Airlines. magazine interviews Marcin Horała, Deputy Minister of Funds and Regional Policy, Government Plenipotentiary for CPK.
The master plan for the CPK airport envisages that the Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) will be a high-rise building, with the controllers’ operations room assumed to be 90 metres above the apron. According to the design assumptions, the maximum height of the building cannot exceed 105 metres. The precise height of the building is going to be determined by visibility analyses, which should be carried out during the initial design stage.
According to the assumed schedule, preliminary visualisations of the air traffic control tower should be presented by the designer in Q1 2024.
“Taking into account the assumptions of the CPK master plan, as well as the experience of our partner, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency, whose controllers will ensure air traffic safety from the new facility, we can already say that it will be the tallest and most modern tower of its kind in Poland. The design is to be developed in close cooperation with the airport’s master architect, Foster + Partners, which should guarantee architectural coherence with the terminal,”
The tender procedure is addressed to 9 companies and 4 design consortia with whom CPK signed a framework agreement for the design of the airport’s Support Infrastructure Engineering (SIE) facilities at the end of 2022. As part of this contract, the following is going to be designed in addition to the traffic control tower in the immediate vicinity of the terminal: the airport operations centre, the rescue and firefighting services buildings, the airport maintenance and management building and the airport services offices.
The company selected in the tender procedure should prepare the design of the tower, including its concept, and obtain the necessary building permits. The scope of the contract is also to include other design-related services, e.g. consultancy during construction works procurement procedures.
So far, the tallest building of this type in Poland is the 46-metre tower at Katowice Airport in Pyrzowice, commissioned in 2019. The tower at Krakow’s Balice Airport is slightly less, at around 45 metres. The tallest air traffic control tower in the world is the 136-metre-high structure at Jeddah Airport in Saudi Arabia.
CPK selected the recommended route for the new Sieradz-Poznań railway line from four different variants based on numerous analyses, taking into account the technical, economic, social and environmental factors. The length of the High Speed Railway section between Poznań and Sieradz is 155 km (in total over 220 km including connecting lines). Most of this section of the CPK railway ‘spoke’ no. 9 is located in the Wielkopolskie Voivodeship (except for the area around Sieradz, Błaszki and Wróblewo, which is in the Łódzkie Voivodeship).
The High-Speed Railway being built by CPK is a civilisational leap for Polish infrastructure. Thanks to the Sieradz-Poznań HSR line, the Wielkopolska region joins the beneficiaries of the CPK railway projects. This line should have been operational today, but unfortunately 12 years ago the preparations for the construction of the “Y” shaped line, a route connecting Warsaw, Łódź, Poznań and Wrocław, were unnecessarily suspended. Today, we are making up for the lost time, which is very good news for passengers,
When preparing the feasibility study, following the voice of residents and local authorities, the experts replaced proposed variant with new one, which is a combination of the socially and environmentally most favoured three different variants.
The Variant, which we finally chose, is the optimal solution for the section between Poznań and Sieradz and was developed as a result of consultations with residents and local authorities. It involves the least number of conflicts with residential buildings, it interferes the least with areas of natural value and is the most favourable in terms of conflicts with water intakes and monuments
Thanks to this investment, the train journey between Warsaw and Poznań should take about two hours (today such a journey takes more than three hours). Once this section has been opened, we should be able to reach Kalisz from the capital in around 1 hour 25 minutes (instead of around 3 hours as at present).
Travel times from Poznań are also going to be reduced: to Kalisz in about 35 minutes (from approx. 1.5 hours) and to Łódź in about 1 hour 10 minutes (now approx. 3 hours). Passengers should be able to reach CPK from Poznań in about 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Trains on this line are able to reach speeds of up to 250 km/h, with the design speed being 350 km/h. This means that it should be possible to increase the parameters of this railway line in the future without having to rebuild the track. According to the schedule, the opening of the Sieradz-Poznań section should take place after the opening of stage I of the CPK airport and the Warsaw-Łódź HSR line.
