The special vessel that will be used to lower the tunnel segments for the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel is currently undergoing final tests at the working harbour near Rødbyhavn ahead of certification by the Danish Maritime Authority. To this end, the construction consortium Femern Link Contractors (FLC) connected a completed tunnel element to the immersion pontoons IVY 1 and IVY 2 for the first time in March 2026.

The central access structure to the new Marienhof Station on the 2nd S-Bahn Main Line is being built using the diaphragm wall/top-down construction method. With five bracing levels and a depth of 42 m, this will be the deepest excavation pit in the centre of Munich. From the excavation pit at Marienhof, the platform tubes of the station and a connecting tunnel to the existing U3/U6 underground railway line are being driven under compressed air. To secure the buildings and to mitigate possible settlements, the buildings and the existing tunnels above the platform tubes to be constructed, are bolstered with a compensation grouting screen.

From 16 to 17 June 2026, the congress center KKL Lucerne will once again become the focus of the international tunnelling community when the Swiss Tunnelling Society hosts the Swiss Tunnel Congress...

Conventional project delivery models with unit or lump sum remuneration regularly reach their limits, especially in large-scale projects. There are many reasons for this. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) offers a practical, cooperative approach here. Particularly for tunnel construction, with its geological uncertainties, long tunnel drives and safety-critical conditions, partnership-based project management can improve cost and schedule reliability and avoid claims and interface conflicts. At the same time, a solution-oriented project culture is promoted through the timely involvement of all parties. This article marks the start of a series of publications on IPD and presents the basic principles of IPD and current IPD tunnel construction projects in Austria and Germany.

Since September 2024, a Herrenknecht tunnel boring machine (TBM) has been excavating a metro tunnel under the Panama Canal. On February 2, 2026, the construction consortium HPH reached an important milestone with the giant TBM – diameter 13.5 meters – after passing under the Panama Canal: the breakthrough to the future Balboa metro station. From here, the last 1.5 kilometers remain to be completed before final breakthrough.

On 4 March 2026, the 2nd Cologne Tunnel Construction Day took place at Cologne University of Applied Sciences. Around 160 participants attended the German-language event, which featured 11 specialist presentations offering insights into various aspects of the wide-ranging topic of tunnel construction. The lecture sessions were divided into the themes of Regional Projects, Sustainability, Planning and Construction.

The Holzminde is a small river that flows through the center of the town of Holzminden in southern Lower Saxony, Germany. The town’s proximity to the “red water”, as the Holzminde is popularly referred to, has shaped its development over the centuries – and in 1904, one section of the river was diverted into a tunnel structure. This made it possible to create enough space for new traffic routes in the town center. The result was the construction of what is now the state highway L550. More than a century later, the historic tunnel is once again the focus of an important infrastructure project: over the years, time had left its mark.

In January 2026, the new collaborative research project EINFACH (German acronym for „Single-shell tunnel construction using CO2-optimised fibre-reinforced sprayed concretes – rethinking tunnel shells...

On 11 June 2026, the 11th Rock Mechanics and Tunnelling Day will take place at the WBI Center in Weinheim (Germany). The conference will be organized by WBI GmbH, sponsored by the German Railway (DB InfraGO AG) and supported by the German Engineering Association (Württembergischer Ingenieurverein, Arbeitskreis Bautechnik).