FIBREFLOWTM MICRODUCT INSTALLATION GOTTHARD BASE TUNNEL, SWITZERLAND

Emtelle provided thousands of kilometres of its FibreFlow™ Microduct solution to one of the most impressive projects of this century: the transalpine Swiss Railway Gotthard Base Tunnel.

With the length of 57 km, the Gotthard Base Tunnel is the world’s longest tunnel and it is expected to

bring sweeping changes to European transport. Located in the heart of Europe, it will allow trains to

travel at speeds of up to 250 km per hour, shortening transalpine transportation and travelling time

between northern and southern parts of Europe tremendously.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel - with its two single-track tubes - is a tunnel of superlatives which is proven

by the benchmark data below:

• Construction time: over 20 years (1996 – 2017; general contractor: AlpTransit

Gotthard AG).

• Amount of excavated rock: 26,500,000 tons

• Tunnel Drill head diameter: 10 m

• Number of workers: over 2,500

• Total cost: 7.5 billion €

• High speed trains: 160 km per hour for freight trains, 250 km per hour for passenger

trains.

 

 

Emtelle provides numerous special products and solutions for this major project

It is more than obvious that an absolute reliable, stable and future-proof communication system is a

necessary precondition and a decisive factor for safety and security in the tunnel. This system has

been found in Emtelle’s FibreFlow™ solution, which is able to master the greatest challenges, and

offers decisive advantages over traditional cabling methods:

Planning reliability

Beyond the long construction time of 20 years including expected and

unexpected changes of fibre technologies and location points during

installation time. Easy add of additional requirements.

 Development of unique customer-specific solutions

We developed a wide range of special products including low fire hazard

tube & distribution closures.

 

Long distance blown fibre

In order to reduce the splicing costs, we installed blown fibres over a

distance of more than 4km in one installation via a central blowing

technique.

 

 

 

Besides Emtelle’s unmatched commitment to drive product innovation according to the customer’s

needs, the General Contractor’s Alpiq Burkhalter Technik AG decision to install Emtelle FibreFlowTM

in the Gotthard Base Tunnel was based on our system’s advantages over competing solutions as

detailed below.

Time and Space Saving

• The final distribution is being quickly realised by fail-safe and fire-protected end-to-end fibre

connections.

• No time and labour-intensive splicing required for branching off the fibre optic cables.

• Space saving is phenomenal as with FibreFlowTM only 3 of the available total 12 infrastructure

tubes are needed for telecommunication; and in tunnels space is the most valuable asset.

Time saving

Our solution is simple and time saving, perfect for a complex data cabling

requirement – over 4000 individual data access points within the tunnel

fibre system.

 Meeting exceptional demands

We needed to meet exception and unique demands – for instance the

installation of FibreFlowTM blown fibre in the 800 metre vertical shaft. Our

solution ensures no further access is needed to the shaft for future

modifications.

 Optimised logistics

In such an ambitious project, special attention needed to be paid to the

logistics. Our FibreFlowTM solution allow the installation of the tracks

followed by the blowing of the FibreFlowTM blown fibre.

 

 

 

• Logistics is easy because the installation can be realised with few components in several

stages.

Flexible and Futureproof

• The solution allows for easy and flexible adaptation of changes in technology even beyond the

lifetime of the project.

• With FibreFlowTM the network can easily be upgraded and maintained at low costs and without

interruption of rail traffic.

Five years after the start of construction in 2010, the installation of communication cabling is now

successfully completed. Mr Reto Meyer, responsible product/project developer and project manager

on the part of the general contractor Alpiq Burkhalter Technik AG, Switzerland, expresses his

complete satisfaction with the Emtelle solution as follows:

In total Emtelle has contributed the following amounts of material to equip the two 57km long tunnel

tubes and 178 cross passages with passive network infrastructure:

• >7,000km tubes and tube bundles

• >120,000km optical fibre in the whole project

• >4,000 accessory items and data points

Please contact us any time for details regarding the Gotthard Base Tunnel project and general

questions about the Emtelle FibreFlowTM solution.

Emtelle Contact: Robert Deffa-Wilk, International Business Development, robertw@emtelle.com

“Emtelle FibreFlow is a great solution allowing for an easy installation process in

this long-term project. It reduces a great amount of handling cost during this

time, makes many fibre splicing points redundant, and enables a simple and

smart end to end fibre solution. It is a joy to develop and design the best

products for this world wide unique project together with Emtelle.“

Reto Meyer, Product / Project Developer & Senior Manager ABAG

Emtelle UK Limited, Haughhead, Hawick TD9 8LF, Scotland

t 01450 364000 f 01450 364001 w www.emtelle.com e sales@emtelle.com