As the Eurozone financial and political sectors face another crunch moment to see if Greece has been austere enough to deserve it’s final round of bailout loans, tunnelling, while competitive, is still strong.

Lacking the slew of hydropower and water transfer projects that have dominated recent T&TI regional project maps in India and Africa, the market in Central and Eastern Europe is dominated almost entirely by a demand for transport infrastructure.

Megaprojects such as the Brenner Base Tunnel push the boundaries in terms of scale, in this case increasing the record length for a transport tunnel from the neighbouring Gotthard Base Tunnel’s 57km to a full 64km. Though the total length of associated tunnelling is claimed by the client to be around 200km.

It appears that, as might be expected, the Alps constitute the most active centre for tunnelling in the region, with other localised areas of activity, such as the Bosphorus Strait.

A new road tunnel crossing design contract was awarded for this bottleneck last month.

A report by T&TI publisher World Market Intelligence’s economic analysis arm Timetric highlighted the relatively recent entry of East European countries into the European Union (EU) as a major driver of infrastructure growth. Collaborative, international funding being made available to projects, as well as an influx of foreign business to these regions have provided the means, and the requirement for infrastructure upgrades.

Aside from this, meeting EU standards for water and pollution provides further incentive for national governments.

Large scale projects are not very common in the far east of Europe, before reaching Russia, and the region lacks the present tunnelling boom of Central Europe and the UK. In this report, T&TI explores the heart of Europe.

1) Athens Metro Line Two extension
2) Brenner base tunnel
3) Lainzer tunnel
4) Hamburg X-Fel X-ray laser tunnel
5) Bibra tunnel
6) Markovec tunnel
7) Avrasaya development
8) Fehmarnbelt
9) Shipka peak tunnel
10) Slovak Sucharski tunnel
11) New Beskyd tunnel development
12) Paludza railway tunnel
13) Heslach road tunnel
14) Bosphorus rail crossing
15) Rosshausern-Mauss rail renovation
16) Choindez de tunnel road
17) Belchen motorway tunnel refurbishment
18) Kublis road bypass tunnel
19) Istanbul Strait road crossing
20) Tunnel de Bure road
21) Konigsdorf road tunnel
22) Lodz Fabryczna to Lodz Kaliska rail tunnel
23) Rudersdorf road tunnel
24) Speltenbach road tunnel
25) Eyholz road tunnel
26) Auerberg road tunnel
27) Warsaw Metro Line Two
28) Sisikoner motorway tunnel
29) Morschacher motorway tunnel
30) New Kaiser Wilhelm rail tunnel
31) Sankt Polten Raingruben rail tunnel
32) Stierschweiffeld rail tunnel
33) Malovanka-Pelc Tyrolka tunnel
34) Heckenstallerstrasse road tunnel
35) Dnieper River road crossing
36) Kyivavtodvor-Livoberzhna Station to
Victory Square road tunnel
37) Stuttgart HSR airport tunnel
38) Ober/Unterturkheim HSR tunnel
39) Filder HSR tunnel
40) Prague metro
41) Marmaray rail tunnel
42) Leipzig City rail tunnel
43) Arlberg motorway escape tunnel
44) Pforzheim rail tunnel
45) Wiesling to Jenbach rail tunnel
46) Asfinag to Gleinalm road tunnel expansion
47) Garmisch road tunnel
48) Riederwald road tunnel
49) Astra to Graitery road tunnel
50) Asfinag to Tauern road tunnel
51) Ceneri base tunnel
52) Grossbreitenbach Silberberg road tunnel

Additional material by timetric.com and www.construction-ic.com