Consulting Mind: Multimodal Transport and Railway Systems

In the second part of the series started last week, we will be showing another example of a multimodal transport and railway system. This time we will take a look at Vienna Central Station, in Austria.

Austria is the 12th richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita It is known for its stable economy, with a high standard of living and a well-developed social market economy. Vienna, the capital of Austria, is also by far the largest city in the country with a population of more than 1.7 million citizens. It is regularly ranked as one of the most liveable cities in the world.

Vienna has a well-developed public transport network where the four main forms of transport are U-Bahn (subway), Schnellbahn or S-Bahn (local train), Straßenbahn (tram) and Autobus (bus). Vienna public transport Wiener Linien operates five underground lines, 29 tram and 90 bus lines, of which 24 are night lines.

Around 2.5 million passengers use the Wiener Linien network every day, so the public transport vehicles cover a distance of 180,000 kilometres daily – roughly the same distance as orbiting the earth 4.5 times.

The idea of building a central through station dates back to 19^th century, but it was delayed for a long time because of financial reasons. The new station will be replacing the previous 5 scattered end stations and it will provide efficient east-west and north-south links. It will be a main hub for national and international travels. Below is the schedule of the main planning and construction project.

In the new central through station, travellers and commuters benefit from direct and rapid connections and will be able to change trains quickly and conveniently on the same platform. Apart from rapid transit and local train lines, it is served by underground U1 as well as by two bus lines and three tram lines.

An entirely new urban district is being developed on the former ÖBB site, with the station as a catalyst for the development of the neighbourhood area. Altogether, approximately 5,000 apartments are being built to accommodate 13,000 residents, offices for 20,000 employees and space for hotels, shops, services and catering operations. The area south of the site is designated primarily for an attractive residential district around the 7-hectare Helmut-Zilk-Park.

The corner of Wiedner Gürtel and Arsenalstraße is destined to be the future home of the new headquarters of Erste Group Bank AG. Immediately south, a real estate developer is constructing an office/residential complex. The southern forecourt of the train station is designated for the ÖBB Group headquarters.

The structure of the involved entities is as displayed:

In the graphic displayed below, we have mapped the vision of the project, through four main factors that we identified were relevant in all of the projects we analysed.

It was important to detect the influence of the project in all of the four sections, to put emphasis not only on the hard factors, but also on the soft factors of the project, mainly the effect it will have on the community.

As with the previous case study about the Kings Cross development, in this example we also analysed the structure of the financing of the project, with several sources of income, and another example of a private public partnership.

The simplified scheme of the financing shows all of the detected sources of income, as well as the estimated value of the investment into the project. Expected investments for the Vienna main station (rail infrastructure and train station) are around €987 million. Total estimated value is expected to reach €4 billion.

Vienna’s new Central Railway Station, including the new BahnhofCity mall, was opened on 10 October 2014. Construction works to replace the old Südbahnhof with a new Central Railway Station and to build a new residential area are expected to be completed during 2015. The total area of new train infrastructure is 50ha, and approximately 100km of new rails have been laid out. By the end of 2019, it is expected that all of the residential buildings as well as the park will be completed. below is a picture showing the expected results.