News | 06.07.2021

GC MOSPROEKT-3 ORGANIZED INFRASTRUCTURE SESSION AT MOSCOW URBAN FORUM 2021

The Group of companies Mosproekt-3 held the meeting of the expert center at Moscow Urban Forum 2021. The representatives of regional and federal government as well as the international professional community analyzed the implementation of the infrastructure projects on the territory of Russia and discussed the trends of the global construction industry.  

Vasily Desyatkov, Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, said that Vladimir Putin, the president, in his annual State of the Nation announced some large-scale infrastructure projects. The major project out of them is the International Transit Corridor “Western Europe – Western China”. According to the Deputy Minister, this project is going to become an alternative to the existing sea and railway transport routes.

“This megaproject will provide great opportunities for Eurasian integration and at the same time will stimulate the economic growth for the key growth points inside the country. The project is likely to attract 70 million tons of national cargo traffic and will twice reduce the travel time on the routes between big centers of Russia”, – said Vasily Desyatkov.

The Group of companies Mosproekt-3 is actively participating in the implementation of the section of the “Western Europe – Western China” International Transit Corridor. The construction of the section on the territory of Nizhegorodskaya Oblast’ is conducted under tough geological conditions. Anna Merkulova, CEO of The Group of companies Mosproekt-3, told about some design & engineering and construction aspects of this significant object.

“Our team faced the karst deformations challenge, and if we ignored those problems or treated them in an unprofessional way, it would cause disastrous consequences. In the search for optimum design and engineering solutions, we consolidated the best world practices and applied the most advanced technologies. In particular, our experts have developed a digital geological model, which is unique for Russian infrastructure projects.  It enables to make a detailed high-level analysis on future karst deformations and provide all the optimum methods, which will be necessary for safe construction and further maintenance,”– said Anna Merkulova, CEO of The Group of companies Mosproekt-3.

The top-manager also added that while working on the object there were applied some remote sounding methods, including the interferometric analysis of the satellite images to detect the areas of active geological processes and 3D terrain model made by using aerophotography method.

Federico Bontempi, Regional Director for Russian Federation and CIS, GEODATA, commented on the implementation of this megaproject. According to Federico Bontempi, karst deformations is one of the most common geological hazards that affect the road design and engineering process.

“Depressions and settlings in the highway project developed in the karst area, in the long term can lead to significant economic loss. Predesign and engineering exploration can increase the safety level of a construction. We are cooperating with The Group of companies Mosproekt-3 to investigate this phenomenon on the highest level”, – said Federico Bontempi. 

The participants of the expert session also discussed large-scale infrastructure projects in Russian megapolises. Alexey Teksler, the Governor of Chelyabinskaya Oblast’ told about the future metrotram system.  

“For many residents of Chelyabinsk, metrotram is an ideological project. I am glad, that this decision was made at the federal level. We have already developed two metro lines and now we are actively working in this direction. We plan to increase the passenger traffic, to create a new image of the city, to encourage people to use public transport by making it more comfortable”, – pointed out Alexey Teksler.

Sergey Morozov, Deputy Governor of Nizhegorodskaya Oblast’, represented the new metro-based strategy of transport system transformation. According to Sergey Morozov, as soon as the new stations are opened, the city passenger traffic will increase in almost 3 times.

“For Nizhny Novgorod, there is an urgent need to develop inner-city transport. The city geography creates difficult transport service conditions, as the city is separated by the river and one bank is much higher than the other. Furthermore, there are a lot historic areas, which when taken into account, considerably reduce the ground route traffic capacity. We consider metro system development as the foundation for a new comfortable route system”, – explained Sergey Morozov.

On the basis of her long-term expertise in metro construction, Anna Merkulova, CEO of The Group of companies Mosproekt-3, gave her expert assessment of these two regional projects:

“I am really glad to see that the governments of the cities with more than million people apply modern approach. It is great that the highly professional teams are engaged in the cities’ development and improvement. Metrotram is a unique combination of two means of public transport. It has big transport capacity, and at the same time, it is fast, modern and attractive from the economic point of view. My team and I are aware of Nizhny Novgorod government plans to develop the metro system. We believe it is a project of the world level, and it is possible to implement it in a shorter time than expected”, – said Anna Merkulova.

Alan Thomas, All2plan Consulting ApS representative, speaking about the world trends of infrastructure construction, noted the increasing popularity of digital technologies. He also added that each project requires an individual approach.“Digitalization has a lot of advantages, while clear requirements of State Customers can become a big help for the industry,” – he said.

Moscow Urban Forum 2021 took place from July, 1st and  July, 4th in Zaryadiye Park. Over 450 speakers participated, including the authorities, professional community representatives and foreign experts.