As part of the ‘Y’ line, CPK has already prepared routes for a 140 km HSR section between Warsaw and Łódź and a 200 km route between Łódź and Wrocław. Design is already underway for both of these sections. The Sieradz-Poznań section is the third CPK investor variant for the ‘Y’ line and the fifth in total (the others being the Łętownia-Rzeszów section in the Podkarpacie region and the Katowice-Ostrava section in Śląsk).
The planned Warsaw – Łódź – Sieradz – Wrocław/Poznań line is part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). In 2021, CPK received more than PLN 108 million in grants under the CEF Reflow Connecting Europe Facility to carry out the design of the CPK tunnel in Łódź and feasibility studies for the sections: Warsaw-Łódź, the CPK junction and the Sieradz-Poznań section. As part of the CEF2 call for proposals, CPK is applying for further, many times higher, funding for the development of these projects.
The CPK railway programme envisages the construction of 2,000 km in new lines and is a response to more than 30 years of almost total downtime in this field. The assumption is that the journey from most of the largest Polish cities to CPK and Warsaw should take a maximum of 2.5 hours.
The contract was concluded with Trakt z Katowic, and is worth almost PLN 28 million. The contractor’s task is to design a road system in the airport area, including a junction with the A2 motorway on its eastern side and links to national road 50 on the western side.
The contractor has committed to develop a comprehensive, multi-discipline design plans and specifications for CPK, including a full geological investigation. As part of the Road Programme Concept (RPC), a tender documentation necessary to announce the procedure and select the contractor for design and construction works (under the Design and Build formula) will be developed.
Design solutions for the road system are crucial for the smooth operation of the airport. We hope that the contractor we have chosen takes advantage of its extensive experience in designing transport infrastructure and thus offers us the best possible solutions
The designer should also prepare solutions for the civil engineering structures (such as flyovers, bridges, wildlife underpasses), road service equipment, environmental protection equipment, equipment for resolving utility conflicts, as well as other facilities necessary for the proper functioning of the entire road system.
The tender had been running since November last year, with seven companies and consortia taking part in it. CPK selected the contractor based on price and experience.
The list of the bidders and details for the tender procedure are available on the Smart PZP platform.
Selecting the optimum option for this section was a design challenge. The construction of any High Speed Rail requires compliance with strictly defined technical parameters (related among other things to track geometry). Meanwhile, there are numerous areas of mining damage and natural value in this region of Poland. Planning is also hindered by extensive urban areas and the proximity of the A1 motorway.
As a recommended variant, the CPK experts indicated the W72, which provides for the construction of new railway stations in Żory Północne and Mszana, the possibility of creating an intermodal terminal in Wodzisław Śląski, an additional section connecting Wodzisław Śląski and the centre of Jastrzębie-Zdrój, and new sections enabling quick connections between Rybnik and Żory with Katowice and the rest of the country.
“The CPK project ensures the inclusion of Jastrzębie-Zdrój, a city with a population of 90,000, the largest in Poland without access to the railway network. New railway stations and stops are to be built, such as Jastrzębie-Zdrój Centrum and Zachód. In this way, we can make up for the unfinished investments of the last decades. Thanks to the CPK investments in Śląskie, the railway transport is available to more than 3.5 million inhabitants in the region, including Jastrzębie, Żory, Rybnik and Wodzisław,”
The CPK investments in the Śląskie Voivodship enable a significant reduction in travel times. Passengers will be able to travel from Katowice to Jastrzębie Zdrój in 50 minutes by regional train or in 35 minutes by fast train, as there is no such connection today. The train journey to Katowice from Rybnik will take 25 min (currently more than twice as long), and from Wodzisław Śląski approx. 40 min (today more than 1 hour). It should take about 20 minutes to get from Żory Północne to Katowice by train, and about 15 minutes from Wodzisław Śląski to Jastrzębie Zdrój, as currently there are no such connections at all.
