it be a mistake to target indus-trial coatings as a potential area to cut costs?SD. Although in the current economic climateit is inevitable that new construction projectswill focus on cost, it is important to recognisethat coatings perform the important role ofprotecting steel from corrosion and that theircost represents only a tiny fraction of the costof the overall project. Therefore if the focus oncost-cutting is applied to the coating system,the cost savings will be minimal and, more im-portantly, it is inevitable that many coatingssuppliers will aim to develop less expensiveproducts to fit with the new commercial envi-ronment. This has potentially serious implica-

market area. This unbalance in the European paint market allows some paintsand coatings manufacturers to expand their geographical market area, whilethe rest need to focus on the development of new economical and environ-mentally compliant products to defend their market shares.

Stephen Drew. AkzoNobel Powder Coatings is working with all its stake-holders towards a sustainable future. Powder coatings are an attractive alter-native to liquid coatings through their inherent sustainability since theycontain no solvents and have application levels up to 99 percent. We are con-stantly sourcing more sustainable and renew-able raw materials and energy resources fromour suppliers. We are also developing innova-tive product technologies based on sustain-ability and energy efficiency. These include ourpatented particle management technology, lowtemperature cure products, and also dry-on-dry technology to reduce the overall curingtime of multiple coatings.

We recognise that our customers havetough sustainability objectives and we areworking with them to provide a sustainablealternative in order to meet these targets. Ourecological footprint has been recognised asamongst the lowest in the coatings industryand we use ecological efficiency analyses(EEA’s) to reconfirm for our customers thatpowder coatings are a sustainable coatingmaterial.

Infrastructure applications put a hugeamount of stress on paints and coatings.How are companies like yours working tocreate ever more durable solutions forusers?PJ. The demand for long lasting high-qualitysystems to protect infrastructure has increasedyear by year. Facility owners have started to re-alise the total lifetime costs of protecting infra-structure and prefer to invest in more durablepaint systems in the beginning to achieve sav-ings from reduced maintenance painting costsin later phases.

Tikkurila has a strong focus on develop-ing and marketing environmentally compliantand high-quality products, not forgetting thetotal economy of the painting process forpainting contractors and facility owners. Weare also able to offer a waterborne paint systemfor the C4 corrosivity category that is fullycured in eight hours, with the help of our drytech technology. Alongside the environmentalaspects, we take into account the cost efficien-cy of our products, meaning shorter overcoat-


Stephen Drew

Dave Russell

Petri Järvinen

PAINT RT_18nov 04/12/2009 09:44 Page 106

tions for the long-term anti-corrosion performance of the coatings offeredand hence large potential costs in the future for repair and rehabilitation ofthe coating.

DR. To my mind, any decision to use coatings containing low quality, harm-ful chemicals is short-sighted. The future safe removal and disposal of toxiccoatings is likely to be costly, not only in monetary terms but also to healthand to the environment.

PJ. Due to the current difficult economic situation, many customers have start-ed to look at low cost materials, which is an alarming trend that will causehigher maintenance costs for facility owners in the future. If a protective paintsystem with the estimated service lifetime of 15 years is replaced by a systemlasting five years, the material cost saving might be 30-50 percent, but the totallifetime cost for corrosion protection including in maintenance painting costsmight be two to three times higher.

Alongside increased costs the lifetime carbon foot print of constructionwill be two to three times higher meaning higher VOC emissions, more wasteand heavier stress for the environment and nature. By selecting more durablesystems from the beginning you can save both money and theenvironment.

Developing ever more sophisticated technologies and solu-tions is only one part of the challenge facing paints and coat-ings manufacturers. Another is educating and promotingthe value of these solutions to the end user. How do you ap-proach this and what unique challenges does product pro-motion pose in Europe?DR. Improving awareness is a vital part of what we do at Jotun.That’s why we spend time presenting safe solutions to the chal-lenges faced daily by architects, industry leaders and local au-thorities. With a little education we are gradually winning overowners by asking them to look beyond the initial coating cost tothe future costs and risks associated with poor coating selection.

We are also actively involved in developing green stan-dards and legislation to promote the use of better, longer-termcoatings for the benefit of everyone.

PJ. The importance of traditional marketing like advertising inthe trade press and the professional magazines has been de-creased during this decade. Product promotion is still needed,but in different forms than earlier. Our customers including ar-chitects, engineers, painting contractors and facility owners arekeener on reading articles, case studies and references. Theavailability of technical information is important for them andthat is why the importance of the internet is increasing all thetime, especially as the younger generation prefers the internetas a main information source. Keeping information up-to-datein different language versions is a challenge in a region likeEurope, but the internet as an information channel offers a costefficient way to do it.

As customers want to focus on their core businesses, theyrequire more support and services from their paints and coatings

supplier. Alongside product availability with a variety of colours, profession-al distribution networks can offer local service and support resulting in highcustomer satisfaction.

SD. In a truly market-driven process of developing new technologies and so-lutions the coatings manufacturer will have identified the specific needs of histarget end-user group. This ensures that new product introductions will havegood market acceptance. However for such introductions to be successfullong-term, the coatings manufacturer also needs to understand the needs ofhis end-users’ clients so that these are also met. The new product must be ableto demonstrate real benefits in terms of, for example, higher performance orlower costs. If the new technology is industry-changing and sets new perfor-mance standards it is useful to form an industry group of market-leading end-users to define the new standard and to set up a quality-circle organisation.AkzoNobel Powder Coatings has successfully followed this route over manyyears through its involvement in numerous industry organisations. For ex-ample the renowned GSK group in Germany was formed to establish a qual-ity standard for FBE powder coatings on drinking water pipeline accessoriessuch as valves and fittings. n


PAINT RT_18nov 03/12/2009 15:00 Page 107


Europe’s growing need for power is neces-sitating big investments in new generation and transmission capacity. What technical challenges do such large projects hold for those charged with building them?Rüdiger Zollondz. Th ose big investments include the refurbishment of existing power plants, the building of new ones and the erec-tion of wind turbines. Most projects run on a very tight schedule, and we notice a clear trend toward modularisation. Th is helps ensure the quality of the installed components and saves time on the construction site. Components that previously had to be assembled in the air, or that had to be installed very early in the power plant construction process, nowadays get delivered to the construction sites as modules.

Th ose modular systems are getting both heavier and larger, requiring cranes with a higher lift ing capacity. Oft en, these giant loads need to be moved from one place to the other which is a typical application for our Terex crawler cranes. Crawler cranes have the capa-bility to pick and carry, whereas other lift ing solutions, such as ring lift or pedestal cranes are stationary.

In the current economic climate, controlling costs is of paramount importance. How can advanced construction machinery, such as cranes, create savings through increased effi ciency?RZ. Increased lift ing capacity can lead to sub-stantial savings in the construction process. Now one crane can oft en do lift s that previously required two large cranes. For example, our CC 9800 lattice boom crawler crane with a maxi-

mum lift ing capacity of 1600 tonnes can be con-fi gured to lift 6 MW wind turbines by itself – up to 375 tonnes – to a hook height of 147 metres.

Also, the modular design and adaptive capabilities of our cranes are key to saving money on the construction site. For example, a narrow-track chassis is available for our CC 2800-1 crane, which allows it to travel fully rigged on roads that are not wider than 5.3 metres. Th is greatly reduces set-up time on site, allows our customers to erect more wind turbines in less time and helps to protect the environment, since special road work is not necessary.

What attributes and capabili-ties do cranes require to be able to cope with the specifi c needs of large-scale indus-trial construction?RZ. Mobility is one decisive factor. Cranes need to be transported between construc-tion sites. Th rough intelligent design of the components, large savings are possible in trans-portation costs. For example, the counterweight slabs for our crawler cranes are off ered in 7.5 tonne, 10 tonne and 15 tonne sizes and are identical through the whole CC product line. Th is allows our customers to optimise the payload of each truck during transportation. Counterweights can be stocked in diff erent lo-cations and then transported from the closest location to the construction site.

EXECUTIVEINTERVIEW

Rüdiger Zollondz leads the global product marketing team at Terex Cranes. His focus is on capturing customer input for product developments, as well as product-related analysis, support and literature. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has been working in the cranes industry since 1989, when he joined Demag as a calculation engineer.

HIGH AND MIGHTYRüdiger Zollondz of Terex Cranes explains the importance of cost savings, increased effi ciency

and innovation in large-scale industrial construction.

It is also important to have equipment that provides the fl exibility to adapt to diverse requirements during large-scale industrial con-struction. For example, our CC 8800-1 crane can be upgraded to the biggest pick-and-carry unit in the world, the CC 8800-1 TWIN, with a maximum lift ing capacity of 3200 tonnes.

The need for innovation remains constant, no more so than during a downturn. What

major developments in the construction equipment in-dustry do you envision in the coming months and years? RZ. Upcoming developments will improve all aspects of crane safety operations. Terex is committed to the design and manufacturing of our cranes to best-in-class product safety standards. Another trend in-volves high expectations regard-ing equipment effi ciency. Our customers want to generate high return on their investment. We are focused on supporting them through intelligent application solutions that help to increase the uptime of our cranes. Th e goal is to deliver machines that

get jobs done safely while having a low total cost of ownership during their lifetime. It is a big ad-vantage for Terex Cranes that we bring together diverse crane experts from within the company, in order to exchange knowledge, learn from each other and make the best solutions available to our customers.

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Although the building and construction industryin the UK is said to be one of the safest inEurope, one third of all work fatalities happenin this sector. In the UK, the cost of occupa-

tional accidents accounts for an astonishing 8.5 percent ofconstruction project costs. According to Eurostat- EuropeanStatistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW), the ‘upper ex-tremities’ (hands and arms) are the parts of the body mostinjured, accounting for 43.2 percent of all non-fatal acci-dents at work. In Europe 38 percent of construction in-juries are on hands (51 percent on fingers). Some 26percent of injuries are hand injuries and cuts are the firstamongst them.

Today more and more employers understand thatprotecting their workers against falls, cuts, musculoskeletalstrain, harmful chemicals and harsh environmental condi-tions is essential to productivity and well-being. But, despitethe fact that major players in the industry have understoodthis and have introduced intensive train-ing and quality products, research indi-cates that a large majority of constructionworkers do not wear work gloves whileperforming their jobs. And those who areprovided gloves by their employers oftencomplain that they cannot work in them.Moreover, construction workers stillchoose leather gloves more than any othertype of glove despite the fact that leathergloves do not offer very high cut protec-tion and age very poorly.

Construction workers need to bemade more aware of safety and under-stand the risks on construction andbuilding jobsites. Effective hand protec-tion in the form of safety gloves consti-tutes a key component of PPE (personalprotective equipment) for the construc-tion industry. Along with safety helmets,eye protection, protective footwear,safety harnesses and protective clothing,gloves complete the panoply of PPE. Ansell’s synthetic (ni-

trile) gloves offer new options in high-performance workgloves engineered to fit the specific needs of constructionprofessionals.

