São Paulo’s Metro Line 5
São Paulo
Award of Merit
Owner Companhia do Metropolitano de São Paulo
Lead Design Firm/Civil Engineer GEODATA SpA
General Contractor Odebrecht
Engineers Maidl Tunnelconsultants GmbH & Co., KG (structural), Herrenknecht AG (MEP) and CBE Group (consultant)
TBM Build/Launch/Operate S.e.l.i, Società Esecuzione Lavore Idraulici S.p.A
Brazil’s largest city has been choking on its own traffic for years. São Paulo’s environmentally sound solution: expanding and interconnecting sections of its huge metro system. To tie north-south Metro Line 5 into Lines 1 and 2, which serve the city’s east and west zones, contractors modified a tunnel boring machine used on Metro Line 4 work, which finished in 2010. When Line 5 work began in 2011, manufacturer Herrenknecht had adapted the Line 4 TBM to bore a large-diameter path for Line 5. The refurbished machine gave the project team a significant competitive cost advantage, enabling it to meet budgetary, schedule and safety goals upon completion in December 2017.