“The Katowica-Ostrava section is not only an important railway investment in the Śląskie region, but also part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), which will ultimately connect Katowice, Krakow and Warsaw with Brno, Prague, Bratislava, Vienna and Budapest. Our investment is of a cross-border nature and is closely coordinated with the investment activities of Správa železnic, our Czech partner,”
The Katowice-Ostrava railway line, as part of the V4, will contribute to the growing importance of the Upper Silesian Industrial Region, making it an important transport hub in the Three Seas region and providing fast connections to most major cities in Central and Southern Europe.
Taking into account the comments of residents was a priority for CPK. Since February 2020, within the framework of the Strategic Location Study and the two consultation phases of the Feasibility Study, the CPK representatives have organised 98 meetings with residents and local authorities.
The purpose of the feasibility study for the Katowice-Ostrava section was to analyse the options taking into account numerous criteria, including technical, operational, economic, social, environmental, terrain and land use. The indicated variant, W72, ensures that the CPK design assumptions of a maximum speed of 250 km/h and reduced travel times can be maintained, and at the same time it means the least demolition of the four routes finally considered and has the least impact on ecological corridors and animal migration routes.
The CPK railway programme envisages the construction of 2,000 km in new lines (10 CPK spokes) and is a response to more than 30 years of almost total downtime in this area of Poland. Feasibility studies are either ready or being prepared for 1,500 km of these lines, and the design phase is already underway for the Warsaw – Łódź and Łódź – Wrocław sections.
The new lines are to be used primarily for long-distance trains, including high speed rail (with a maximum operating speed of 250 km/h and the possibility of raising it to 350 km/h in the future), as well as by regional trains and, on selected sections, by freight trains. The key Warsaw – CPK – Łódź section is to be launched simultaneously with the first stage of the CPK Airport.
Preliminary market consultation (PMC) is a partnership dialogue between the investor and the contracting industry that precedes the tenders, contracts and the actual construction works. Its aim is to analyse the market potential, check interest in task orders under the formula assumed by the investor and gather the best practices related to the implementation of works. It is also about obtaining information that can improve tendering, contributing to the definition of optimum tender evaluation criteria, contract scopes and terms and conditions, as well as rules for the bundling of orders and the distribution of risk between the investor and contractors.
During the consultations, we want to work with potential contractors to develop the implementation and contractual standards which will be applied during the actual construction of the new airport. We are also keeping an eye on the implementation solutions and technological innovations used in megaprojects abroad. The best of these will be applied to our project,
The consultations are addressed to the largest Polish and foreign construction companies and representatives of the specialised airport solutions industry. During the discussions, the contractors will be divided into groups of future implementation packages. CPK wants to hold discussions with the potential general contractors as well as subcontractors and suppliers of advanced technologies.
The deadline for submitting applications for participation in the PMC is 13 February at 12.00. Consultations will be conducted in Polish and English. Detailed information can be found on the online platform, SmatPZP.
Last year, CPK moved from planning to design, signing contracts with four design offices and consortia. The multi-discipline documentation developed by them forms one coherent design for the entire investment. For the airport alone, about 60,000 drawings will be created and incorporated into the digital design environment.
The British consortium Foster + Partners and Buro Happold became the Master Architect, the designer of the passenger terminal, railway station, interchange and baggage handling system. The Lebanese office Dar Al-Handasah Consultants is responsible for preparing the design documentation for runways, taxiways and aprons. The designs of the supporting facilities, such as the air traffic control tower, operations centre, aircraft maintenance base, etc., may be commissioned to a total of 13 contractors, including Polish ones, with whom CPK has signed a framework agreement. In turn, Spanish IDOM became the airport systems integration designer.