Construction has a wide range of jobs and applica-tions. To respond to this complexity, Ansell has deter-

mined a comprehensive range of products that are adaptedto the majority of jobs and risks and therefore make things

simple. Overall, cuts are the number oneinjury in construction. They concern al-most all construction trades: carpenters,masons, painters, tilers, roofers, plaster-ers and labourers.

Today, manufacturers are develop-ing solutions made of new technology fi-bres more and more resistant to cut(Kevlar, Dyneema, glass fibre, etc.). Butthese new developments need to be asso-ciated to the understanding of needs andof the applications themselves. The ad-junct of such fibres often results in com-promised wearer comfort. Ansell’s specialknitting techniques isolate potentially ir-ritating steel or glass fibres in the yarncore; cotton is carefully added to max-imise softness and comfort against theskin. Better-designed cut-resistantgloves translate to increased worker ac-ceptance. Education remains critical asworkers tend to use inadequate hand

protection in a high proportion of cases. �

IN SAFE HANDS


Employers may understand that protecting workers is essential toproductivity and well-being but construction workers need to bemade more aware of safety and risks on construction sites, saysAnsell Healthcare’s Agnès Berthault.

ASK THEEXPERT

Agnès Berthault is EMEABusiness DevelopmentManager in charge of theConstruction & PublicUtilities industries for AnsellHealthcare, a global leader inbarrier protective products.Before joining Ansell, Agnèswas active at Saint-GobainBâtiment Distribution. Shefocuses on the role thatsafety equipments play inprotecting contractors andtheir workforces.

“Education remains critical as workerstend to use inadequate hand protection ina high proportion of cases”

AnsellHealthcare_ATE:18nov 3/12/09 14:55 Page 110

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Today a great part of this can be provided by systems using intel-ligent compaction – vibration systems that automatically control, opti-mise and document compaction – a technique in which BOMAG has led the way for many years. Th e core of these systems is based on directed vibration, off ering an enormous range of compaction performance and depth eff ect from low-vibration surface compaction up to enhanced depth eff ect vibration.

To control, optimise and document compaction, BOMAG devel-oped the Asphalt Manager. A system that in automatic mode monitors compaction progress and adjusts compaction performance many times a

second – no adjustments must be made by the driver. Th is eliminates drum bounce and operator error.

Asphalt Manager requires no special user-train-ing as the control panel is self-explanatory. During compaction the dynamic energy lead into the pave-ment is optimally and continuously adapted to the actual conditions. Grain damages and disturbances of the asphalt layer are eff ectively prevented. Th e system automatically limits compaction power where there is a risk of over-compaction.

At the same time asphalt mix stiff ness and compaction progress, surface temperature, travel speed, exciter frequency and selected amplitude are continuously displayed to the roller operator and can be printed out on-site using the data recorder. Due to this adaptability and continuous control and optimisation, rollers with Asphalt Manager are highly suitable for the complete spectrum of asphalt applications.

Drivers can also select a manual mode. Th is can be the case for the compaction of layers on bridges or

pavements close to buildings, where low-vibration compaction might be recommended. But for up to 90 percent of all applications drivers are using the automatic mode.

Asphalt is the ‘royal league’ of compaction where quality depends on a huge variety of factors. Modern intelligent compaction vastly im-proves quality.

ASK THEEXPERT

THE ‘ROYAL LEAGUE’ OF COMPACTIONBOMAG’s Hans-Josef Kloubert explains how modern, intelligent asphalt

compaction techniques signifi cantly improve quality.

Wherever roads are built across a continent, people’s lives become connected to econo-mies thereby supporting economic growth. Th e compaction of asphalt in particular has demands of very high quality applied to it.

Asphalt roads, like highways or causeways, have to meet demands concerning evenness and durable grip. Th ey must be able to cope with the expected transport loads as well as load burdens resulting from weather and temperature stress.

Asphalt layers of a road surface should be able to reliably carry the traffi c loads. Th ey must be able to discharge these loads to the substructure or sub-base, in order to prevent harmful deformation. Besides the mix composition and the paving, the compaction of the mix is of utmost importance with respect to the quality and the service life of the road. For asphalt compaction you need the right technique, knowledge and experience.

Compacting asphalt starts with the fi nisher. If you use a fi nisher with low pre-compaction you will probably need breakdown rolling as rollers that are too heavy or early compaction with vibration might aff ect the evenness of the layer or even cause undesired dis-placements and misplacements in the material.

However, if you use a fi nisher with high initial compaction you can start using vibratory rollers ear-lier. Final compaction can thus be achieved with just a few roller passes. Th is is because vibratory rollers are very powerful, versatile and require considerably less passes than static rollers. Th e vibration reduces the internal friction of the aggregates in the mix, so that the interaction between deadweight and dynamic load increases the density.

Besides the static linear load, other factors like vibrating mass, fre-quency and amplitude are also decisive for the compaction eff ect. But also the number of passes – too many might cause harmful loosening of material and disturbances in the structure of the asphalt layer. Th erefore knowledge and experience is necessary.

Hans–Josef Kloubert, Civil Engineer (P.E.), is Head of Application Technology at BOMAG. He has previously worked as a Geotechnical/Project Management engineer. For the past 20 years he has been BOMAG’s application expert in soil and asphalt compaction and compaction measurement and is deeply involved in the development of new technologies.

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ator saves one re-laying every 25 years. Roadowners should be interested in this information.”

Successful long-term trialEvaluation of a long-term trial on a stretch of

road in Alabama, USA, provides firm evidence ofthe method’s benefits. The trial stretch was drivenover continuously by 60-tonne trucks, simulatingan 18-year service life in just two years. The trialstretch showed not the slightest sign of fatigue inthe form of tracks or cracks.

Environmental benefits The ‘hot-on-hot’ laying method also pro-

vides a number of positive effects on the environ-ment. The opportunity to reduce the mixtemperatures will reduce pollutant emissions.Also, by reducing the mixed good temperature at10°C, approx.0,23l heating oil per one ton can besaved. No bitumen emulsion is needed (which issprayed on the binder layer in case of the conven-tional laying method). An additional reduction ofthe asphalt binder course from 10cm to 8cm(highway projects) is possible. n

The Compactasphalt hot-on-hot as-phalt laying method offers big advan-tages to roadbuilders and theirclients. Roads surfaced using this

method last longer and are cheaper to maintain. The method was patented in 1993 by

Professor Elk Richter at Erfurt, Germany and isnow becoming recognised as standard practice.The main difference with conventional asphalt lay-ing methods is that the binder and wearing courseare applied to the loadbearing layer, one after theother in a single pass. Regular asphalt paving in-volves two separate passes, with the wearing coursebeing applied after the binder has cooled.

With conventional paving methods, thebinder layer cools before the wearing course is ap-plied. Especially in bad weather, where the asphalttemperature falls rapidly, this can cause problemsand lead to uneven compaction. Also water, snowor dirt can come between the layers and negative-ly influence the end result. According to the offi-cial ZTV Asphalt regulations in Germany, theseproblems can be eliminated by using the newmethod. Not only does it cut construction time byhalf, helping to reduce motorway tailbacks, it alsobrings tangible technical benefits. It makes use ofthe heat in the thick binder layer that has just beenlaid to gain time for the compaction of the twoupper layers.

Good compaction takes timeGood compaction of the asphalt is crucial in

road building, but the rollers take time to do theirjob. The cooling of the asphalt during compactionreduces the degree of compaction and with it thedurability of the road surface.

By laying the binder and the wearing courseat the same time, a total of 12 centimetres of as-phalt is applied. Because the applied asphalt isthicker, the useful compaction time is extendedby a factor of at least seven.

When the two layers are applied ‘hot-on-hot’, it is possible to reduce the thickness of theuppermost layer to two centimetres, as opposed

to four centimetres with the conventionalmethod. Since the wearing course mix is particu-larly costly, this means substantial savings for thecontractor and ultimately for the taxpayer.Compared with the conventional method,Compactasphalt also gives better bonding be-tween the individual layers, helping to preventcrack formation in the road surface.

On average, the load-bearing layer of a roadneeds to be replaced after 40 to 50 years, thebinder layer after 15 to 25 years and the wearingcourse after 10 to 15 years. So the wearing courseneeds replacing at least once during the normalservice life of a binder layer.

“This isn’t the case with ‘hot-on-hot’ asphaltlaying,” says Ronald Utterodt, ApplicationManager for Dynapac Competence Center forPaving Applications in Wardenburg, Germany.“With this method we can extend the service lifeof a wearing course to match that of the binderlayer. Over the entire lifecycle of a road, the oper-

Hot stuffDynapac’s Ronald Utterodt explains how hot-on-hotasphalt laying is the way forward.

ASK THEEXPERT

Ronald Utterodt is a recognised authority in the field ofroad construction with more than 20 years of experience.He is an expert in asphalt paving and has beeninstrumental in the successful development of DynapacCompactasphalt method, which is becoming a standardfor sustainable hot-on-hot asphalt paving.

“Over the entirelifecycle of a road, theoperator saves one re-laying every 25 years”

DYNAPAC ATE_co proof 03/12/2009 14:56 Page 114

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RENEWABLEINSIGHT

Michael Lewis, European Managing Director for E.ON Climate and Renewables, talks about the challenges of offshore wind, the need for new transmission infrastructure and fossil fuel’s place in the future energy mix.

POWER STRUGGLEMichael Lewis.indd 116Michael Lewis.indd 116 3/12/09 15:01:063/12/09 15:01:06


Off shore is a very important area for the future of the European Union renewables targets. If you look at all the work that has been done around how we get to 20 percent of primary energy from renewables by 2020 or beyond, this will require a large investment in off shore technology. If you look at where we are today, we’re around something like 1.5 to two gigawatts of total installed off shore ca-

pacity. If we’re going to meet the target, we need to get to something like 40 to 50 gigawatts. Th at’s a huge increase and that’s within a short period of 10 to 15 years. Th at means we’ve got to prove the technology capable of operating in the harsh marine environment and get the supply chain focused on delivering solutions so we can actually install them quickly and effi ciently. What we’ve tried to do is build the renewables off shore strategy, which attempts to take the easier locations fi rst.

It’s a question of the physical nature of the projects because off shore is not just off shore. Th ere are varying degrees of diffi culty. For example, the fi rst project we did, Scroby Sands off Great Yarmouth in the UK, is a very near shore project, three kilometres from the coast, in relatively shallow water only fi ve metres deep. Th at is comparatively easy both to install and to operate because of the proxim-ity to the shore, and also to put the foundations in place because of the relatively shallow water. We’re now moving into larger projects like Rødsand in Denmark, which is much bigger than Scroby Sands, with 207 megawatts as compared to 60 megawatts. It is still in relatively shallow water near Denmark about fi ve kilometres from the shore, in 10 metre deep water, and that means we can use the skills we learned at Scroby to build a bigger wind farm with larger turbines and a bigger capacity. So what we want to do is bring the skills we learned at Scroby in the easier off shore environment to the slightly more diffi cult and challenging environment at Rødsand and build a much bigger project, with a larger number of foundations and diff erent turbine types.

