The Warnow Tunnel (also known as the Warnow River Crossing and the Warnowquerung in German) is a road tunnel 790 m long which connects the east and west bank of the

Warnow The Warnow () is a river in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany. It flows into the Baltic Sea near the town of Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock ( ...

river in the

Hanseatic The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...

city of

Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (), is the largest city in the German States of Germany, state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the sta ...

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; ), also known by its Anglicisation, anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a Federated state, state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's States of Germany, sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpom ...

, Germany.

History

It is Germany's first

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and ...

in modern times and Germany's first privately financed transport project. The construction cost of 220 million euros was financed by

Bouygues Travaux Publics Bouygues S.A. () is a French engineering group headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Bouygues is listed on the Euronext Paris exchange and is a blue chip in the CAC 40 stock market index. The company was founded in 1952 by F ...

(France),

Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation (MIC) owns, operates and invests in a diversified group of infrastructure businesses. Macquarie Infrastructure Corporation's business consists of the largest network of fixed-base operations in the United St ...

(Australia), and 14 banks.Erster deutscher Maut-Tunnel bleibt geöffnet
''Spiegel.de'', 15 June 2006 It was inaugurated on 12 September 2003 by the Federal Transport Minister Dr.

Manfred Stolpe Manfred Stolpe (16 May 1936 – 29 December 2019) was a German Canon law, canonist, Theology, theologian and politician who served as Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs (Germany), Federal Minister of Transport, Building an ...

. By 2006, the tunnel was close to bankruptcy. Only 10,500 vehicles were crossing it daily, compared to the expected 20,000. The operating concession was extended from 30 to 50 years to make it more profitable for its operator. The 50-year operating concession is held by Warnowquerung GmbH & Co. KG, which is 70% owned by the Australian investment company

Atlas Arteria Atlas Arteria (), formerly known as Macquarie Atlas Roads, is one of the world's largest developers and operators of private toll roads. Intoll demerger Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) had a portfolio of 11 toll roads across seven countri ...

which operates many tolled roads worldwide. On 15 August 2018, Atlas Arteria announced an agreement to acquire the remaining 30%. In November 2015, the fare to cross the tunnel was raised to cope with high maintenance costs. By September 2020, 67 million cars had driven through the tunnel since it opened.67-millionste Fahrt durch den Warnowtunnel
''Nnn.de'', 8 September 2020

Engineering

The tunnel was built using a technique known as

immersed tube An immersed tube (or immersed tunnel) is a kind of undersea tunnel composed of segments, Modular construction, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road an ...

construction: the main part of the tunnel consists of six prefabricated concrete conduits which were formed and poured in a temporary drydock nearby, floated out into the river and lowered into a dredged channel in the river bottom. This is a technique apparently pioneered in the Detroit River in construction of the

Detroit–Windsor Tunnel The Detroit–Windsor region is an international transborder agglomeration named for the American city of Detroit, Michigan, the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario, and the Detroit River, which separates them. The Detroit–Windsor area acts as a ...

in 1930, and replicated for sub-aqueous tunnels ever since.

References

External links

Warnowquerung.com
Road tunnels in Germany Buildings and structures in Rostock Toll tunnels in Europe Transport in Rostock Tunnels completed in 2003 Warnow (river) Transport in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania {{Germany-transport-stub