This year, the first preparatory construction works should start at the site of the future airport, an area consistently acquired by CPK through the Voluntary Acquisition Programme. This involves demolition, felling, land levelling, construction of temporary structures and other works that do not require building plans and specifications. For these works, CPK signed a framework agreement with eight contractors last year, including: Budimex, Doraco, Mostostal Warszawa, NDI, Polimex Infrastruktura, PORR, Strabag and Trakcja.
One of the most important objectives of the three-year agreement is the development of new cross-border connections on the European 1435 mm gauge, in particular the construction of a high-speed railway line.
The document provides for the joint preparation of a feasibility study for the planned new railway lines between Poland and Ukraine. It identifies the construction of a HSR line on the Warsaw–Lviv–Kiev route (an extension of CPK railway spoke no. 5 to Lviv, and ultimately to Kiev), with an assumed maximum operating speed of 250 km/h. Therefore, CPK has declared its readiness to exchange knowledge and experience, and to transfer its technical standards of the HSR, as well as the Passenger Transport Model.
A modern, high-capacity and efficient infrastructure is a key element for safety in the Three Seas region. In the long term, the development of transport infrastructure will be a very important element in the reconstruction of Ukraine
This is a historic moment. Together with Ukrainian Railways, we are starting joint work on the Warsaw-Lviv-Kiev HSR line. The shortest route from Ukraine to the EU goes through Poland and CPK
Today’s agreement aims to improve railway links between Ukraine, Poland and the EU, facilitate passenger traffic, improve economic exchange and strengthen the safety of our transport corridors. I hope that cooperation with the CPK will bring us closer to the construction of the first HSR with a European gauge and will be an important step towards Ukraine’s integration with the EU
The agreement provides for the creation of a working group to fulfil the objectives of the signed agreement through workshops, joint research, exchange of documentation and experience.
Centralny Port Komunikacyjny and Ukrainian Railways will jointly seek opportunities to obtain EU funding for the planned lines. EU standards for the design, construction and maintenance of railway infrastructure, including signalling and GSM-R, are to be implemented as part of the partnership. In the future, both parties also agreed to jointly develop a management model for the constructed lines.
In the case of the airport, we have moved from the planning phase to the design phase. The application for an environmental decision concerning the airport, including the railway, roads and associated infrastructure, is pending.
A Voluntary Acquisition Programme (PDN) is also underway at the future development site. More than 650 owners and holders of properties have applied for the programme with a total area of more than 1,500 hectares. The Programme was set up to acquire as many plots as possible through voluntary transactions.
For the long-distance tunnel in Łódź, the most advanced CPK investment, we already have building plans and specifications, a set of location decisions, one of three planning permissions while the first tender is underway, which means that construction works start next year.
Feasibility studies (STEŚ) are already being developed for 1,500 km of the 2,000 km planned ‘spokes’. We already have investment variants for the 140-kilometre section of the High-Speed Railway between Warsaw and Łódź, the 200 km between Łódź and Wrocław and the 40 km between Stalowa Wola and Rzeszów.
A number of international partners have been involved in the CPK project this year, such as Incheon Airport from Seoul, i.e. the current Strategic Advisor, the design consortium Foster+Partners and Buro Happold as the Master Architect and the design company Dar Al-Handasah as the Master Civil Engineer.
