The second element for the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel has been installed on the seabed. Operations commenced on Tuesday evening, 23 June 2026, when the 73 500-tonne concrete element was towed out into the Fehmarnbelt. Five tugboats transported the element to the tunnel trench, where it was manoeuvred into position with pinpoint accuracy using steel wires. Immersion began during the night into Friday.

National Grid, the transmission system operator in England and Wales, is expanding its high-voltage grid as part of The Great Grid Upgrade. A key project is a 2200 m long cable tunnel under the Thames from Gravesend to Tilbury. Herrenknecht supplied a tunnel boring machine for the project, which began tunnelling at the start of May 2026.

On 16 and 17 September 2026, the 4th International Workshop on Injection Technology for Tunnelling will take place at the Hagerbach Test Gallery in Switzerland. The programme covers the planning, implementation and quality control of chemical injections during tunnel construction. As the number of participants is limited, please register as soon as possible.

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.

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.

The implementation of large-scale projects requires robust planning that takes into account various target variables such as sustainability, construction time and cost. Process simulation is a suitable method for designing the construction process as efficiently and robustly as possible in the early stages of planning and for holistically assessing the impact of changes in the planning process on execution. Using the Fürth Freight Train Tunnel project as an example, this article shows how simulation-based planning methods can help to transparently present and analyse interfaces in logistics planning, realistically model construction processes and thus support informed decisions.

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.