We want to prove that we can do this on a large scale and not only at Rødsand. We also have another project in the UK, 180 megawatts at Robin Rigg in the Solway Firth, again proving that we can install at a large scale but still in the relatively near shore, shallow water environment. When we’ve mastered those projects and we’ve proved that we can install effi ciently, that we can get the right vessels to the sites so that we can have a reduced cycle time and reduce the capital costs, and when we’re happy that the turbines can operate well in that environment, we then intend to move into the larger, far shore, deep water projects. Th ese are projects outside of the 20 metre depth and 20 kilometres from shore and below. Th ose projects will be a bigger challenge both in the installa-tion and in the operational phase, so we want to learn our trade in the light projects before we move to the diffi cult ones. Th e London Array, which we recently approved, will be the largest off shore project in the world once it is constructed with 1000 megawatts.

It’s a much bigger proposition, but, again, it’s about learning the trade, learning how to build a project of that size, and making sure we can operate it effi ciently and get the high levels of avail-ability that we need to make it a viable economic proposition. All of our projects so far, are they are not only there to create value in themselves, they’re also part of a learning curve to enable us to get to the larger off shore projects, for example, in Germany where you might be 45 kilometres from the shore and in 35 metre deep water. Th ere are some very big potential projects out in the North Sea, not just in Germany and in round three of the UK. Before we build those, we want to make sure we can cope with the easier projects, and that’s very much our off shore strategy. Th ere are still massive challenges there, but it’s absolutely critical we deliver if we’re to meet the EU targets.

TransmissionTh ere are two aspects to the whole transmission debate. Th e fi rst one is how do we connect

up all of these new projects? It’s clear the wind resource we have in Europe is not in the same place as where the conventional generation is located. If you take the UK as an example, most of the conventional generation is in the north of England, places like Yorkshire where you’ve got thousands and thousands of megawatts of capacity on the old coal fi elds. Most of the wind capacity is not in the same place, which means we’ll have to create new transmission systems to link up the sources of demand in the south of England and the production, which is in the north, or indeed, Scotland. Th e other major challenge is of course off shore, where we’ve got to create a completely new infrastructure network where it’s never existed before.

Michael Lewis.indd 117Michael Lewis.indd 117 3/12/09 15:01:133/12/09 15:01:13


transmission network in place before the wind farms come along than vice versa. We’re not there yet, but with sound policy and the right strategic approach we can get there.

Th e second issue is how do you integrate wind into the transmission network, and this is all about intermittency. You oft en hear people saying, “Well, wind is fi ne. Th e trouble is, it’s only blowing X percent of the time,” which is true, and you do have to manage that intermittency.

Th e good news is you don’t normally get a position where all of the wind is not blow-ing at the same time. You get geographical diff erences, whereby one part of Europe might be windy and another part might have zero wind. In fact, wind farms have a load factor of 25 to 30 percent. Th at’s an annualised number

We know where the wind resources are. We know where the off shore wind locations are. Th ese are all set out in government policy by the crown estates. For example, for round three, where the bulk of the new capacity will be built, we know exactly where they are. Th at means we can start thinking about where the grid needs to be now. We can start thinking about where the grid needs to be strengthened in the future, and we can do that on a proactive basis to anticipate capacity coming on rather than waiting for it to come on.

Wind farms are much more expensive to build than the transmission network that takes the power to customers. Th at means there is going be a slight mismatch if one is built slightly before the other. It’s better to have the

Th e transmission network is not yet in a position where it can cope, but the good news is we have a number of years to get there, and that means we have to take a strategic approach to building a transmission network. We need to get away from the old model of just con-necting when the demand appears, where we approach the national grid and have to work to their timetable. Th ey give you a date and tell you when it can be connected, and if you’re lucky, you get a date that fi ts with your project development plan. If you’re unlucky, you might have to wait, not necessarily because they can’t connect you to the grid but because there’s a knock-on eff ect on the grid somewhere else, where strengthening has to take place, and it might not be scheduled for a few years.

Installed Generation CapacityE.ON Climate & Renewables’ installed capacity is more then 2.8GW.1

1 E.ON Equity MW (Figures rounded, excl. large hydro power). Source: E.ON

IberiaWind

BiogasSmall hydro

351 MW

Rest of EuropeWindSolar

43 MW

NordicWind

57 MW192 MW

GermanyWind

Bio natural gas

ItalyWind

278 MW

UKWind

Biomass

245 MW

North AmericaWind

1668 MW

Installed Capacity (MW)1

Other 9C

Wind 2744



talked about clean coal. We’ve talked about re-newables and what technologies like off shore are going be successful in the future. Nuclear as well is one of the key challenges, so technol-ogy shouldn’t be ignored. Th at’s obviously a massive challenge, but I think there are other components.

Firstly, it’s a huge policy challenge to coordinate how the globe responds. It’s not enough for the UK, Europe and the US to win the battle. You need a global solution and that means a policy that can eff ectively limit carbon emissions across the world. Th e means of achieving a reduction in carbon emissions will be technological, but the policy has got to be in place fi rst to make sure that those tech-nologies can be applied.

Th e other thing is a behavioural issue. We shouldn’t underestimate the role that changing patterns of energy use and improved energy effi ciency will play in solving this problem. Th ere may be solutions looking at demand side management, looking at signifi cantly improving the effi ciency of how we use energy. Th ose things again will also partly be driven by technology, but will also be partly driven by people’s behaviour and what they accept as societal norms. Th ere is a complex interaction between policy, behaviours and technology. We certainly have to win the technological battle and that’s a necessary but not suffi cient condition to win the overall war.

We’re investing over €6 billion. Th at’s point number one. Th e second thing is we’re replac-ing old fossil-fi red plants with new fossil-fi red plants with a signifi cant increase in effi ciency. Th e latest generation of coal-fi red plants are close to 45 percent effi cient compared to 34 percent for the average of the really old ones, and that makes a huge diff erence to the CO2 emissions. Th e third thing is we need to have other low carbon technologies, nuclear being one of the prime ones. E.ON is looking to develop its nuclear business in the UK in the future, and that will be another key lag in sup-porting a reduction in CO2 emissions. Finally there is gas-fi red technology, which is already extremely effi cient, but again, we’re pushing the boundaries to make that even better.

Clean coal is probably not going to be commercial until aft er 2020, but we’re doing a lot in the meantime to help develop it. We’re doing various pilot studies. We’re building new highly effi cient coal plants as a fi rst step that are carbon capture ready. Th at means they have the right plant specifi cation and they have the right plant logistics whereby there’s room to install a carbon capture facility when the technology becomes viable. Yes, it is a tricky period, yes, we do have a challenge, but there are clear pathways of how we can get there using existing technologies.

Technology challengeTh ere is certainly a huge technological

component to the challenge. We’ve already

and it doesn’t mean the wind is only blowing 25 to 35 percent of the time. Th ey are actually operating for a very large proportion of the time, just not at full output. What you do need to do is ensure that when the wind does drop and there are sudden changes in output, you have enough of what we call ‘spinning reserve’.

Th at is a conventional fossil plan operating below full capacity, which can ramp up quickly to cover a reduc-tion in renewables. Th is means that we also need replacement of existing fossil capacity, which we’ll gradu-ally fade out over the next few years as various pieces of environmental legis-lation come into place. Th e corollary is we need existing coal-fi red capacity and gas-fi red capacity to be replaced, because wind does not provide a huge amount of capac-ity. It’s a slightly technical issue; it provides the energy to displace coal and gas but it doesn’t count very much for capacity because you can’t guarantee it’s going to be there when you might need it. As a rule of thumb, if you were to reach your target and you had 40 to 50 gigawatts of intermittent wind capacity on the system, it would only displace fi ve to 10 gigawatts of con-ventional capacity, so roughly 10 to 20 percent. Th at’s the challenge. Th at means you have to maintain that level of fossil capacity to provide the reserve and spinning reserve. I’ve heard the argument made by anti-wind campaigners that wind is useless because it only displaces fi ve to 10 percent of coal. It only displaces that much capacity, but it displaces a lot more energy, and that means it does signifi cantly reduce CO2 emissions. Th at’s an important distinction.

We currently have around 60 gigawatts of installed capacity. We aim to increase that to 90 gigawatts by 2030 to cope with increased energy demand. What we want to do over that period is move to a much lower carbon port-folio, and in fact, we have a target to reduce our specifi c carbon emissions by 50 percent. Th at means the emissions per megawatt hour of electricity produced, so at the same time as growing the portfolio by 50 percent we’re going to shrink the specifi c carbon emission by 50 percent. Th at is a big challenge, but the fi rst phase is to make renewables a key leg of the new growth, and that’s what we’re doing.

This article is drawn from an interview given to EU Infrastructure’s sister media outlet www.meettheboss.com.



What are your main areas of interest and what recent product developments have you been involved with? Steffen Linnemann.Automated Precision Inc. develops, produces and drives world-wide metrology products such as lasers trackers and laser interferometers, which rank among the most effi cient systems of their class. Founded by Dr. Kam Lau in 1987, API has pioneered progressively higher standards of accuracy for coordinate measuring and machine tool operation. Over its two-decade history, API’s products have been installed and used by all of the world’s leading automotive, aerospace, machine tool and CMM manufacturers.

API’s is best known as the inventor of the laser track-ing interferometer and holds the basic patent on tracker technology. Working with Boeing, API developed the fi rst commercial laser tracker through extensive fi eld trials and testing in aircraft manufacturing applications. API Laser Tracker Systems have been supplied to leading companies worldwide.

In addition, API has pioneered the development of many advanced measuring and sensing systems such as commercialised high precision 2D and 3D digital scan-ning and probe systems, as well as an articulated CMM probing wrist. API’s innovative patented, XD Laser inter-ferometer systems, which were developed alongside the Laser Tracker, simultaneously measure linear straight-ness as well as pitch, yaw and roll. Use of the XD systems reduces the time required for machine tool or CMM alignment down to three hours.

Building new energy infrastructure is an expensive business. What impact can using the correct tools have on upfront costs and overall profi tability?SL. Verifi cation of rotor blade production has a direct in-fl uence on the effi ciency of a wind energy engine. It also increases long-term stability and reliability. Currently available solutions for large-scale object scanning, such as laser radar or laser scanning, are fairly limited in accu-racy and/or resolution. Additionally, these techniques are quite time consuming. Systems using photogrammetry combined with optical 3D scanners are only applicable if the object size does not exceed 10 meters (approx.). For larger object dimensions this method achieves only inac-

curate measuring results and requires many reference point markers.

Turbines need to be both durable and reliable. What are the implications if even the smallest errors are made during their design and construction?SL. Even small errors could lead to less effi cient engines, which means less energy to harvest and therefore less money for the operating company.

What developments and innovations do you see emerging in your business area in the coming months and years? Do you have any exciting new products or solutions in the pipeline?SL. We have recently presented our latest solution for the 3D digitising of large-scale objects, which we developed in collaboration with Steinbichler Optotechnik GmbH. Th is new development guarantees the highest accuracy and resolution within extremely short time frames. Th e

combination of the long-range tracking accuracy of API’s Tracker3 laser tracking system and the high resolution and accuracy of Steinbichler’s 3D scanner COMET 5 allows the 3D digitising of objects featuring dimensions of 80 metres and larger with the highest precision. Th is new measuring method is especially targeted for ap-plications requiring freeform surface information of large-scale parts, for example in wind power, aerospace or yacht building industries.

