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Copenhagen Metro opens new extension

Posted: 7 December 2007 | Torben Johansen, Technical Director, Ørestad Development Corporation | No comments yet

A new stretch of the Copenhagen Metro has been opened by HRH Crown Prince Frederik. The new addition is a boon to foreign tourists, business travellers and most of all, the employees of Denmark’s largest workplace; Copenhagen Airport. It is now possible to travel from the airport to the city centre (Kgs. Nytorv) in just 13 minutes.

After years of preparation, the opening date – 28 September – was a full month ahead of schedule. The new stretch has already been integrated into overall Metro operations without any negative effect on reliability, which in the first six months of 2007 was 98.5 per cent.

A new stretch of the Copenhagen Metro has been opened by HRH Crown Prince Frederik. The new addition is a boon to foreign tourists, business travellers and most of all, the employees of Denmark's largest workplace; Copenhagen Airport. It is now possible to travel from the airport to the city centre (Kgs. Nytorv) in just 13 minutes. After years of preparation, the opening date – 28 September – was a full month ahead of schedule. The new stretch has already been integrated into overall Metro operations without any negative effect on reliability, which in the first six months of 2007 was 98.5 per cent.

A new stretch of the Copenhagen Metro has been opened by HRH Crown Prince Frederik. The new addition is a boon to foreign tourists, business travellers and most of all, the employees of Denmark’s largest workplace; Copenhagen Airport. It is now possible to travel from the airport to the city centre (Kgs. Nytorv) in just 13 minutes.

After years of preparation, the opening date – 28 September – was a full month ahead of schedule. The new stretch has already been integrated into overall Metro operations without any negative effect on reliability, which in the first six months of 2007 was 98.5 per cent.

HRH Crown Prince Fredrik was joined by a good showing of local people at the opening ceremony, which quickly developed into a public celebration thanks to the festive arrangements at each of the new stations. A party was held and rounded off in fine style with a free concert at Femøren; one of the new stations and a well-known Copenhagen concert venue. The people of Copenhagen have already made the Metro their own.

Even though the Metro will primarily be of benefit to the capital city’s residents, the event was also covered by all the national media, and the opening ceremony itself was shown live on national television.

The new stretch

The new stretch is 4.5 km long and runs from Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, to Lergravsparken along the eastern shoreline of Amager, where there is a stop at the new four kilometre long Amager Strandpark. The line extends through the centre of Copenhagen to Frederiksberg and Vanløse. There are five new stations and the line runs over an elevated track in open cuttings. The route follows an old railway line that was closed to passenger transport in 1947. Up until the 1990s it was only used for goods transport and now of course, by the Metro.

The first turf was cut in November 2003 and since then there’s been lots of activity along the old railway tracks. And now the new track is ready, East Amager has swapped the old steam engine for a more modern, driverless Metro. In the meantime, Copenhagen has also seen the construction of the Øresund Bridge, which in its own way has fused the Swedish and Danish sides of the Øresund into a new international region. Now, regardless of where you live – Copenhagen, Tårnby or Frederiksberg – the beach, shopping, open countryside and links to foreign countries are just a short Metro ride away.

The Copenhagen Metro

Weighing 52 tons and measuring 39 metres long and 2.65 metres wide, a Copenhagen Metro train is a veritable lightweight compared to the traditional Metro trains we all know from other cities. But it’s these physical dimensions, the driverless system and the electronic monitoring and safety systems that give the Metro the unprecedented flexibility suited to the needs of a rapidly developing city. Each train can hold 300 passengers and with a frequency of one every 100 seconds at peak times, residents of Copenhagen can travel easily.

Satisfied customers

The Copenhagen Metro has cost a total of DKK 12 billion (in 2007 prices). It carried around 37 million passengers in 2006, and with the opening of the new stretch, 43 million are expected to travel in 2007. The independent analysis institute MEGAFON carries out regular surveys of passenger satisfaction. In the latest survey (Q3 2007) 94 per cent of respondents indicated that they were generally satisfied with the Metro. In fact, the Metro has run on time for over 98 per cent of all departures in the last 12 months. This means Metro trains left a platform promptly more than 4.1 million times. This is even more remarkable when Denmark’s 20 busiest rail stations include five Metro stations. Each train accelerates away from the station at a speed of 1.3 metres per second, which is the same as an acceleration rate of 0 to 100 km/h in 21 seconds, however, the average travel speed for a Metro journey is 40 km/h. Even so, each train has around 850 horsepower and travels under and through the city at speeds of up to 80 km/h. In comparison, a car moves through the city centre during rush hour at an average speed of 15 km/h.

