ODENSE LIGHT RAIL
The largest Portuguese engineering project in the area of sustainable mobility in Denmark
Odense is a municipality in Denmark, located in the region of South Denmark, in the southeast of the country. With an area of 305.6 km² and a population of about 204,000 inhabitants, it is the county seat, and the third largest city in the country, after Copenhagen and Aarhus.
It is a major commercial center and a place for shipping goods, as well as an industrial and academic center.
Thus, the need arose to improve urban mobility, and a light rail system was built from scratch, since the city did not have this transportation mode.
The project was developed in an adverse social and environmental context, including the constraints caused by Covid-19 which peaked during the critical phase of the systems’ installation.
Strengthening the transportation sector and sustainable urban development, including the reduction of carbon emissions, were the main motivations for Efacec’s participation in the Odense Light Rail project. The light rail project is the greenest option on the market, since both total emissions and emissions per person/km are lower for the light rail than for buses.
It is a remarkable project that will shape the future of Odense, with innovative solutions in the fields of energy, signaling and communications with digital connectivity present, core areas for Efacec.
Client
Odense Letbane
Local
Odense, Dinamarca
Start Date
June 2017
Inauguration
28th may, 2022
Efacec Participations
→ Control Center (all systems required for operation)
→ SCADA (technical supervision and energy automation)
→ Vehicle location and fleet management system (including equipment on board the vehicles)
→ Communication Systems – Fibre and Radio
→ Railway signalling system
→ Public information (visual and sound)
→ Video surveillance
→ Telephony
→ Access and intrusion control
→ Catenary
→ Traction substations
Through consortium with companies COMSA (Spain) and MUNCK (Denmark)
Efacec’s Intervention
In 2017, Efacec was part of the consortium with the construction companies COMSA (Spanish) and MUNCK (Danish), chosen for this project due to its technical superiority and know-how, having stood out in a long and competitive international tender that involved the biggest international players in the sector.
This is the largest urban mobility project carried out and executed by Efacec outside Portugal, as well as the most technically complex and comprehensive. The contract began in June 2017 and amounted to 50M€, reflecting the size and integration of technological solutions provided by the company.
In the consortium, Efacec was responsible for developing and installing the electromechanical component of the project, and its technology was integrated into all the energy, telecommunications, signalling and control center systems.
“At a national level, Efacec is the only company with the skills in all the technological aspects required for the project. The previous successes of the Dublin and Bergen rail projects, as well as other Efacec’s flagship projects, were essential for this achievement. We have proven experience in all technological areas, namely power systems, telecommunications, signaling and control centers, and the Odense Light Rail System represented an excellent opportunity, as it allowed, for the first time, that all skills were applied simultaneously in the same project.”
Pedro Pinto
Responsible for Efacec’s Transportation area
Other Efacec Projects in the transport area
Efacec’s experience in the supply of electromechanical systems for rail and light rail systems dates back more than 25 years, having started by supplying substations for the Lisbon Metro. From that date to the present, the projects have been successive. In 1997, Efacec had a very significant participation in the construction of the Oporto Metro network, which was followed by multiple similar projects in different countries: Messina (Italy), Tenerife and Cadiz (Spain), Algiers, Oran and Constantine (Algeria), Nottingham (United Kingdom), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Dublin (Ireland) and Bergen (Norway).
Efacec is currently participating in the construction of Phase 4 of the Bergen Light Rail (Norway), the Sydavnen Line of the Copenhagen Metro (Denmark) and the extension of the Yellow Line and the new Circular Line of the Oporto Metro (Portugal).