Here is the Top 10, a subjective overview of the most important CPK-related events of 2022:
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1. Location of the CPK airport. Application for an environmental decision. Phased execution The application for the environmental decision for the airport, including the railway junction, new roads and water, energy, gas infrastructure, etc., was submitted by CPK to the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Warsaw (RDOŚ) in October. The application, together with the environmental report, has more than 20,000 pages and is part of a larger procedural puzzle. It constitutes a supplement and continuation of the CPK investor variant that we presented in June of this year, as well as the preferred location for the airport, which we announced last December. As part of our carefully planned activities over the past year, we consulted with local authorities on the Master Plan, which sets out the airport’s development plan in the long-term perspective (by 2060). The plan is based on traffic forecasts prepared by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Based on IATA baseline scenario, we assume that between 2028 (the planned year for the airport launch) and 2035, on an area of approximately 2,150 ha, the new airport will have two parallel runways and a terminal designed to handle 40 million passengers a year. Thereafter, the airport will be expanded – depending on the market situation and forecasts, which will be updated on an ongoing basis. For 2060, we assume, based on the baseline scenario, that the airport will have an infrastructure capable of handling 65 million passengers per year. At that point, the airport will already have three runways and an assumed area of 3,900 ha. The next step after obtaining the environmental decision, which is the responsibility of the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection, will be to apply to the voivode for a location decision. We hope to obtain the approvals and administrative decisions by the end of 2023 to enable the commencement of the first construction preparatory works. 2. Master Architect and its team. The big design four The planning phase for the airport has ended and the design phase has begun. For the airport part alone, a staggering number of around 60,000 design drawings will be created and incorporated into the digital design environment. There will be four contractors for the large design packages for the new airport. The multi-disciplinary design documentation must be – as the investor’s requirement – compiled into one coherent project. Last month, we signed a contract with the British consortium Foster + Partners and Buro Happold, the designer of the passenger terminal and railway station (Master Architect). The contractor we have chosen has experience in designing transfer airports in various parts of the world, including Hong Kong, Doha and Beijing. A month earlier, we concluded another important contract: with a Master Civil Engineer (MCE). This entity is responsible at CPK for the design of the runways, taxiways and aprons. The contractor, a Lebanese conglomerate, Dar Al-Handasah, has been involved in the design of airports in Doha, Dubai and Chicago. In December, we selected 13 companies and consortia, including Polish ones, with which we are going to sign a framework agreement as part of the first tender for the design of the support facilities (Support Infrastructure Engineer – SIE). This includes such facilities as the air traffic control tower which, in addition to the passenger terminal, could become the airport’s most characteristic building (similarly to the new Istanbul airport). The contract also covers the design of the airport operations centre, the fire and rescue, maintenance and airport management buildings and the airport service office. The bids received under the second part of the tender for the design of the support facilities – the SIE2 – at the airport (including hotels, offices, multi-storey car parks, retail facilities and cargo terminals), which was announced in October, are still being analysed. The winning tender is planned to be announced in January. We have also signed a contract with IDOM as Airport Systems Integration Designer (ASID), which constitutes the airport’s ‘nervous system’. The tasks of this contractor include the design, implementation and integration of specialised airport systems that automate airport operations and offer digital tools to improve the passenger experience. |