Also our augmented reality-based factory planning prevents the digital factory mockups from deviating from the real building. Th e wrong basis for further plan-ning and construction work leads to planning errors and late modifi cations lead to high costs and may cause pro-duction downtimes.

In the future we are hoping to achieve 100 percent verifi cation of every single blade that is manufactured in an effi cient time frame.

All tooled upAPI Sensor’s Steffen Linnemann explains the importance of being equipped with accurate and effi cient tools for the job at hand.

SINCE 2005, Steffen Linnemann has been Account Manager at Automated Precision Europe GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany and Representative of API Europe in North Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. He is also a key contact in applications such as wind energy.

“Verifi cation of rotor blade production has a direct infl uence on the effi ciency of a wind energy engine”

EXECUTIVEINTERVIEW

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POTENTIAL ENERGY

RENEWABLE ENERGY

When GE Energy announced in September that it had acquired ScanWind, adding direct drive train turbine technology to its portfolio and al-lowing it to expand into the off shore wind sector,

it became pretty obvious that the energy giant is taking its renew-able portfolio seriously.

“Renewable, is a vital part, not only for Europe’s energy future and the world’s, but also for GE’s energy portfolio,” says Markus Becker, GE’s Energy Policy and Government Aff airs Leader for Europe. “I think it is important to point out that there’s not just one technology. Th ere’s also not just one fuel or one policy that will do

GE Energy’s Markus Becker explains how the technology for renewables is ready for deployment; all that remains is a push on the policy side.

Markus Becker.indd Sec1:122Markus Becker.indd Sec1:122 3/12/09 15:24:023/12/09 15:24:02

the trick. So if you look at GE’s portfolio you will see, quite clearly, that we strongly believe you need a portfolio approach to be able to manage the threefold challenges of climate change, competitiveness and security of supply.

“We are investing on all fronts, but in renewables in particular. Proof of this is the wind turbines that we manufacture in Germany. Over the past several years, we have invested over US$100 million in the new 2.5 megawatts machine, which is now being considered the workhorse for our fl eet out there,” explains Becker.

Wind energy is clearly one of the major focuses of GE’s attention right now and Becker explains that in some regions it is almost as cost-competitive as conventional sources of energy. At the end of the day, he says, it is about bringing cost down and the energy market is deeply rooted in economies of scale.

Commenting on the ScanWind acquisition, Becker says that ventur-ing into the off shore wind business is something he believes is critical if Europe is to achieve its 2020 targets. He also believes that it is a clear indication that the necessary legislative framework that was needed to allow private companies like GE to play a more prominent role in helping Europe to meet its targets now exists.

“With the adoption of the energy and climate change packet last year by the EU it can now be observed how markets, participants and private compa-nies react and follow once policy makers have decided on the direction that is to be taken,” says Becker.

Another example that Becker cites is that of clean coal technologies such as GE’s Integrated gasifi cation combined cycle (IGCC). “It was important that the EU agreed the carbon capture and se-questration directive as part of the package because without the legal framework it would not have been possible, for example, to transport CO2 across borders. CO2 was considered a waste so it needed to be taken out of the scope of the waste legislation. Th ese steps, taken along with fi nancial incentives put in place by policy makers will now have an impact on clean coal projects in Europe and will allow them to go ahead.”

Becker admits that the recent EU legislation regarding renewable energy did play a role in GE Energy’s decision to pursue this sector as fi ercely as it has done. “It defi nitely helped to make the decision. We can clearly see, with regard to off shore wind, that initial developments will be in Europe because of the legislation. It was a key prerequisite for GE making that investment. Th e onshore wind business is also a good exam-ple. Since we acquired this business in 2002 out of Enron’s bankruptcy, we have grown it 10 times and we hope to see a similar success story with off shore wind,” explains Becker.

However, he admits that the generation of renew-able energy is only half the battle, as without adequate transmission infrastructure the potential will be lost. “Th e renewables, given their intermittency, will put a lot of stress on the current infra-structure, which is ageing. In fact 50 percent of the network assets in the

UK are more than 38 years old and 20 percent of them are over 50 years old.

“Th e grid, and the way we transport energy, needs a massive change if we are to cope with the larger re-newable share. One way is to deploy what is called a

‘smart grid’ and GE is a thought-leader in smart grid technologies. Our European business in the UK is playing

a major role in shaping the deployment of the smart grid,” he says.Th e truth of the matter is that the necessary technology already

exists. What is needed is the right policy framework. “Th e EU now, as part of the third liberalisation package, has agreed to roll out smart meters to 80 percent of European households by 2020. Th is is a very good

Turbine technology

GE has invested more than US$100 million in launching its 2.5xl wind technology and expanding its Salzbergen facility in Germany. As GE’s European Renewable Energy Center of Excellence, the Salzbergen site is the base for the serial pro-duction of the 2.5xl wind turbine - a high reliability machine specifi cally designed to meet the immediate requirements of Europe, where the lack of available land can constrain the size of projects.

Th e 2.5xl wind turbines represent GE’s most advanced wind turbine technology in terms of effi ciency, reliability and grid connection capabilities. Th e 2.5xl has been designed to yield the highest annual energy production in its class, and builds upon on the success of GE’s 1.5-megawatt machine, which is the world’s most widely deployed wind turbine.

With a rotor diameter of 100 meters and GE’s advanced grid integration technology, the 2.5xl is enabling power plant operators to meet the latest stability and availability standards of European distribution networks.

50%UK power

infrastructure that is more than 38

years old




local content requirements in the US, are not helpful in driving innova-tion,” he says.

He also explains that tariff s on green goods and services make the creation of green jobs diffi cult. What is required is a global trade agree-ment that allows technologies to be moved from country to country, al-lowing countries and governments, as well as companies, to be more open and to learn from each other. “Th e EU, with its recent adoption of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan, is showing that it is learning in terms of streamlining its R&D agendas,” says Becker.

“Th e EU has set out road maps for key tech-nologies that it thinks will help achieve the tar-gets and make Europe more competitive, and it has fi nally realised that if it does not coordinate its eff orts it will lose out against countries like the US or Japan, which in the past have had more success in some of the R&D spaces high-lighted in that plan,” he explains.

“On the other hand, Europe has done a lot of things right and I hope that countries in other parts of the world will learn from it. But don’t forget that all the EU can do is set frame-work legislation; hen it is up to the individual Member States to turn that into a good national action plan.”

Becker emphasises that even within the EU it is easy to see that there is room for improvement and member states can learn from one another. Taking wind as an example he says: “Th ose countries that opted for feed-in tariff schemes have seen much higher penetration rates or deploy-ment rates of wind technology than those countries that opted for more market-based, tradable schemes.”

fi rst step because the smart meter is the entrance to the smart grid as we see it.”

But what is now required, according to Becker, is for this policy to be put in place and for regulation to make this happen. “Th e technology is available today and it’s not a matter of further R&D. Of course you can always improve technology, but to get the smart grid deployed today and really merge IT with the electricity sector, policy implementation is the key.”

As the new European Commission comes on board there will be de-velopments in this direction. In particular, energy effi ciency is high on the agenda and Becker points out that smart grid is justone technology that can help contribute to a greater energy effi ciency. Although GE is working hard on this, there are areas that still need further development, such as storage technology. “GE is working with a German customer to develop compressed air storage systems and these types of technologies will eventually become part of the smart grid so-lution,” he says.

Aside from energy storage, another area that GE Energy is focusing its eff orts is on the technology for off shore wind, which Becker says needs to be adapted to cope with the harsh en-vironments out at sea. Th e development of new materials and sub-sea power foundations are a priority.

Taking a longer-term view, Becker believes it is important to continue being innovative in order to meet future targets that may be set for 2050 or 2080. But he points out that there are already obstacles that are proving diffi cult to overcome. “Some of the barriers that are being put up, such as

“Th e grid, and the way we transport

energy needs a massive change if

we are to cope with the larger renewable

share”


F&S_INFRAEU_DEC09.indd 1F&S_INFRAEU_DEC09.indd 1 2/12/09 14:04:202/12/09 14:04:20

The EU has set the target of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. Whatis the likelihood that all 27 member states will be able to achieve this tar-get by the deadline? What will happen if any of the EU members fail toreach the target and in what ways is the EU supporting the efforts of theindividual nation states?Andris Piebalgs. The 2020 national renewable energy targets set by the newdirective are not political objectives, but legally binding targets. Based on a de-tailed assessment of the European Commission, these are achievable, and weassume that they will be realised, as member states have a legal obligation.

The Commission has provided assistance to member states in the prepa-ration of the National Renewable Energy Action Plans. We will also assist withthe monitoring and follow up of implementation. In addition to that there areseveral community programmes (7th framework Programme for Research,dissemination activities in the framework of Intelligent Energy for Europeprogramme) that are also supporting member states in the implementationof the directive.


ENERGYPOLICY

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs talks to Stacey Sheppard about the progressEurope is making in its pursuit of sustainable, competitive and secure energy supplies.

ACTION ON ENERGY

What is the Intelligent Energy Europe programme?AP. The Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) programme supports the deploymentof sustainable energy and contributes to the achievement of the general goalsof environmental protection, security of supply and competitiveness. The pro-gramme stands for the removal of market barriers and the creation of a morefavourable business environment with the aim of increasing energy efficien-cy and strengthening renewable energy markets (including clean transport).The IEE programme also seeks to raise awareness and change behaviourthereby fostering the understanding and better implementation of EU ener-gy policy in Europe’s cities and regions.

Intelligent Energy Europe (2007-2013), with a total budget of €730 mil-lion, builds on the experience gained from its predecessor, the first IntelligentEnergy Europe (2003-2006) Programme. Since 2007, Intelligent EnergyEurope has been included in the overall Competitiveness and InnovationFramework Programme (CIP) in order to tackle EU energy policy objectivesand to execute the Lisbon Agenda.

AndrisPiebalgs ed:18nov 3/12/09 14:54 Page 126

Specific actions eligible for IEE co-funding are detailed in the annual IEEwork programmes adopted annually by the Commission after opinion of theprogramme committee and scrutiny of the European Parliament. The oper-ational objectives and the priorities set out in the annual work programmestie in with the most recent EU energy policy developments.

The implementation of the IEE programme is largely based on twomeans: grants (call for proposals) and procurement (calls for tenders). Untilnow, the largest share of the IEE budget was allocated to small-scale projects(around €500K). Projects are selected and managed on behalf of theCommission by EACI (the Executive Agency for Competitiveness andInnovation).

One of the main criticisms of renewable energy sources, such as solarand wind energy, is the fact that production is unreliable, supply is notparticularly secure and it is very difficult to store the energy. What is theCommission doing to help overcome these challenges and appease thedoubts of the critics?AP. The new directive requires member states to improve their energy in-frastructure and the operation of it with the view to accommodatinghigher shares of renewable energy sources in the energy mix.Reinforcements, intelligent network solutions, new storage capacities,new interconnections, and revision of operational and market rules willall support this objective. It is true that certain sources are variable, butthe difficulties can be overcome as we can see in the Danish and Spanishwind integration experience.

