AFRY as owner’s engineer on Lötschberg Base Tunnel: QA and safety lens for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on Tunnels & Tunnelling International – News
30 Second Briefing
AFRY, as part of the IG AI consortium, has been appointed owner’s engineer for the Lötschberg Base Tunnel expansion, a 40km section of the Lötschberg Base Line between Frutigen and Raron being upgraded to double track under Switzerland’s Rail Expansion 2035. IG AI will handle quality assurance for all railway engineering equipment, including design reviews, technical assessments and commissioning oversight, to meet defined capacity and safety targets across the NEAT corridor linking with the Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels. The contract is worth about SEK118m (SEK38m to AFRY) and runs from October 2024 to December 2035.
Technical Brief
- Contract value is SEK118m, with SEK38m allocated specifically to AFRY within IG AI.
- Scope covers quality assurance of all railway engineering equipment, not civil structures or excavation.
- QA tasks include independent review of design planning documents before procurement and installation.
- Technical assessments will verify compliance of signalling, power supply and safety systems with specified performance criteria.
- Commissioning oversight extends through to December 2035, implying staged integration and testing phases.
- Role as owner’s engineer separates safety-critical acceptance from contractors’ self-certification, strengthening assurance lines.
- NEAT backbone function means QA decisions directly influence freight capacity and safety on the north–south Alpine axis.
Our Take
Among the 135 Infrastructure stories in our database, very few involve assets as long and geotechnically complex as the 40 km Lötschberg Base Line, signalling that this expansion will sit at the high end of tunnelling risk and monitoring requirements through the Alps.
The contract value of SEK 118 million for IG AI, running until December 2035, implies a long, continuous owner’s engineer presence, which typically allows for iterative safety upgrades and design optimisation as conditions in deep Alpine tunnels become better understood during works.
With Lötschberg, Gotthard and Ceneri all part of the NEAT corridor in Switzerland, this appointment reinforces a pattern in our infrastructure coverage where long-term rail expansion programmes (such as Swiss Rail Expansion 2035) are consolidating technical know‑how across multiple base tunnels rather than treating each as an isolated project.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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