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3. Warsaw-Łódź HSR. Project option and application for an environmental decision This will be the railway backbone for CPK. CPK has signed contracts for the design of the Warsaw – Łódź line, which is the first section of the High Speed Railway (HSR) in Poland. Between Warsaw and Łódź, the first and fourth most populated cities in Poland, we plan to build a total of 140 km in tracks where trains will be able to reach 250 km/h (the design speed is 350 km/h). Thanks to this investment, the travel time between Warsaw and Łódź will be reduced to around 45 minutes (today it takes about an hour and a half). Travellers will reach the CPK airport from Warsaw in around 15 minutes and from Łódź in around half an hour. Once the entire “Y” shaped line has been built, the train journey from Wrocław to Warsaw will take 1 hour 45 minutes (i.e. half the time today), and from Poznań to Warsaw less than 2 hours (down from the current 3 hours). The contractors were selected under the largest framework contract for this type of service in Europe. This contract for the design of 10 ‘spokes’ may reach a maximum gross value of PLN 8.6 billion over eight years. 4. HSR tunnel with a complete set of location decisions Work on the 4km High Speed Rail tunnel in Łódź is the most advanced of all CPK investments. The company received planning permission for works to reinforce the foundations of the Łódź House of Culture (ŁDK) – west of the Łódź Fabryczna station). This will be the location of the excavated chamber for the tunnel boring machine TBM. For this task, CPK has already announced a tender for a contractor. Further planning permissions are a matter for the coming weeks. In December, the company obtained the last of three location decisions for the HSR tunnel. It is now waiting for a response to the planning permission applications for the Retkinia chamber, the Fabryczna chamber and for the tunnel. The tunnel is a key element of the ‘Y’ shaped line, the HSR route under preparation between Warsaw, CPK, Łódź, Wrocław and Poznań. It is also an investment which, together with the construction of the suburban tunnel currently being carried out by PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe in Łódź, will allow for much better travel and the use of the Łódź Fabryczna station. In order to speed up pre-construction procedures, we used some of the pre-design documentation that had been produced before preparations for the construction of the ‘Y’ shaped line were unnecessarily halted in 2011. 5. Investor options for the three sections. Feasibility studies already for 1,500 km, i.e. 3/4 of the CPK pool CPK already has an investor variant and an application for an environmental decision for the 140-kilometre-long Warsaw-Łódź section of the High-Speed Railway (in this case we are already at the stage of submitting applications for an environmental decision). The investor’s preferred route for the 200 km from Łódź to Wrocław is also ready. Since December, there has also been an investor variant for the 40-kilometre section Łętownia – Rzeszów. Technical, economic, environmental studies (STEŚ) are already being developed for 1,500 km of the 2,000 km of the CPK planned railway ‘spokes’. Work on feasibility studies is carried out at a pace unprecedented for infrastructure investments in Poland. For example, the comparison of variants, consultations with residents and local authorities, multi-criteria analysis and selection of variants for the sections between Warsaw and Łódź and between Łódź and Wrocław took less than a year from when the agreements were concluded. Thanks to the CPK railway investments, travel times from most regions of Poland to Warsaw and the planned airport will be significantly reduced. New international connections with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary ( “spoke” no. 7 Katowice-Ostrava, which is part of the V4 line) and the Ukraine (extension of “spoke” no. 5 to Lviv) are planned. CPK also works closely with Rail Baltica, which is preparing the construction of a HSR line connecting Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with Poland, specifically with section no. 3 of the ‘spoke’ managed by PKP PLK. 6. Dual-purpose infrastructure. CPK embedded in NATO plans In March, Gen. Ben Hodges, the former Commander General of US Army Europe, told PAP that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine shows how much investment such as CPK is needed to improve the quality of rapid response infrastructure on NATO’s Eastern Flank. These words were confirmed by other military officials, including the former Chief of the Aeromobile Forces, Brigadier General Dariusz Wroński, who told Rzeczpospolita that from the point of view of the country’s defence, CPK is an investment needed ‘yesterday’. The lesson from the Russian aggression in Ukraine is that Poland needs a high-capacity airport, capable of 24/7 operations, suitable for cargo, connected to the railway and road network. This is why CPK is planned as a dual-use infrastructure, i.e. as a civil airport that can be used by NATO support and rapid response forces in the event of a threat of armed conflict. This is also why the CPK Master Plan presented in September assumes that military infrastructure is envisaged in the northern part of CPK. Its planning and development is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence in cooperation with CPK. |
