Bergen light rail extension: contributing to low carbon mobility and liveability

The 12.7km extension of Bergen’s light rail network from the city centre to Åsane is more than a railway project. It contributes to green mobility and increased quality of life in Norway's second largest city.

Bergen Bybanen light rail — © Iver Daaland Åse / Bybanen Utbygging

The light rail extension is key to achieving safe, efficient, and low-carbon collective transport for passengers in Bergen and is the city’s most important initiative to prevent additional growth in car traffic. It is estimated that over 80,000 people will use the public transport route every day in 2040 – a considerable ridership for a city with 293,000 citizens.

The project also focuses on urban development around the railway stations and includes a new 13km bicycle lane as well as walking paths along the entire route.

Highly complex construction

Bybanen Utbygging has commissioned COWI in conjunction with Ramboll and Asplan Viak on the design of the fifth construction phase of Bergen’s light rail network. The contract value is around NOK 1.5 billion (€126 million).

This construction phase involves a high degree of complexity including tunnels, an underground stop and with large stretches of the route passing through a dense urban area, commercial activity, and many cultural monuments. The project also has an interface towards the 3km extension of the Fløyfjell mountain road tunnel that is necessary to free up space for establishing the line connection from Bergen City centre and north to Åsane.

Meeting project goals and maximising benefits

The project brings together the most qualified local and international expertise. The entire design team will use the Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) methodology. This contributes to efficient, seamless collaboration and implementation whilst ensuring goals are consistently met throughout the project. The project group has recent proven experience with this working methodology from other large transport schemes where they have reduced decision-making time and total project costs.

Due to political decisions, the timing of construction is being replanned and is expected to start in 2028 and take around 10 years.

Extensive support on Bergen’s light rail network

In addition to the current infrastructure project, Ramboll is supporting Bybanen in Bergen with the development of a new technical specification to be used for purchasing new modern vehicles to run in Bergen.

Ramboll has previously been involved with the specification of a separate line extension of Bergen’s light rail as well as the drawing up of tender documents for a range of technical areas.