New law

The opening of the third stage means that the Ørestad Development Corporation, which is responsible for the Metro, has fulfilled the terms of the Ørestad Act, passed by the Danish Parliament in 1992. This was the act which paved the way for the first three stages.

On 1 June 2007, Parliament passed a new act for the construction of a new metro circle line called Cityringen. The new act signals the intention of continued development of public transport in Copenhagen with the popular and efficient Metro system.

Two new companies

The passing of the new law will entail a re-organisation of the Ørestad Development Corporation, which will be dissolved, with its assets and liabilities split between a Metro company and a land development company.

The Metro company will concentrate exclusively on installations and running the Metro, plus building Cityringen, whilst the land development company will handle development of a large area of harbour, Nordhavnen. This is to be developed into a new urban area of Copenhagen and to also continue the development of Ørestad.

Cityringen

The next project for the Copenhagen Metro will be planning and building Cityringen. Construction of the 15.5 km line will be one of the largest projects in Copenhagen in modern times and when it is finished, it will be one of the most advanced transport systems in the world.

As the name indicates, it will run around the centre of Copenhagen and will be entirely underground. Two consultancy contracts for the project have just been signed and construction is expected to commence in around three years. Construction of Cityringen will cost approximately DKK 15 billion and is expected to be finished in 2018.

When it is complete, 85 per cent of the inner city will be served by a Metro or S-train. Cityringen will have 17 stations spread through the suburbs of Nørrebro, Østerbro, Vesterbro, Frederiksberg and the city, with two of them taking the form of extensions to existing metro stations and three of them linking underground to S-train stations.

First geo-technical surveys underway

The first visible signs of Cityringen are the geo-technical surveys which commenced in August 2007. During the course of 2007 and 2008, approximately 350 individual drillings will be performed along the future Metro stretch, each lasting up to a week. The northern part of Cityringen is particularly excitingand an area virtually unexplored by geo-technology. The bores being drilled will provide new information about the geology of Copenhagen.

The geo-technical bores and surveys involve the extraction of samples of soil layers in order to provide information regarding the geology that Cityringen is being built on. The soil strata in Copenhagen is composed of a layer of fill on top of clay and sand. Under this is chalk, which is what most of Cityringen tunnels will be drilled into.

The strength of the different strata may vary, which makes it important to determine whether the earth is soft or hard, and whether the chalk is particularly fissured, before the construction of Cityringen commences.

Model for the future

Copenhagen has always lead the way. Not long after the first stretch of Metro track was opened in October 2002, the reputation of Copenhagen’s driverless Metro reached foreign ears. For the supplier, the Italian company Ansaldo, Copenhagen is now a fully functioning display model allowing politicians and decision-makers from all over the world to try out the metro of the future, today. The north Italian university town of Brescia is one of the towns to have selected a metro similar to Copenhagen’s, and other identical systems are being opened elsewhere.

How Ørestad and the Metro are linked

The Ørestad Development Corporation is responsible for building the Metro in Copenhagen.

The company was founded in 1993 and is the cornerstone of the Metro. Land sales were to be the original source of financing for the Metro. The Ørestad Development Corporation is jointly owned by the Municipality of Copenhagen (55 per cent) and the Danish state (45 per cent). It was set-up to develop and sell land from the new urban area of Ørestad, build, and subsequently contract-out the running of the Metro. The corporation derives income from the Metro and from land sales in the Ørestad area, plus refunds from land taxes. This income is used to service the loans taken out to finance construction of the Metro, and to build the infrastructure for Ørestad; an area which stretches more than five kilometres from the edge of the city centre to Copenhagen Airport; a total area of 310 hectares, equivalent to 3.1 million.

In 1994, the corporation opened an architectural competition for a master plan for Ørestad, which would lay down the general parameters of the area’s development. The plan concentrated on making Ørestad into a modern town with architecture featuring the pinnacle of international architecture. A bearing principle of the plan is to maintain a balance between homes, businesses and other urban activities, so as to ensure the area will remain lively and attractive.

In 2005, the corporation sold around 224,000 square metres of floor area for building projects, which made it a record year. However, 2006 set a new record, with around 630,000 square metres sold, and as of August 2007, a total of around 1,602,000 square metres (52 per cent) had been sold out of a total of 3.1 million square metres.

Total earnings from sales are DKK 4.6 billion (at current prices). In fact, enough space has been sold for housing for approximately 7,000 homes to be built.

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