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7. Large-scale framework contracts (feasibility studies, design, construction works) In the past year, CPK has made extensive use of the framework agreement mechanism, which has shortened and increased the efficiency of the contractor selection process. This procedure reduces the likelihood of protests and appeals by first selecting contractors based on their experience and, only then, in the second stage of the tendering procedure, based on price and delivery time. Under this formula, CPK concludes contracts for extended feasibility studies (STEŚ-R), design work and construction works. For example – the 8-year framework agreement signed by CPK with design companies for railway investments is valued at over PLN 8.6 billion gross. It is currently the largest framework contract for design work in Europe. 8. CPK plus Chopin Airport. Capital group with PPL CPK is a company preparing the construction of a new hub airport and 2,000 km of railway lines. PPL owns and manages Chopin Airport in Warsaw and holds shares in most Polish regional airports. This year the consolidation process between CPK and PPL has started, which will have a significant impact on the aviation market in Poland. In the past year, the government’s plenipotentiary for CPK, Marcin Horała, announced a detailed plan to transform PPL into a single-person commercial law company and then to contribute shares of the new PPL to the CPK SPV. As a result, a capital group will be created that is responsible for obtaining the financing for and coordinating the CPK investment tasks. For the market and for investors, this confirms the decision to move 100% of civilian traffic from Chopin Airport to CPK. Consolidation will facilitate this process, spur the construction of new infrastructure and provide numerous benefits for both parties, including the benefit of shared knowledge and experience. 9. Real property for the needs of CPK. Already more than 650 owners and 1,500 ha The Voluntary Acquisitions Programme, which involves a system of incentives and bonuses for residents (valuations of 120% of the market value of the land and 140% of the value of the house, organisation and covering the costs of the move, of legal costs, etc.) unheard of in other public purpose developments, gained great momentum in the second half of the year. More than 650 property owners have so far signed up to the VAP. November saw the highest rate of applications since the programme began two years ago. The stage of performing appraisal reports, submitting offers, negotiations, signing memoranda of understanding and ultimately concluding contracts already covers an area of almost 1,500 hectares. If we take into account only properties submitted to VAP from the area of the planned airport site announced in June, a third of the site is already in the process of bidding and acquiring the land by CPK. VAP is preceded by a compulsory expropriation phase for compensation, which starts once the location decision has been issued. 10. Cooperation with the investment environment and universities. Strategy for the region As part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR), CPK has this year co-financed purchases and projects that are important to the municipalities and residents in the investment area, such as the purchase of three firefighting and rescue vehicles for the General Corps of Volunteer Firefighters of the municipalities of Baranów, Teresin and Wiskitki, new equipment for rescue operations for WOPR (Volunteer Water Rescue Service) in Grodzisk Mazowiecki and the construction of a helipad for the Western Hospital in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, which will be built next year. Why does CPK carry out such activities? Being a socially responsible company means investing in human resources, in protecting the environment, in relationships with the environment. All these activities are part of the Strategy for the Development of the Area Surrounding CPK until 2040, which was prepared in close cooperation with local authorities from the investment environment. In the past year, CPK has also collaborated with technical universities and scientific institutions. We have signed partnership agreements with: Warsaw University of Technology, Gdansk University of Technology, Lodz University of Technology, Łukasiewicz Research Network , AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow and Lazarski University. The aim of these activities is to exchange knowledge and experience, carry out joint scientific and research projects and recruit staff for the largest infrastructure project in our part of Europe. |
High-speed rail development has been placed at the centre of EU transport policy by the European Commission. Taking advantage of this impulse, the EU countries of the Three Seas Initiative have been developing their railway networks by constructing the first sections of the High Speed Rail system. Projects such as Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK) in Poland, together with Rail Baltica and V4 HSR, make an important contribution to the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) policy and the goals of the Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy, making Europe much better connected, integrated and secure.
These are the topics of the first edition of the Railway Direction Days congress, which is to be held in Warsaw on 18-19 January 2023. The congress is planned to contain two days of debates and discussions on the benefits of transforming the transport infrastructure in the Three Seas region. A particular aspect of the scheduled talks is the impact of the expansion and modernisation of the railway network in the region on the economies of Central and Eastern European countries, the decarbonisation of transport systems as well as increasing the resilience and defence capabilities of European countries.