In what ways is the Commission working to improve the regulatoryframework with a view to ensuring that the EU can benefit from a lib-eralisation of the internal market in terms of secure, competitively pricedand sustainable energy?AP. The third liberalisation package adopted this summer is a big step in provid-ing a proper regulatory framework for the EU electricity and gas markets. Firstly,the national regulatory authorities will become more independent from the mem-ber states’ governments and their powers will be enhanced. This is the backbonefor the energy market regulation in Europe. Secondly, for the cooperation of reg-ulators at the European level a regulatory agency will be created. This agency willhave the important tasks of monitoring how the markets work, giving opinionson the work of transmission system operators and making binding decisions onEuropean infrastructure. The agency will rely on its own staff as well as the re-sources of the national regulators. Finally, the third package provides a system tomake detailed legally binding rules for the European energy markets.

The Internal Energy Market increases the interdependence of memberstates in energy supply. In what ways would the development of a trulypan-European electricity super highway help to ensure solidarity be-tween member states in the event of an energy crisis?AP. It is true that there is an interdependence of member states in energy sup-ply in the Internal Energy Market. Interdependence means that a countrydoes not take energy decisions in isolation but takes the opportunities pro-vided by other member states into account. This is where huge welfare gainshave already been reached and can further be developed. In electricity, an effi-


“The goal of theCommission’s SET Plan is tostep in and support thetechnologies’ R&D and theirdeployment until thismaturity is reached”


AP. The diversification of energy sources, transport routes and suppliers is cru-cial for ensuring energy security; its importance has been underlined by thegas crisis in January 2009, but it has been recognised also before the crisis. Inthe Second Strategic Energy Review ‘An EU Security and Solidarity ActionPlan’ adopted by the Commission on 13 November 2008, the Commissionproposed a number of initiatives aimed at increasing EU energy security.

Despite the fact that at the EU level, gas supply is reasonably well diver-sified; at a national level, a number of member states rely on a single supplierfor 100 percent of their gas needs and a number of others on just a few sup-pliers. Diversification is thus important to spread and reduce individual risk,as well as to fully benefit from an integrated and interconnected market-basedsystem.

The first of the five priorities of the Second Strategic Energy Review was‘Infrastructure needs and the diversification of energy supply’. Within this pri-ority, concrete actions have been proposed at EU level, including: the inter-connection of isolated energy markets (including a Baltic InterconnectionPlan covering gas and electricity), the development of the Southern GasCorridors, the increasing of the capacity of gas storage and LNG to ensure suf-

ficient liquidity and diversity of EU gas markets, and the developmentof North-South gas interconnections within Central and South-

East Europe. A Communication on the Mediterranean Ringhas also been announced for 2010.

By 2020, it is estimated that the necessary capacityexpansion for power generation will amount to ap-proximately 360 GW, which corresponds to about

half of the current installed capacity. As renewable en-ergy will only account for 20 percent by 2020, this obvi-

ously leaves 80 percent of power generation fromalternative sources. What are the main priorities for the EU in

terms of capacity expansion outside of the renewable energy sector? AP. Fostering the transition towards a low carbon power generation system isa high priority for the European Union. The massive deployment of renew-able energy in the electricity sector will require a lot of investment, both inpower generation capacities and in transmission networks. By 2020, accord-ing to the scenarios prepared by the Commission in 2008, renewable energyshould represent 33 percent to 58 percent of the total power generation ca-pacity necessary to meet the future demand and to replace ageing facilities.Appropriate policies are needed to support this deployment. National plansfor the promotion of renewables – to be adopted by member states in 2010 –will be crucial. Any investment or choice of technology contributing to de-carbonising the electricity sector will be relevant.

Renewable energy is currently quite a costly investment. What role willtechnology play in reducing the cost of renewable energy and how is theCommission helping to support research and innovation in technology?AP. Renewable energy sources have traditionally gained the reputation ofbeing a costly investment. In the 1990s, this was true, as the oil price was low.It is however important to realise that costliness is relative to the alternatives.As the oil price rose, even in the years before the financial crisis, renewable en-ergy sources became more and more attractive.

Another important factor is the price of carbon and its meaning. Carbonallowances are issued to or bought by those who emit greenhouse gases. This

cient transmission system is vital for reaching these welfare gains. In the his-tory of electricity transmission the evolution has been to use higher and high-er voltages in overhead transmissions lines. Currently it is the 400kV networkthat provides the backbone for electricity transmission. New transmissionchallenges are coming from integration of wind energy, in particular offshorewind, which needs to be transported long distances to the customers. Similarchallenges face projects such as bringing solar electricity from North Africato Europe. As these new transmission needs include transporting electricityin seas, cables using direct current technology seem suitable for this purpose.Some people think that direct current could also be interesting on land. As aresult, a meshed direct current network could become a new pan-Europeanelectricity super highway, ensuring our renewable energy goals and enablingsolidarity between member states.

European transmission infrastructure is currently unable to maximisethe benefits of renewable energy resources. What improvements needto be made to our infrastructure and how will this be funded?AP. Our electricity system has to be adapted to the new circumstances: more dis-tributed generation, more variable generation, more large-scale distant(and variable) generation. The electricity transmission and dis-tribution infrastructure has to be reinforced and new lineshave to be built, incorporating intelligent solutions, build-ing new interconnections, using operational measures.

By means of the Economic Recovery Plan, the EUhas designated community funds for interconnectionsand offshore wind energy and other electricity links. Thefuture financing of European energy infrastructure is alsobeing discussed in the framework of the Trans-EuropeanEnergy Networks (TEN-E) revision.

Which of the member states are demonstrating the highest com-mitment to increased generation of renewable energy and improve-ments in transmission infrastructure and how can they help thosemember states that are currently lagging behind to come up to the stan-dards required to meet the EU targets? AP. I mentioned before the Danish and Spanish experience in wind energy in-tegration. The two cases are different: Denmark is strongly interconnectedwith other Scandinavian countries, making use of their hydro capacity in bal-ancing power. On the other hand, Spain can be considered as an island fromthe point of view of electricity infrastructure.

But there is something common: they both have transmission system op-erators (TSO) strongly committed to finding solutions and adequate answersto the challenges they face. They can serve as models, and the active partici-pation of these TSOs in the European Network of Transmission SystemOperators for Electricity (ENSTO-E) in European research programmes, cer-tainly gives an opportunity to make others aware of these activities. TheCommission is also planning to launch a concerted action with the memberstates on the implementation of the renewable energy directive, which will en-courage exchange of experiences between member states.

In light of the gas crisis that we experienced last winter, how importantis it that EU member states promote diversity of energy sources, suppli-ers and transport routes?


33-55%of total capacity

By 2020 renewableenergy should

represent


means we place a price on emissions. Conversely, renewable energy sourceshave low or no emissions at all and therefore do not carry with them the priceof carbon, as no allowances have to be bought.

Technology is nowadays helping to reduce the production costs ofequipment used to generate renewable energy sources. Productionprocesses become mature and their costs are lower, while raw materialsmeet an increasing demand and factors of scale are reducing their marketprice. As a result, these types of product become commonplace, with moreproducers and a growing market putting pressure on price.

We are, for instance, seeing this chain of maturity have its effect in thewind sector and some biomass areas. Solar photovoltaics are also likely toapproach this level of maturity soon. The goal of the Commission’s SET(Strategic Energy Technologies) Plan is to step in and support the tech-nologies’ R&D and their deployment until this maturity is reached. Assuch, we will be able to cover the cost-gap to traditional generation op-tions until renewable energy sources are fully competitive, thereby miti-gating the risk for market entrants.

Today, we see the need to accelerate our work on technology. This

implies an increase of the R&D budget level. In the Communication onInvesting in Low Carbon Technologies adopted by the Commission on 7October 2009, we set out the needs and technology roadmaps that can takeus there. We estimate that we will need to spend €8 billion per annum, bypublic and private sectors combined, on the technologies identified inthese roadmaps during the next 10 years. The debate on this is just begin-ning. Mobilising these resources will make a crucial contribution toachieving our 2020 objectives. �


Electricity from renewable sources

EU-27

BE

BG

CZ

DK

DE

EE

IE

EL

ES

FR

IT

CY

LV

LT

LU

HU

MT

NL

AT

PL

PT

RO

SI

SK

FI

SE

UK

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

2010 OBJECTIVE

2006 TOTAL SHARE

EU-27 OBJECTIVE

Share of electricity from renewable energy sources in totalelectricity consumption (%) – EU27


According to Christine Lins, Secretary General of the EuropeanRenewable Energy Council (EREC), Europe is already well on itsway to achieving the ambitious goal of having 20 percent of its en-ergy generated by renewable sources by 2020. “We have exceeded

10 percent of renewable energy in final energy consumption within theEuropean Union,” she says. “We are on track, and we believe that withthe Renewable Energy Framework Directive, which was adoptedin May 2009 but was only recently published, we will see fur-ther impetus that this development will happen.

“The challenge is going to be that this 10 percenthas mainly been achieved by five or six EU MemberStates. We need to make sure that all 27 Member Statesare taking renewables seriously and developing themto their full potential.

“Much of the development in renewables at themoment is coming from certain countries, such asGermany, Spain, Denmark, France, Italy and Sweden.However, there is a lot of potential in the other Member Statesand we attach a lot of hope to the national renewable energy action plansthat countries have to submit to the European Commission by June 2010.

“This is one of the major outlines in the renewables directive, that coun-tries by June next year have to come up with strategies outlining how theyforesee reaching their binding national renewable energy targets. These ac-tion plans will provide the stability and framework for making sure that theobjectives are achieved.”

The aggressive pursuit of a renewable energy policy can have other bene-fits apart from the obvious environmental ones: job creation, for example. Linspoints out that Germany, for example, which has had a strong record of pro-moting renewables for a number of years, is benefiting not only in terms of en-ergy share from renewables but also in terms of new employment opportunities.

“There are around 450,000 people employed in the renewable in-dustry sector in Europe,” she says. “Out of these, probably

285,000 are employed in Germany. This shows that the re-newables industry is a factor for growth and sustainable

development.“We also see more and more big companies from

various industries investing in renewables, because inthe long-term their operating costs are lower and morepredictable than those of conventional fuels. Together

with energy efficiency, investment in renewables is some-thing we also see when analysing different businesses.”

Getting smartAlong with renewables, another main factor in the energy efficien-

cy/environmental sustainability equation is modernising electricity grids tomake them more ‘intelligent’. To this end, EREC runs a project called the the-matic network on ICT solutions, which aims to foster and promote the large-scale integration of domestic and distributed micro-generation, and topromote an improvement in energy efficiency through the implementationof a novel ICT solution into local smart power grids.

LEADINGLIGHT


RENEWABLES

Marie Shields talks to Christine Lins about the progress Europe has madetowards reaching its ambitious renewable energy goals.

