Øresund Bridge Öresund Bridge
Official name	Øresundsbroen, Öresundsbron
Carries	Four lanes of European route E20 Double track Oresund Railway Line
Crosses	Oresund strait (The Sound)
Locale	Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden
Designer	Georg Rotne
Engineering design	Ove Arup & Partners Setec ISC Gimsing & Madsen
Design	Cable-stayed bridge
Total length	7,845 metres (25,738 ft)
Width	23.5 metres (77.1 ft)
Longest span	490 metres (1,608 ft)
Clearance below	57 metres (187 ft)
Constructed by	Spain Dragados Offshore
Opened	1 July 2000
Toll	310 DKK[1] /375 SEK[2] /43 EUR[3]
Daily traffic	ca. 17,000 road vehicles
Coordinates	55°34′31″N 12°49′37″E / 55.57528°N 12.82694°E / 55.57528; 12.82694

The Øresund or Öresund Bridge (Danish: Øresundsbroen, Swedish: Öresundsbron, joint hybrid name: Øresundsbron) is a combined twin-track railway and dual carriageway bridge-tunnel across the Øresund strait between Sweden and Denmark.

The bridge runs nearly 8 km (5 miles) from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm, which lies in the middle of the strait. The remainder of the link is by tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager. The Øresund Bridge is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe, and connects two major metropolitan areas: those of the Danish capital city of Copenhagen and the major Swedish city of Malmö. Furthermore, the Øresund Bridge connects the road and rail networks of Scandinavia with those of Central and Western Europe.

The international European route E20 crosses this bridge-tunnel via the road, and the Oresund Line uses the railway. The construction of the Great Belt Fixed Link – which connects Zealand to Funen and thence to the Jutland Peninsula – and the Oresund Bridge have connected Central and Western Europe to Scandinavia by road and rail. The Oresund Bridge was designed by the Danish architectural practice Dissing+Weitling.

The justification for the additional expenditure and complexity related to digging a tunnel for part of the way – rather than simply raising that section of the bridge – was to avoid interfering with air traffic from the nearby Copenhagen International Airport, and also to provide a clear channel for ships in good weather or bad, and to prevent ice floes from blocking the strait. The Oresund Bridge crosses the border between Denmark and Sweden, but in accordance with the Schengen Agreement and the Nordic Passport Union, there are usually no passport inspections. There are random customs checks at the entrance toll booths for entering Sweden, but not for entering Denmark.

The Øresund Bridge received the 2002 IABSE Outstanding Structure Award.

Name[link]

In Denmark and Sweden, the bridge is most often referred to as Øresundsbroen and Öresundsbron, respectively. The bridge company itself insists on Oresundsbron, a compromise between the two languages. This symbolises a common cultural identity for the region, with some regular commuters considering themselves "Öresund citizens" once the Oresund Bridge was completed. Since the crossing is actually composed of a bridge, one artificial island and a tunnel, it is sometimes called the "Öresund Link" or the "Öresund Connection" (Danish: Øresundsforbindelsen, Swedish: Öresundsförbindelsen).

It is occasionally referred to as the "Sound Bridge", using the historic English name for the strait.

History[link]

The construction of the Øresund Bridge began in 1995, and was finished 14 August 1999. Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden met midway across the bridge-tunnel to celebrate its completion on 14 August 1999.^[4] Its official dedication took place on 1 July 2000, with Queen Margrethe II, and King Carl XVI Gustaf as the host and hostess of the ceremony.^[5] The bridge-tunnel was opened for public traffic later that day. On 12 June 2000, two weeks before the dedication, 79,871 runners competed in Broloppet, a half marathon from Amager, Denmark, to Skåne, Sweden.^[6]

In spite of two schedule setbacks – the discovery of 16 unexploded World War II bombs lying on the seafloor and an inadvertently skewed tunnel segment – the bridge-tunnel was finished three months ahead of schedule.

Initially, the crossing was not used as much as expected, probably because of the high tolls. Since 2005, there has been a rapid increase in traffic. This may have been caused by Danes buying homes in Sweden – to take advantage of lower housing prices in Malmö – and commuting to work in Denmark. In 2012, to cross by car cost DKK 310, SEK 375, or € 43, although discounts up to 75% are available for regular users. In 2007, almost 25 million people travelled over the Øresund Bridge: 15.2 million by car and bus, and 9.6 million by train. By 2009, the figure had risen to a total of 35.6 million travellers by car, coach or train.^[7]

Link features[link]

The bridge[link]

Aerial Photo of Øresund Bridge. In the foreground is Copenhagen Airport on the island Amager, to the left of the bridge is the Danish island Saltholm, and in the background the bridge connects to Malmö.