The infrastructure mega-projects, which are being implemented in the Three Seas countries, will create a dense and interoperable HSR network in the region, filling in the missing cross-border links in Central and Eastern Europe and building the future of European mobility. The first Railway Direction Days congress provides a unique opportunity to thoroughly discuss, plan and coordinate transport infrastructure modernisation projects implemented by several countries,
The RDD 2023 congress will bring together almost 40 panellists – transport industry experts from more than a dozen countries, including Agnis Driksna, CEO of RB Rail, which is responsible for the implementation of the Rail Baltica project, Radek Čech, Director of International Cooperation and the EU Department at Správa železnic, Monika Heiming, Executive Director of European Rail Infrastructure Managers or Mark Sadler, Manager of the Climate Funds Management unit at the World Bank. During the 2 days of the congress, 9 panels on infrastructure and transport topics will be held, including, ‘Development of the HSR network as a boost to economic development of the 3Seas Initiative countries’, ‘The importance of railway projects in the 3Seas region for strengthening security and resilience of the EU and its neighbors’ or ‘Scope and investment process of HSR’ and ‘Passenger perspective of HSR’. A detailed programme and list of all the panellists is available at www.railwaydirectiondays.com.
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The conference will feature a presentation of the report ‘HSR in 3Seas’ developed by the Steer consultancy, which provides an overview of High Speed Rail infrastructure projects in the Three Seas Region in the perspective of 2030. The publication covers the network perspective and the economic and environmental aspects of HSR development in the region. The security and resilience benefits of creating a dense and interoperable HSR network in the region will also be considered. Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK) is a new transport development program in Poland – a strategic investment that is extremely important for the economic development of the country and the region and, of utmost importance, the security of Europe as a whole. It’s a great infrastructure project on an incredible scale to integrate air, rail, and road transportation quickly and efficiently. The CPK project includes, among others, rail investments: a transport hub at the airport in the centre of Poland and a network of new railway lines, mainly high speed, with a total length of nearly 2,000 km. This will make it possible to travel between Warsaw and Poland’s largest cities in no more than 2.5 hours. The first preparatory construction work on new CPK airport is planned to begin in 2023. |
Among the 13 entities that fulfilled the conditions for participation in the tender were 9 companies and 4 consortia. This awarded contract is the first of two framework agreements for the design of Support Infrastructure Engineering (SIE) facilities. The first one concerns the design of the facilities, such as the control tower, airport operations centre, rescue and firefighting buildings, airport maintenance and management and airport staff offices.
The facilities will be built in the immediate vicinity of the passenger terminal and railway station designed by that master architect – Foster + Partners and Buro Happold. We assume full cooperation and coordination between the companies selected to design the SIE facilities and the master architect. The control tower will be a key element of the airport. Together with the terminal, it has a potential to become its most recognisable building, as is the case at Istanbul’s new airport, for example,
The designed facilities will support and complement ongoing operations of the passenger terminal and the remaining airport infrastructure. They will also be integrated with them to ensure seamless handling of flights and traffic safety.
The SIE framework contract will allow the commissioning of specific tasks by means of executive procedures. Contractors will be responsible for carrying out work and services related to the preparing the following projects: conceptual, technical, executive and building projects, together with obtaining necessary permits. The scope of the contract also includes other services related to the design, including consultancy during the contract award procedures for the execution of the construction works.
Offers received for the second tender for the design of support facilities at the airport area (including hotels, offices, retail facilities, cargo terminals and multi-storey car parks), which was announced in October this year, are still being analysed. That tender is scheduled to be awarded in January 2023. The estimated total value of both contracts is approximately PLN 500 million.
Information about the winning companies is available on the SmartPZP platform.
Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK) is a new transport development program in Poland – a strategic investment that is extremely important for the economic development of the country and the region and, of utmost importance, the security of Europe as a whole. It’s a great infrastructure project on an incredible scale to integrate air, rail, and road transportation quickly and efficiently. The CPK project includes, among others, rail investments: a transport hub at the airport in the centre of Poland and
a network of new railway lines, mainly high speed, with a total length of nearly 2,000 km. This will make it possible to travel between Warsaw and Poland’s largest cities in no more than 2.5 hours. The first preparatory construction work on new CPK airport is planned to begin in 2023..