450,000 people work in the

European renewableenergy sector today; this

is expected to rise to 2million by 2020

LINS_18nov 03/12/2009 14:58 Page 130

“Very clearly, the rapid deployment of renewables will require somechanges in power grid infrastructures,” Lins explains. “Decentralised gen-eration needs to be taken up, and this means not only looking into the mostfeasible technical solutions, but also looking at non-technical barriers, be-cause we know that often the lack of information about distributed genera-tion is one of the main reasons utilities can still be resistant to adopting thesetechnologies.

“There is another project in decentralised generation, called MASSIG,in which we elaborate marketing concepts and technological approaches onhow to best sell electricity generation by distributed generation in the powerrange of up to several hundredkilowatts. The focus is on renew-ables and small co-generation inthese projects.”

When it comes to environ-mental sustainability, EREC isn’tafraid to put its money where itsmouth is. Its Brussels headquartersbuilding, Renewable EnergyHouse, is a showcase for the latestsmart energy technologies. Thecouncil has completely refurbishedthe 140-year-old building and hasequipped it with a series of energyefficiency and renewable energymeasures.

“100 percent of our heatingand cooling comes from renew-ables,” Lins points out proudly. “Alarge part of the electricity is gener-ated onsite through photovoltaics and the rest bought as green electricity fromthe grid. This is an example which, in the framework of the New4Old project,we are trying to duplicate all around Europe in both the private and publicsectors. Everyone is welcome to come and have a look at how these technolo-gies were integrated into the building.”

Challenging timesLins believes there is a lot at stake in the European power sector. “We are

confronted with the fact that much of the current power generation capacityneeds to be refurbished in the next few years. We need to get these decisionsright, and the way we take them now will influence our attitude towards en-ergy for the next 10-20 years.

“Renewables are the fastest growing new installed power generation ca-pacity. More than half of the newly installed capacity in 2008 was renewables,with 57 percent from wind, photovoltaics and hydro together, followed bynatural gas.

“It is going to be a challenge to increase the percentage of renewables inthe electricity grid. There we will need to collaborate closely with utilities,GSOs and so forth. Another challenge is to make sure that renewables areproperly used in houses on a large scale basis, so that the buildings of tomor-row on the one hand respect energy efficiency standards to a maximum, andon the other hand meet a large percentage of their energy needs from renew-able energy sources.

“It is also key that the renewables directive is properly implemented andthat we put in place ambitious national renewable energy action plans. All thisis something that we are quite intensively working on. There are also otherimportant aspects; for example, the training of installers for renewable ener-gy installations is crucial, so that the installations are of high quality and gen-erate the desired output.”

Of course, Europe is not alone in its drive towards greater energy effi-ciency and sustainability – the US, not traditionally known for its forward-thinking energy policies, is also forging ahead, thanks to the renewed interestgenerated by the election of a more environment-oriented government.

The consensus seems to be that while the European renew-able energy industry is ahead of its American counterpart, the UScould make up this disparity in a relatively short time – a viewwith which Lins concurs: “The Americans are catching up, be-cause there is now a lot of political ambition, and we all know that

if things start moving in the US they move rather quickly. It’sgoing to be the challenge for the European industry, but we seethis as a very positive competition.”

New developmentsIn terms of the future, Lins points to the binding commitment given by

the 27 heads of state that by 2020, 20 percent, or one-fifth of Europe’s final en-ergy consumption, will be generated by renewable energy. EREC’s aim is thatthis 20 percent renewable energy will result in 33-40 percent of electricitycoming from renewables by 2020, to about 25 percent renewable share inheating and cooling, and then 10 percent renewables in transport, most of thiscoming from biofuels.

“This is something that we think is absolutely feasible,” Lins says. “Wewill do everything to make this happen. And I think we can go far beyond. Weare currently starting the discussion in Europe about the perspective of 2050.More long-term, there is communication coming out of the EuropeanCommission that a very high percentage of 80-100 percent renewable energyshare in final energy consumption can be envisaged.

“We expect a rapid increase in turnover figures. At the moment, theEuropean renewable energy industry has an annual turnover of about €45 bil-lion. We expect this to grow exponentially, and coupled with this will be the cre-ation of a significant number of jobs. We have around 450,000 people workingin the sector today; this figure is estimated to rise to two million by 2020. So Ithink the sector offers good prospects for a sustainable economic development,and the desired sustainable recovery of the economy, which we all need.” n


Christine Lins is Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council.

“More long-term, a very highpercentage of 80-100 percentrenewable energy share in finalenergy consumption can beenvisaged”

Christine Lins

LINS_18nov 03/12/2009 14:58 Page 131


WastedAs waste management works its way up the EU agenda, increasing amounts of legislation

is being passed to regulate practises across Europe. However, these efforts will be for nothing if the issue of compliance is not given top priority.

An inevitable consequence of European society growing wealthier is of course the generation of increasing levels of waste. In 2006 alone the EU-27 produced around three billion tonnes of waste. Th is fi gure includes mining waste as well as some 89 million tonnes of hazardous waste. Relative to

population the total amount of waste was over six tonnes per capita. As the pressure from increased waste levels intensifi es, the need for im-proved waste management practices and waste prevention strategies has become an important priority for the European Union.

Former MEP Caroline Jackson, who acted as rapporteur on the Landfi ll Directive in 1998 and on the Waste Framework Directive in 2008, has a unique insight into the issue of waste management at EU level. In 1997, the European Parliament received a draft of a directive on landfi ll reduction from the European Commission. Due to her experience in environmental matters, which dated back to 1984 when she joined the Environment Committee, Jackson was asked to become rapporteur and steered the directive through to an eventual agreement in 1999.

During her time as an MEP Jackson has seen vast changes in waste management practice within the EU. “Waste management as an issue has come up the agenda enormously. For the fi rst time the European Union now has, in the Landfi ll Directive, defi nite targets for the reduction of waste going to landfi ll, although the directive doesn’t actually spell out what alternative methods should be used and it didn’t contain a specifi c waste hierarchy.”

Over the past 25 years Jackson has seen the issue of waste man-agement become increasingly important due to concerns surrounding

climate change and global warming and the contribution that landfi ll makes to this through methane emissions. Th is has required the EU to look closely at various types of waste disposal in order to gauge their connection with carbon emissions.

As a consequence of this and following on from the Landfi ll Di-rective, the Commission has produced a number of specifi c directives on electronic waste (WEEE), end of life vehicles (ELV), incineration of waste and the shipments of waste, which has seen waste management take a more prominent role on the EU’s agenda. Th en in 2008 the revised Waste Framework Directive entered into EU regulation.

“Th e importance of the Waste Framework Direc-tive lies in the fact that it framed, for the fi rst time, general recycling targets for bio-degradable munici-pal waste. It also looks towards waste recycling tar-gets, which the Commission will have to produce within the next fi ve to seven years and it defi nes, and puts into community legislation, the waste hierarchy and states that this must be adhered to insofar as is practicable,” explains Jackson.

One other benefi t that the Waste Frame-work Directive has brought is that it is help-ing to change the attitude towards energy from waste, making it possible to designate energy from waste operations as recovery operations, where they fulfi l certain energy effi ciency criteria, Jackson explains. “So energy from waste is lift ed off the bottom

WASTE MANAGEMENT

caroline jackson.indd Sec1:132caroline jackson.indd Sec1:132 3/12/09 15:03:213/12/09 15:03:21


Analysed relative to the size of the population in the EU-27, the data presented in this section show that total municipal waste generated grew by some seven percent between the years 1996 and 2006 to reach 517 kg per inhabitant; over the same period the growth of income and production was considerably higher (25 percent).

A more signifi cant change, however, was in the way waste was treated. Landfi lling was the common option for a long time. About 60 percent of municipal waste was landfi lled in 1996, this proportion dropping to 41 percent by 2006. Alternative ways of treatment, however, have become more important. About 14 percent of municipal waste was incinerated in 1996 but this proportion had risen to 19 percent by 2006 and the amount of waste recycled or composted more than doubled in the same period.

of the hierarchy, becomes potentially a recovery operation and possibly becomes a more popular option. But we have to wait and see if that actu-ally happens.”

One consequence of the Waste Framework Directive therefore, could be the proliferation of waste-to-energy plants, says Jackson. But in many countries she believes the main encouragement for diverting waste from landfi ll and into waste-to-energy will be the introduction of an eff ective landfi ll tax, as we have now seen in the UK, and the recognition that waste which is diffi cult to recycle can be a fuel for many Member States which are fuel poor.

Th e Waste Framework Directive now has until the end of 2010 to come into operation and Jackson believes that there are lessons to be learnt from the Landfi ll Directive. “Th e principal lesson is that it is abso-lutely essential that the European Commission keeps a tight hold on who is doing what in terms of implementation,” says Jackson.

She recounts a story of how she went to a follow-up conference on the application of the Landfi ll Directive some seven years aft er it was adopted and supposedly put into eff ect in the Member States, only to fi nd that the Com-mission had no information at all from six or seven Member States who had simply not communicated what they were doing. “I think the Commission has learnt the lesson of that and with the Waste Framework Directive it will be much more on the ball in following up on compliance.”

Jackson believes that the issue of compliance has gathered momen-tum over the past 25 years as the EU now has about 10 or 15 key directives

in place regarding waste. It is useless adopting legislation unless we follow-up on the compliance of it. But despite the progress made, Jackson stills sees the issue of compliance as the biggest

challenge for European waste policy. “My great sorrow is that the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen plays no part in investigating or policing progress; it can’t

do that. But I’m very interested in that the Commission has gone out to tender on a contract regarding the feasibility of

establishing a European waste inspectorate,” admits Jackson. If the EU were to dedicate more resources to the issue of waste management, Jack-son believes that this should be in the form of more people being draft ed in to enthusiastically pursue the issue of compliance.

But although the situation is less than ideal in terms of compliance, there are aspects that have been a great success. “I think the biggest achievement was the introduction of the waste recycling targets into the Waste Framework Directive, which I simply draft ed on the prover-bial back of an envelope,” says Jackson. And she sees no reason why EU Member States should struggle to comply with legislation in this area.

“I personally don’t see why any country should have diffi culty in reaching the 50 percent biodegradable municipal waste targets by 2020. I think that these are attainable targets and are really quite mild.” But an area that she believes needs further attention and tougher targets is that of demolition and construction waste.

And now that she has relinquished her role as MEP, Jackson only hopes that the good work in waste management will continue without her. “I pray that someone will continue it, but my own experience shows that MEPs are always happier to add to the new legislation on the statute book rather than go back over what has happened. Th is is always a danger in any elected body, but I will be outside the Parliament encouraging them to continue the work of oversight.”

MUNICIPAL WASTE

Municipal waste produced in EU-27 reached 258 million tonnes in 2007, 14 percent higher than in 1995: around 40 percent was sent to landfi ll (a big decrease from 62 percent in 1995).

Municipal waste treatment varies widely between Member States: less than 5 percent is landfi lled in some countries – Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium – while more than 85 percent is disposed of in this way in others – Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta.

In 2007, each EU citizen produced an average of 522 kg of municipal waste.