At 7,845 m (25,738 ft), the bridge covers half the distance between Sweden and the Danish island of Amager, the border between the two countries being located 5.3 km (3.3 mi) from the Swedish end. The structure has a mass of 82,000 tonnes and supports two railway tracks beneath four road lanes in a horizontal girder extending along the entire length of the bridge. On both approaches to the three cable-stayed bridge sections, the girder is supported every 140 m (459 ft) by concrete piers. The two pairs of free-standing cable supporting towers are 204 m (669 ft) high allowing shipping 57 m (187 ft) of head room under the main span. Even so, most ships' captains prefer to pass through the unobstructed Drogden Strait above the Drogden Tunnel. Its 491 m (1,611 ft) cable-stayed main span is the longest of this type in the world. A girder and cable-stayed design was chosen to provide the rigidity necessary to carry heavy rail traffic, and also to resist large accumulations of ice.

Peberholm[link]

The bridge joins the Drogden tunnel on the artificial island christened Peberholm (Pepper Islet). The Danes chose the name to complement the natural island of Saltholm (salt islet) just to the north. They also made Peberholm a designated nature reserve. Built from Swedish rock and the soil dredged up during the bridge and tunnel construction, Peberholm is approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) long, with an average width of 500 m (1,640 ft). It is also 65 ft (20 m) tall.

Drogden Tunnel[link]

Cross-section of the Drogden Tunnel

The connection between the artificial island of Peberholm and the artificial peninsula at Kastrup on Amager island – the nearest populated part of Denmark – is through the Drogden Tunnel (Drogdentunnelen). The 4,050 m (13,287 ft) long tunnel comprises a 3,510 m (11,516 ft) undersea tube tunnel plus 270 m (886 ft) entry tunnels at each end. The tube tunnel is made from 20 prefabricated reinforced concrete segments – the most massive in the world at 55,000 tonnes each – interconnected in a trench dug in the seabed. Two tubes in the tunnel carry railway tracks; two more carry roads while a small fifth tube is provided for emergencies. The tubes are arranged side by side.

Rail transport[link]

Satellite image of the Øresund Bridge

View from Malmö

The public transport rail system is operated jointly by the Swedish SJ and the Danish via DSBFirst on a commission by Skånetrafiken and other county traffic companies (that also sell tickets) and the Danish transport agency. A series of new dual-voltage trains were developed which link the Copenhagen area with Malmö and southern Sweden as far as Gothenburg and Kalmar on selected schedules. SJ operate the X2000 and InterCity trains over the bridge with connections to Gothenburg and Stockholm. DSB operate trains to Ystad that connect directly to a ferry to Bornholm. Copenhagen Airport at Kastrup is served by its own train station close to the western bridgehead. Trains operate every 20 minutes over the crossing and once an hour during the night in both directions. An additional couple of Øresundstrains are operated at rush hour, and 1–2 per hour and direction SJ trains and DSB trains every other hour. Goods trains also use the crossing.

The rail section is double track standard gauge (1435 mm; 4 ft 8¹⁄₂ in) and capable of high speeds up to 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph), but slower in Denmark, especially in the tunnel section. There were challenges related to the difference in electrification and signalling between the Danish and Swedish railway networks. The solution chosen is to switch the electrical system, from Swedish 15 kV, 16.7 Hz to Danish 25 kV, 50 Hz AC right before the eastern bridgehead at Lernacken in Sweden. The line is signalled according to the standard Swedish system across the length of the bridge. On Peberholm, the line switches to Danish signalling which continues into the tunnel.

Sweden runs railways with left-hand traffic and Denmark with right-hand traffic. Initially, the switch is made at the Malmö Central Station, which was a terminus at that time. To enable through-running trains after the 2010 inauguration of the Malmö City Tunnel connection, a flyover has been built north of Malmö (in Burlöv) that passes the two tracks heading north under the two south-bound. The railway network in Malmö thus uses the Danish standard.

Costs[link]

On the bridge

In the tunnel

The cost for the entire Oresund Connection construction, including motorway and railway connections on land, was calculated at DKK 30.1 billion^[8] (~US$5.7bn) according to the 2000 year price index, with the cost of the bridge paid back by 2035. In 2006 Sweden began spending a further SEK 9.45 billion on the Malmö City Tunnel as a new rail connection to the bridge. It was completed in December 2010.

The connection will be entirely user financed. The owner company is owned half by the Danish government and half by the Swedish government. This owner company has taken loans guaranteed by the governments to finance the connection, and the user fees are the only incomes for the company. After the increase in traffic, these fees are enough to pay the interest and begin paying back the loans, which is expected to take about 30 years.

The tax payers have not paid for the bridge and the tunnel. However, tax money has been used for the land connections. Especially on the Danish side, the land connection has domestic benefit, mainly connecting the airport to the railway network. The Malmö City Tunnel has the benefit of connecting the southern part of the inner city to the rail network and allowing many more trains to and from Malmö.

Toll charge[link]

In May 2012, the toll for driving the fixed link was as follows (one way trip without discount, including VAT at 25%) in Danish kroner (DKK), Swedish kronor (SEK) and euro (EUR):

Cultural references[link]

• Oresund Bridge is the setting for the Danish/Swedish TV crime drama The Bridge.
• The bridge often appears in splash screens and marketing collateral for the open source software company Talend.

