Belgrade Planning to Order Two “Moles” for Boring of Subway Tunnel

The director of the PUC Belgrade Metro and Train, Andreja Mladenovic, says for RTS that he is convinced that, this year, they will sign the agreement on the first and second phases of the first subway line and, as soon as next year, for the second line as well.

He also says that the budget envisages funds for the procurement of two TBM machines, so-called “moles”, and that he is convinced that they would be ordered this year.


– Those are two very important agreements, that is, a contract and a protocol. The contract is of a consulting nature and it was signed with Alstom. On the project of the construction of the Belgrade Subway, we will have two key partners – one is Power China, the Chinese company which will do the construction works, and the French company Alstom, which will provide all the systems, signalization, tracks and, of course, trains – says Mladenovic.

He points out that the contract is an introduction into the main contract for the first line.

– We are in the final phase of the revision of the preliminary project itself and the feasibility study and we expect to complete the revision by May. So, we are starting the negotiations about the signing of the agreements with both Power China and Alstom for the first phase of the first line – adds Mladenovic.

Will there be expropriation on subway routes?

The valuers have already visited the houses located on the route of the future subway system. Mladenovic points out that the preparatory works for the construction of the subway system are very complex and large in scope.

– There are numerous activities that we have to carry out in order to get to the most important thing – which is to start digging the tunnels and building the stations themselves. The designing itself takes two and a half to three and a half years. Geological explorations of over 600 boreholes have been done in our capital city. So far, no such geological exploration has been done in the capital city. We did the evaluation of the entire route of the first line and we have started the second line as well. That means that we have evaluated all the facilities where the subway route is to go in order to see whether and to what extent the construction of the subway could affect them in a future period – says Mladenovic.

He says that, although they wanted to avoid it, moving can’t always be avoided, and some facilities which are located in the positions where the stations are to be built will be removed.

– There are not that many such cases on the first line, and there may be slightly more on the second line, because it will go through some parts of the city where we will have to do some expropriation. However, that’s inevitable. We have now estimated the value of the facilities and there is a very important moving plan ongoing at the moment – adds Mladenovic.

JKP Beogradski metro i voz Beograd

Power Construction Corporation of China Limited Ogranak Beograd

Ogranak ALSTOM Transport SA Beograd

PUC Belgrade Metro and Train

Alstom

Power China

Andreja Mladenović

moles

TBMs

tunnel boring machines

BG subway

first subway line