In 2007, 103 million tonnes of municipal waste was recycled, twice as much as in 1995. Germany, Belgium, the

Netherlands and Austria lead the recycling of municipal waste, with more than 50 percent.

Denmark has the highest share of municipal waste incinerated (53 percent).

Source: European Commission

“I think the Commission has learnt the lesson of that and with the Waste Framework Directive it will be much more on the ball in following up on compliance”

caroline jackson.indd 133caroline jackson.indd 133 3/12/09 15:03:323/12/09 15:03:32

The products and services you provide cover avariety of industries. What are the main chal-lenges that these industries are facing todayand how are you helping your customers toovercome them? Andreas Zoellner. Our equipment is sold pri-marily to steel mills, scrap yards and to the auto-motive industry. There is currently an oversupplyof steel worldwide, which has resulted in a drasticreduction in demand for shredded and cut scrapas well as baled scrap. We are using this downtime in the market to work with our customers todo refurbishments and upgrades to their equip-ment. We are also developing value added equip-ment to allow our customers to diversify theiroperations.

Sustainability is an issue that is very high onthe agenda of most governments at the mo-ment. In Europe in particular the memberstates are facing strict targets designed to pro-mote a more sustainable form of develop-ment. In what ways is Metso involved infurthering this goal of sustainability? AZ. We are moving our prod-uct offerings to be more envi-ronmentally friendly and tomake our business more re-cession proof. We are imple-menting development trainingprograms for our talentedyounger managers to preparethem for future leadershiproles. In addition we are creat-ing an in-depth successionplan for all mid-level and se-nior management positions.

What are some of the recentprojects you have been in-volved with? What can youtell us about the technolo-gies currently be used or de-veloped for use by those yousupply?

AZ. We developed a new scrap shear called LUC.The word most frequently heard during develop-ment was ‘efficiency’. The LUC, which reduces thevolume of scrap by cutting, has been specially de-veloped to process medium production volumeswith minimum energy consumption and costs.

Another factor is flexibility,which is essential in caseswhere the recycler has to copewith changing types of scrap.

We also provided a pro-totype air filtration system forEMR-Northern Recycling toallow them to meet very rigidemission standards in theirconsent decree with the cityof Minneapolis, MN. Noother competitors offered asolution.

Another example ofMetso’s drive to create newstate-of-the-art technology isthe new series (TSH) of shred-ders that Metso RecyclingNorth America has just de-signed, introduced to the mar-ket and sold in the US. We are

working with Carolina Metals Recycling in Garner,NC and Southern Metals in Charlotte, NC to in-stall and start the first prototype machines.

In October this year, Metso took over M&JIndustries A/S, Denmark, a leading provider ofmachines and plants for the recycling of solidwaste. Through the acquisition of M&J, Metso’sRecycling Business Line has expanded its positionto become a high-performance global provider oftechnology and services uniting the metal andwaste recycling market segments under one roof,thus becoming an important partner for the en-tire recycling industry.

Given the current economic climate and en-hanced interest in green issues many compa-nies are increasingly interested in solutionsthat preserve the environment and cut costs.How does Metso meet this need? AZ. Metso is expanding into solid waste recy-cling and waste-to-energy technology. As stat-ed earlier we are developing new emissionstechnology for shredder plants and have part-nered with ILG-Industrielaermschutz GmbH, amanufacturer of sound proofing equipment forscrap yard applications.

What do you think the future trends for yoursector will be and what challenges will thisentail?AZ. The future for recycling is the developmentof systems that recycle as many materials aspossible and provide environmentally safe dis-posal of non-recyclable materials. Furthermore,we will continue focusing on value added tech-nology for separation and retrieval of nonfer-rous metals and material. n

Scrapheap challengeAndreas Zöllner explains how Metso is helping the recycling industry preparefor a more efficient, cost-effect and sustainable future.


EXECUTIVEINTERVIEW

Andreas Zöllner has worked forMetso since 2003 fulfillingnumerous different roles. He iscurrently Vice President Europe andAfrica and Head of Marketing MetsoRecycling Business Line. He formerlyheld the role of Product ManagerScrap Shears, Country ManagerSouth Africa and prior to this he wasSales Engineer France for MetsoLindemann. He studied MechanicalEngineering at the RWTH in Aachen,Germany.

“We are moving ourproduct offerings to bemore environmentally

friendly”

METSO_18nov 03/12/2009 14:59 Page 134

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LEADING BY

EXAMPLE


WASTEMANAGEMENT

GregVogt_ed:18nov 3/12/09 14:58 Page 136

The International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) is a glob-al network of waste management professionals, with astrong following of members based in the EU. In part,ISWA’s goal is to gather those people with common inter-ests in the waste industry from different region of the worldso as to allow for good networking and sharing of experi-

ences. Those who join ISWA appreciate case studies and real world examplesof waste management practices so they can draw conclusions and ascertainwhat works and what doesn’t.

Currently, an interesting aspect of the waste sector is the EU legislativemodel and how it is viewed by other regions of the world. I find it to be a pow-erful example of leadership when judged by its success in effecting change inhuman behaviour and waste practices.

In brief, through national level adoption of EU legislation, the frameworkfor significant change in practice and standards has been set. And with that frame-work, a transition period is currently in place for the next two or three decades inwhich the member states will strive to adopt practices that resemble those alreadyin place in Germany and to a lesser degree in Denmark and Austria. Several the-matic approaches are included, but a principal theme is the shift away from thelandfill model in favour of waste prevention, waste reduction, recycling, com-posting, incineration or waste-to-energy as the new model and the new hierar-chy for Europe.

As the shift away from landfilling is coming about through ‘top-down’legislation, the situation becomes a model approach towards accomplishingchange in waste management planning. Where the political will is strong, andyou have the support of the technical sectors, the approachappears to be on track to achieve its early goals. Adequatecapital funding being pushed forward to bring in or constructnew facilities also helps support the process.

There will be some regions or countries that will takea little longer for implementation, but this is to be expect-ed during the transition period. For example, severalSouthern and Eastern European countries are in the plan-ning stages for changing what today is primarily wastemanagement through landfilling. In my view, what has al-ready been accomplished is a mental change, or acceptanceof the change in practices. Yes, delays and the need for timeextensions will occur as siting, construction and start-upoperations for large waste management facilities take sev-eral years.

There will of course be obstacles that the EU entities willhave to face in terms of adopting this new model and reduc-ing the amount of waste that is sent to existing landfills. Oneobstacle, perhaps as an interim approach, is the need formodern, engineered landfill capacity, which not only pro-vides the necessary environmental performance, but alsocosts significantly less to build, own and operate than alter-native technologies. The second will be in finding the finan-cial resources to build and operate the waste handling

facilities that EU legislation favours, namely composting, digestion, waste-to-energy and advanced sorting and recycling plants.

Targeting recyclingThe EU recycling targets are ambitious on one hand, yet achievable on the

other. With the 50 percent recycling target for household waste and the 75 per-cent target for construction and demolition waste, a fascinating change in per-formance will be needed for some regions and countries. There are already twoor three countries at that level or just about to reach it. This demonstrates that tar-gets can be reached with the right will, the right change of behaviour and with cap-ital funding. To me this is a tremendous model for the waste management sectoron a very large scale. It demonstrates a form of leadership and allows others to ex-amine how the approach might be transferred to their regions or countries.Clearly, such an approach costs a lot and there’s a large, in-kind shift of resourcesaway from other public needs, but if you want to get it done, it can be done.

There are several inherent challenges when attempting to reach higher andhigher levels of recycling. For example, capturing the bio-waste portion of thewaste stream has high organic content and has value as a resource if used cor-rectly. Collection unit costs are relatively high for separation programmes, andlocal participation is essential for success. As the composition of the wastechanges, our industry must adapt so that collection and recycling programmescontinue to work well. You can imagine the kinds of adjustments needed when,for example, millions of mobile phones and hundreds of thousands of plasmaTVs come into the waste stream. Difficult to recycle waste components consti-tute the need for some lag time to have our programmes catch up.


Greg Vogt, Managing Director of the International Solid Waste Association, explainswhy he believes Europe is out in front when it comes to waste management.


ceptable, and in part, this problem can be tackled by having adequate fa-cilities at hand on land.

Another notable priority would be waste trafficking. From time totime, case examples have arisen to demonstrate that trafficking of waste(oftentimes hazardous and problematic waste being shipped to other coun-tries where environmental protection standards may be lower or not en-forced, or both) continues to occur. This is unacceptable.

Legislation against waste trafficking usually exists on a country bycountry basis and international agreements such as the Basel Conventionprovide a framework for enforcement. Better waste management optionsand practices at the larger ports is one starting point for improvements.Recognition that waste dumping is a legal offense will also be helpful. �

Future prioritiesOne of ISWA’s current priorities is to promote a raising of the stan-

dard of waste management globally. Waste practitioners are concerned thatin many large pockets of the world waste management practices are wellbelow what we commonly use as the minimum standard for health andsafety purposes.

Another priority is to raise awareness about waste quantities presentin the seas. Waste reaches waterways and oceans in various ways. Legal andillegal disposing of waste to the seas is not monitored or enforced at basiclevels. Sustainable waste practices point to organised waste collection, sub-sequent re-use or recycling of waste materials where practical and manageddisposal of residuals. Using waterways and seas as disposal points is unac-


For several global regions, ISWA has a concernwith the effort required to achieve a basic levelof sanitation and public health. In the realm ofwaste management, this includes rapid collectionof waste, proper storage and/or transfer facilities,

and finding a suitable disposal facility as opposed to the useof open dumping areas. Globally, the number of opendump sites stretches into the hundreds ofthousands, and our expectation is thatnearby ground water sources orwaterways are not being adequatelyprotected. Clearly, ISWA promotesthe closure of such global dumpsites. In many situations, it makessense to develop an interimapproach for replacing localdumps through the use ofsanitary landfills or engineeredlandfills as a way to address theimmediate problem of publichealth and sanitation. We believe thismessage of an interim approach isessential for making progress, and basedon some of the success stories we hear about,it appears the word is getting out.

Education, training and the transfer of engineeringtechnology for sanitary landfills is improving. In some cases,funds from donor organisations (such as AID and the WorldBank) may be linked to the development of modern wastemanagement facility construction and related equipment.Essentially, new, modern landfills are being sited andconstructed, but the pace is slow. Therein lies one of ourconcerns. The improvements for waste managementsystems may be moving too slowly, particularly with regardto how much waste is being produced.

It is encouraging to see the debates and discussions about

waste management when I visit events in developingcountries. The concepts of waste prevention and wasteminimisation are now within the planning process, along withthe development of sustainable recycling programs.

Publishing the recycling goals of different countriesaround the world and showing the success rate is also

helping. Common examples are found where amunicipality began at measuring a recycling

rate of 10 percent and then onceattention and resources were put to

the challenge, the recycling raterose to 20 percent or 25 percent

over time. Now numerousmunicipalities can demonstraterecycling rates achieved of over50 percent. In the EU, of course,this is the regional target,country by country. This is a

tremendous model for othercountries to follow.

I recall a presentation a few yearsago describing the situation in Israel.

