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Madrid's Big Dig

Madrid is currently suffering a traffic crisis that needs to be solved quickly and efficiently, as the city has expanded rapidly in recent years and dangerous congestion is becoming an almost constant problem. Madrid’s inner ring road, the Calle 30, is the worst offender. The busiest road in Spain, running close to the Manzanares River, it is famous for its traffic jams and pollution.

The M30 project aims to solve the problems of gridlock on Madrid’s roads by refurbishing the road and running major sections of it beneath the city, creating new parkland and riverside above. A total of 99km of new road and 56km of tunnel will have been constructed by the time the project is completed. With an estimated budget of �3.7 billion and completion date (already behind) of mid-2007, this is a major undertaking!

The M30 Madrid Project is so massive that no less than seven Earth Pressure Balanced (EPB) Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) of various specifications have been specially ordered for the 15 separate projects around the city.

One such machine came from German firm Herrenknecht AG. It was too massive to transport whole and had to be reassembled on site. With an immense 15m diameter and weighing 4000-tonnes, it surpassed its expected 300m per month progress and achieved 500m per month (36m per day) – finishing its tunnel ahead of schedule. In August 2006, a similarly-proportioned machine from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Spanish company Duro Felguera beat this record by achieving 40m progress in a single day.