SPECIALIST engineering, construction and asset management contractor, Bilfinger Berger Services, has been awarded a 25-year operations and maintenance (O&M) contract for the $759 million toll-free Peninsula Link project in Victoria.
Bilfinger Berger Services will take over operation of the freeway from Southern Way consortium (Abigroup, Bilfinger Berger and Royal Bank of Scotland) in the first half of 2013, following completion of the project.
Bilfinger Berger Services will be responsible for the total maintenance requirements of Peninsula Link, will manage major refurbishments of the freeway as required and will provide road monitoring and high-standard incident response services 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week. The operations and maintenance of the freeway will provide around 20 ongoing jobs and Bilfinger Berger Services will seek to recruit from the local area.
“While Bilfinger Berger Services maintains a significant number of roadways in NSW, SA and WA, this is the most significant road O&M contract the company has secured in Victoria,” said the company’s Infrastructure Services executive director, David Tucker. “We are responsible for the operations and maintenance of roads that are used by hundreds of thousands of Australians each day and safety and availability of these roads is our primary focus.”
Later this year, Bilfinger Berger Services will also commence operations and maintenance of the Clem7 tunnel and Gateway Bridge in Brisbane. Abigroup will construct 27 km of freeway standard road, 11 local road connections, more than 35 bridges, 18,000m2 of retaining walls and a 22 km walking and cycling path.
Around 1.5 million plants, shrubs and trees will be planted along the Peninsula Link corridor during construction and Bilfinger Berger Services will carefully manage the road next to the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve and maintain bandicoot crossings to protect the Eastern Brown Bandicoot.
The freeway is expected to benefit more than 250,000 people living in Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula as well as tourist visiting the area. It will allow people to travel from Carrum Downs to Mt Martha in 17 minutes – a saving of 40 minutes on the usual trip time.