Twenty years ago or so it relied on lowstandard landfills for most of its waste

disposal, similar to what one might call a developingcountry waste management practice. Strong legislation wasthen put into effect, similar to EU requirements and coupledwith strict enforcement. More than 100 open dumps wereclosed in a short time, and measures were taken to designand construct large regional sanitary landfills to handle muchof the waste flow. Also, recycling targets of at least 25 percentwere set forth, which have been achieved. Lastly, it began toimplement other waste approaches (processing, anaerobicdigestion, composting) as a means to reduce reliance on thelandfills. I would say Israel has an interesting success story forother small countries to look at.

THE GLOBAL SITUATION



During 2008, we considerably expanded our produc-tion facilities by adding two new production halls to our premises. Th is step was taken to meet the high demand for Eldan equipment and to shorten delivery times.

We are one of the few companies delivering equip-ment to the recycling industry which has its own produc-tion facilities ensuring the quality of the product and the fl exibility of the production program.

We are a turnkey supplier of complete plants. Th e customer only deals with one partner from the initial contact to being supplied with a customised solution. Our technical staff are responsible for the design and development of the plant and our project managers and supervisors are in charge of the project work, installation, erection, training and commissioning of the plant.

We build diff erent plants to meet specifi c end prod-ucts. Using the modular approach, a large number of com-binations can be supplied both with regard to processing volumes and the production of output sizes. Th e modular approach covers all customer requirements for equipment to process at diff erent levels down the ‘recycling road’. Th e Eldan plants are ‘multi-size’ plants, which means that it is merely a question of changing the screen combination in the machines, should you wish to produce a diff erent output size. In the recycling of tyres, for example, Eldan equipment is able to produce everything from shreds, chips, granulate down to powder – all products having their own outlet within the recycling market.

Th e Eldan WEEE recycling plants are designed to process all kinds of electronic waste. Th e process involves the size reduction of the input material through an Eldan ring shredder, heavy pre-granulator and heavy granula-tors together with separation equipment that separates the material into the following fractions: ferrous metals, stainless steel, aluminium, plastics/organics and mixed non ferrous suitable for refi ning.

INDUSTRYINSIGHT

Industrial and municipal waste constitutes a growing global problem. In the EU, the Waste-Directive now regulates how we dispose of waste. Further regulations have been intro-duced for two groups of products – end-of-life

tyres and waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE). Both groups fall into the category of producer’s responsibility, which means that producers and import-ers are responsible for the collection and recycling of end of life products.

It was recently announced in several papers that just within the European Union 3.1 million tons of end-of-life tyres are produced per year and 20 kilos of WEEE per

capita which equals eight million tons. Whilst a lot has already been done to deal with the problem, a great deal more still needs to be done.

Th e industry is evolv-ing to cope with the chal-lenge of recycling these quantities and organisa-

tions like ETRA (European Tyre Recyclers Association) are promoting the use of rubber products made from end-of-life tyres.

Eldan Recycling has expertise in size reduction and separation of waste materials and we have developed equipment to process a large variety of products in large quantities at low personnel and energy costs.

Th e corporate roots of Eldan Recycling A/S dates back to 1956. Since the beginning, the Denmark-based company has specialised in development, manufactur-ing, marketing and installation of machines and complete plants for the recycling industry. We persistently observe and comply with market requirements and are one of the most innovative enterprises having installed more than 7000 single machines and 770 complete recycling systems worldwide, which comply with present requirements and are easily adapted to future requirements.

Our fi eld of expertise includes plant and equipment for recycling of: aluminium scrap, scrap tyres, cable scrap, municipal solid waste, WEEE, refrigerators, in-dustrial scrap, shredder light fraction/automotive shred-der residuals (SLF/ASR), etc.

“Within the European Union 3.1 million tons of end-of-life tyres are produced per year and 20 kilos of WEEE per capita which equals eight million tons”

Toni Reftman explains how Eldan Recycling are stepping up to the challenge of recycling end-of-life tyres and WEEE.

Toni Reftman is Managing Director of Eldan Recycling A/S. He has worked for Carl Bennet Group since 2004 and is responsible for three companies: Eldan Recyling A/S, Proline AB and Eleiko AB. He studied at The University of Lund and obtained a Ph.D in mechanical engineering.

Waste not want not

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COUNTRY FOCUS140140

FACTS & FIGURES

SwedenCapital: Stockholm | Currency: Swedish krona (SEK) | Population: 9.2 million

On July 1st, 2009 Sweden took up its six month role at the helm of the Council of the European Union, whilst the 26

other Member States of the European Union watched as the Nordic country proceeded to use the Presidency to trumpet itself as a model for green growth.

Th e Presidency has represented a unique opportunity for Sweden to lead and infl uence work on important EU issues and the Swedes are using their six months in the driver’s seat of the EU to promote energy and environmen-tal priorities such as carbon taxes, energy ef-fi ciency and green transport.

Sweden is in fact well placed to take on the role of promoting green growth as its own past achievements in sustainable devel-opment speak for themselves. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut emissions by nine per-cent, while gross domestic product grew by 44 percent. In 2007, it also had the best performance regarding the use of renewable energy at 31 percent of its total energy demand.

The amount of green house

gas which each inhabitant of Stockholm

releases is

50%lower than the

national average, and emissions

per person have, since 1990, been

reduced by

25%

69% of all households

have access to district heating

and the share of renewable energy in district heating

is nearly 70%

25%of the waste produced by Stockholmers

is recycled and 73.5% is recovered

for production of district heating

per-w

l

Collection of food waste for biogas production is to increase from

4500 tonnes in 2008 to 18,000 tonnes in 2012

Most biogas is currently

used as fuel in eco-friendly cars and buses

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COUNTRY FOCUS141

Stockholm was chosen as the city council’s holistic vision combines growth with sustainable development and includes the ambitious target of becoming independent of fossil fuels by 2050. Th e Swedish capital also boasts some impressive statistics, which helped it pip the seven other fi nalists – Amsterdam, Bristol, Copenhagen, Freiburg im Breisgau, Hamburg, Münster and Oslo – to the post for the 2010 title.

And the land of the midnight sun has set itself some tough targets for the future, far and above the EU-wide targets. Whilst the rest of Europe strives to meet the target of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, Sweden already has the highest proportion of renewable energy in the EU at 43.3 percent and is aiming to achieve 50 percent by 2020. Electricity generation con-tributes most to the proportion of renewable energy in Sweden. In 2006 it accounted for 52 percent of all electricity generation, of which 45 percent was in large-scale hydropower. Th e renewable proportion of the energy use of dwellings, excluding electricity and district heating, has increased from 32 percent in 1990 to 75 percent in 2006.

Transportation is another area where Sweden is already ahead of the game in terms of sustainability. Th e proportion of motor biofuel reckoned in energy content was four percent in 2007. Only two countries in the EU-27 had a higher proportion than Sweden (Austria and Germany). Furthermore the use of motor biofuel in Sweden increased by more than 30 percent between 2006 and 2007. By 2020, it is intended that biofuels will make up 10 percent of total energy use in the transpor-tation sector. By 2030, Sweden should have a vehicle fl eet that is completely independent of fossil fuels.

StockholmIt is precisely because of Sweden’s green

credentials that Stockholm was recently voted the EU’s fi rst Green Capital. In a new initiative starting in 2010 and headed up by the European Commission, one European city will be selected each year as the European Green Capital of the year. Th e award is given to a city that has a consistent record of achieving high environ-mental standards, is committed to ongoing and ambitious goals for further environmental improvement and sustainable development and which can act as a role model to inspire other cities and promote best practices to all other European cities.

A congestion charge was

introduced in 2006 for cars traveling in and out of the inner

city area during daytime hours. The emission reduction

levels from congestion taxes

was approximately 30,000 tonnes of C02 in 2006.

Emission levels are down 10-14% and air quality has been improved by 2-10%.

Traffi c has been reduced by 20%

77%of inhabitants

travel by public transport during

peak hours

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

5%

0

10%

15%

20%

Proportion of newly registered vehicles that can be run predominantly on renewable energy, divided into passenger cars, buses, light trucks and heavy trucks

Bus Car Light Truck Heavy Truck

Source: Sweden Road Administration

Transport emissions are relatively low and

all inner city buses run on renewable fuels

and all subways and commuter trains run on renewable electricity.

The number of people cycling

has increased by

75% over the past 10 years and

Stockholm now

has 760km of cycle lanes

with more being built.

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IN REVIEW142

Reducing carbon emissions and halting climate change are two key priorities for the EU over the next few years. Transportation is one area that is under scrutiny for its contribution to increasing our carbon footprint. Written by three lecturers and experts in transportation policy and planning, this book explores sustainable transportation and development and suggests some innovative solutions regarding mobility management. It contains sections on policy-making and planning and compares and contrasts various modes of transport, from human-powered modes to motorised modes, including marine and air trans-port. Th e book also features many international examples and case studies, textboxes, graphics, recom-mended reading and end of chapter questions.

EU INFRASTRUCTURE SAYS: An informative, authoritative and worthwhile read for all those interested in sustainable transportation.

An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation: Policy, Planning and Implementation By Preston Schiller, Eric C. Bruun and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy

With the EU striving to achieve its binding targets by the 2020 deadline, renewable energy currently fea-tures very highly on the European agenda. Th is book provides an insightful assessment that compares the initiatives to promote renewable electricity sources (RES) in a number of European countries. Th e study, which focuses on Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden, moni-tors progress on implementing the EU RES Directive in relation to the impact of the ‘dominant energy systems’ in each country and explores eff ective policy instruments for achieving sustainable energy poli-cies in Europe.

EU INFRASTRUCTURE SAYS: Th is book is of direct interest to anyone directly involved with renewable energy and sustainable development in general.

Promoting Sustainable Electricity in Europe: Challenging the Path Dependence of Dominant Energy Systems By William M. Lafferty and Audun Ruud

Sustainable development has been a fundamental objective of the European Union since 1997 and something that underpins all EU policies and actions. We take a quick look at what some of the current books on sustainability have to offer.

Hot off the press

As industry attempts to review its construction practices and promote more sustainable buildings, this book provides a handy introduction to the design and performance of commercial and institutional green buildings. Author Charles Kibert uses the book as a way of encouraging the reader to realise the ecological and economic benefi ts of green building. He uses the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) set of standards to help explain these benefi ts.

EU INFRASTRUCTURE SAYS: Ideal for anyone wanting to learn more about the theory, history, best prac-tices and state of the industry with regards to green building.

Sustainable Construction: Green Building Design and DeliveryBy Charles J. Kibert

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PHOTO FINISH144

Construction continues for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa

An aerial view shows building work on Green Point Stadium near Cape Town, in preparation for the arrival of teams and fans from across the globe this summer.

This 68,000 capacity venue is one of 10 around the country that will play host to matches during the fi nals. Though doubts have been expressed that the country will be ready for the competition in June, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma is insistent that work will be completed on time and that the country will provide the perfect setting. “Let us display the Rainbow Nation to the world,” he said in a recent interview. “Let us display that here in the southern tip of Africa, where mankind originates from, we can make the home of everyone.”

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INFRA EU 9

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