FCC's Austrian subsidiary ALPINE is to build an urban railway tunnel worth 310 million euro in the German city of Karlsruhe. Notice of the contract award was given today by Karlsruher Schieneninfrastruktur-Gesellschaft -KASIG-, a firm owned by the city of Karlsruhe.

Karlsruhe is implementing a future-oriented plan called the "combined solution" for the city railway tunnel, which will relieve traffic pressure in the city centre and improve citizens' quality of life.

ALPINE is to design the project, build roads and tunnels, do the sanitation work, install the underground pipe system and perform special underground engineering work. It will also be responsible for the construction of the underground stations and the tunnel accesses.

The Karlsruhe project is a real challenge in which, in addition to the tunnel construction work, it will be necessary to replace roughly 35 kilometres of affected supply lines. The project is scheduled to be finished in 2016.