NETHERLANDS: Infrastructure manager ProRail has appointed Haskoning and Arcadis to support planning for the deployment of ERTMS on the 74 km Zeeland Line between Roosendaal and Vlissingen. This has been selected as a pilot route to validate the design, construction and operational processes ahead of a planned national roll-out.
Arcadis has been awarded a €12m contract to lead the design works and supervise construction, testing and commissioning. Arcadis will make use of its Dyndash design platform, which it has developed in-house to support digitalisation, automation and certification.
The partners will first map the area in order to help determine where cables can be laid and support the development of designs from which a contractor could eventually undertake the work.
The first phase of the project began immediately after the contract award, focusing on the Lewedorp – Vlissingen section of the route. This will be followed by the Roosendaal – Lewedorp section.
‘We will not be digging and constructing in the coming years’, emphasised ProRail’s ERTMS pilot scheme project manager Anita Vesters on February 11. ’Arcadis and Haskoning will first map the entire area. This way we will know where the bottlenecks are that we have to take into account in the final design.’
The Betuwe Route, HSL Zuid, the Hanze Line and the main line between Amsterdam and Utrecht are already equipped with ETCS, using a mix of Level 2 and Level 1. Under ProRail’s current strategy to roll out ERTMS across the remainder of its conventional network, testing will initially be undertaken on the Northern Lines around Leeuwarden and Groningen. ProRail, Strukton and Arcadis began installing cables between Harlingen and Leeuwarden during January.
The Zeeland Line has been selected for the second deployment. Extensive testing will be undertaken during an extended closure of the section between Vlissingen and Goes. Passenger services are expected to be suspended for a number of months, although freight access would be maintained.
A third package of ERTMS trials is due to be undertaken on the route between Kijfhoek and the Belgian border. An ‘ERTMS Knowledge Alliance’ to roll out ETCS Level 2 on this route was established in 2021, bringing together ProRail, Arcadis, Movares, Haskoning and Sweco in an eight-year programme valued at €28m.
