Dutch High-Speed Railway

The largest PPP project signed to date in the Netherlands, the Dutch high-speed railway provides a high-speed connection from Schiphol Airport to the Belgian border. The HSL Zuid project, as it is known locally, was developed for the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Waste Management and the Ministry of Finance under a 25 year concession. The project involves capital expenditure of over GBP625m and includes track, noise attenuation, signalling power distributions and communications systems.

Construction was completed in 2007, certificates of availability have been issued and the tracks are available for use under the PPP contract. Under a separate contract, the commission of low-speed trains is underway (the delivery of high-speed trains will take place in 2008). Journey times will be significantly reduced, for example Schiphol to Amsterdam will take 20 minutes instead of the 41 minutes taken previously.