Safety above all

Every day 660 trains pass through, which makes Olskroken one of the most trafficked junctions in the Swedish railroad system. Peab is working on separating freight trains from passenger trains on behalf of the Swedish Transport Administration. We do it with the highest level of safety and the least possible climate footprint.

Rebuilding Olskroken in central Gothenburg is necessary to increase capacity, accessibility and operational safety for all railroad traffic in the West Sweden railroad system. The work comprises ten kilometers of new tracks, six new railroad overpasses and a footbridge to separate freight trains from passenger trains.

The project is unique in many ways. Olskroken is one of the Swedish Transport Administration’s first projects procured with so-called Early Contractor Involvement (ECI). This means that the contractor comes into the project early on and plans and designs it together with the customer. This allows Peab to affect, for example, climate impact at an early stage. One result of this is that almost all the concrete used in Olskroken is the climate-improved ECO-Betong (ECO-Concrete) from Swerock. This makes the project the first of its kind where the Swedish Transport Administration approves the use of climate-improved concrete in a major civil engineering undertaking.

Higher safety is another benefit of the collaboration between the Swedish Transport Administration and Peab. The project team works systematically to make the construction site safe and contributes to good safety culture. Theme days about safety where the contractor, customer and trade unions participate is an example of this. The team has also produced a work environment survey to find out what people at the site think about the work environment there. Information programs for skilled workers to raise safety awareness and experience exchanges to better employees’ capability are two such activities. Internal investigations into serious accidents and incidents to prevent future accidents are of course also part of the systematic work on the work environment. The project has been awarded the Swedish Transport Administration’s work environment award twice, which pays tribute to measures that promote collaboration and work on the work environment.

–Safety is everything in our projects. The Olskroken project is a role model for how we want everyone to actively work with safety. Openness and dialogue between partners in projects is essential to being able to utilize all available know-how for safe operations, says Mats Ek, Assistant Project Manager for Olskroken grade separation at the Swedish Transport Administration.