See also[link]

• Øresund Region
• Great Belt Fixed Link
• List of bridge-tunnels

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oresund bridge

• Official website
• Øresund Bridge at Structurae
• Øresund Tunnel at Structurae
• Live traffic flow on the bridge (java).
• Øresund bridge project information from Road Traffic Technology
• Video celebrating 10 years of the Bridge
• Impossible Bridges: The Oresund Bridge (National Geographic television channel documentary, 2006)

Coordinates: 55°34′N 12°51′E / 55.57°N 12.85°E / 55.57; 12.85

Straits of Denmark and the southwestern Baltic Sea, big sea-bridges in orange, sea tunnels in dark blue, dams in green. Øresund is at the top right.

The Sound (Danish Øresund, Danish pronunciation: [ˈøːɐsɔnˀ], or Swedish Öresund, pronounced [œrəˈsɵnd]), locally known as Sundet, is the strait that separates the Danish island Zealand from the southern Swedish province of Scania. Its width is just 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) at the narrowest point between Kronborg Castle at Elsinore (Helsingør in Danish) in Denmark, and the northern harbour of Helsingborg in Scania, Sweden. The strait has also lent its name to the Øresund Region of 3.8 million inhabitants on both the Danish and Swedish sides.

Øresund is one of the three Danish Straits that connects the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean via Kattegat, Skagerrak and the North Sea, and is one of the busiest waterways in the world.^[1]

The Øresund Bridge (which includes a 3 km tunnel) between Danish capital Copenhagen and the largest city of Scania, Malmö was inaugurated on 1 July 2000 by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Ferries run around the clock between Helsingborg, Sweden and Helsingør, Denmark.

Etymology[link]

The oldest known name of the strait is urasu[n]ti which appears on a runestone from about 950 and it was locally known as Oresund in the 13th century.^[2] The strait is today called Øresund in Danish and Öresund in Swedish, informally Sundet in both languages. The prefix ør(e) means gravel beach and a sund is a sound or narrow seaway.

Streams, animals and salinity[link]

Øresund, being at the border between oceanic salt water (with a salinity of more than 30 PSU) and the Baltic sea (only 3–7 PSU) has rather unique water conditions. The streams are very complex, but the surface stream is often northbound (from the Baltic sea) which gives a lower surface salinity, though streams can change from one day to another. The average surface salinity is about 10-12 PSU in the southern part but above 20 PSU north of Helsingør. At the bottom of the sea, conditions are more stable and salinity is always oceanic (> 30 PSU) below a certain depth that varies between 10 and 15 meters. In the southern part, however, the depth is just 7–10 meters, and this is the definite border of oceanic salt water, therefore also a border for many maritine species of animals. In the central Baltic Sea only 52 known salt-water species resided compare with around 1500 in the North Sea. Close to 600 species are known to exist in at least some part of Øresund. Well-known examples include lobster and the burning jellyfish (of Cyanea Article); the latter can sometimes drift into the southwest Baltic sea, but it cannot reproduce there.

History[link]

Political control of Øresund has been an important issue in Danish and Swedish history. Denmark maintained military control with the coastal fortress of Kronborg at Elsinore on the west side and Kärnan at Helsingborg on the east, until the eastern shore was ceded to Sweden in 1658. Both fortresses are located where the strait is just 4 kilometers wide.

In 1429 King Eric of Pomerania introduced the Sound Dues which remained in effect for more than four centuries, until 1857. Transitory dues on the use of waterways, roads, bridges and crossings were then an accepted way of taxing which could constitute a great part of a state's income. The Sound Dues remained the most important source of income for the Danish Crown for several centuries, thus making Danish kings relatively independent of Denmark's Privy Council and aristocracy.

Northern Øresund

Øresund Strait from Malmö

Notable islands[link]

• Amager
• Saltholm
• Ven (also spelled Hven)
• Peberholm - an artificial island
• Middelgrundsfortet - an artificial island
• Flakfortet - an artificial island
• Gråen - a semi artificial island outside port of Landskrona

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oresund

• Øresund Region
• Øresund Bridge
• Danish straits
• Great Belt
• Øresund station on the Copenhagen Metro

References[link]

• Menefee, Samuel Pyeatt, "The Sound Dues and Access to the Baltic Sea" in Renate Platzoder and Philomene Verlaan (eds.), The Baltic Sea: New Developments in National Policies and International Co-Operation (1996), pp. 101–32.

External links[link]

• Øresunddirekt - Official public information site for the inhabitants of the Øresund region
• Øresund Trends - An official public information site with up-to-date information on the region, available in English
• Øresundstid - The History of the Øresund Region (English, Swedish, Danish)

Coordinates: 55°45′N 12°45′E / 55.75°N 12.75°E / 55.75; 12.75