Israel Canadian Hwys/Hughes to build automated tollway

ISRAEL

Canadian Hwys/Hughes to build automated tollway

The North American-heavy team of Derech Eretz Highways Ltd (including Canadian Highways Int Corp and Hughes TMS) has been selected as the preferred concessionaire for the Cross Israel Highway, an 86km $750m fully automated toll road that will be the central spine of a developing Israeli motorway system. The road designated H6 will be Israel’s first toll road.

Israelis say the road will transform mobility in the country, making it possible for jobs and housing to be far better integrated, offering the opportunity to live in now remote areas and commute to better jobs presently excluded by distance. Shopping, entertainment, and business opportunities will be enlarged. and tourism made more pleasant. In peace the highway will be the basis for trade and tourism with neighboring countries, while in war it will enable faster mobilization to meet security threats.

In the first stretch the Cross Israel Highway is to run from H3 at Yad Binyamin (due west of Jersalem and south of Tel Aviv ) to near Lod to the immediate west of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport where for a few kms it runs alongside H1, the Tel-Aviv-to-Jerusalem mwy, then beyond the outskirts of the Tel Aviv metro area continuing north just on the Israeli side of the old ‘Green Line” and parallel with the coast, c20km inland, it follows the edge of the coastal plain. The first stage’s northern terminus will be at H65 — about 2/3rds of the way from Lod to Haifa, Israel’s major northern city.

Cross Israel Highway Ltd, (CIHL) the Israeli government agency in charge of getting the road built is acquiring the right of way for the concessionaire of the first stretch and has started work on defining the alignment for further extensions that will eventually run to the Lebanon and Syrian borders in the north to south of Be’er Sheva in the Negev desert in the south. CIHL is also responsible for giving the concessionaire all needed permits including archeological and environmental clearances and arranges the relocation of utilities. The work is 90% complete, an official told us.

The first 86km stretch will have 13 interchanges (2 of which are already under construction by CIHL), 88 bridges and a pair of 250m tunnels through a hilly section. The road will require some 12m cub meters of earthmoving and the pavement will be asphalt.

In what Israeli officials said was an exhaustive development and evaluation of proposals over the past two years the North American team was eventually able to look better to them than the other finalist which included Transroute of France on the design and construction side and Swedish Combitech on tolling. The project is design, build and operate.

Reuven Levon of CIHL the Israeli government agency charged with selecting the concessionaire told us in a telephone interview there should only be a few weeks work before a formal document can be signed. Financial closing is the responsibility of Newcourt Capital of Toronto, then the final concession documents are signed, and the clock begins ticking on the 30 year concession.

The first stretch is divided into 5 sections for tolling purposes and for construction. The first section consisting of 16km about midway and located northeast of Tel Aviv is due for completion and opening Sept 00. Crews will then split, moving north and south with completion of the whole 86km due by Dec 02. Project cost is put at $750m. Toll revenue for 2003 is projected at $45m.

Levon told us the final contest was “quite close” and that 10% of the decision revolved around quality issues and 90% the toll level and financial strength. The Derech Eretz winner has Africa-Israel, a large local land development company and Societe Generale d’Enterprises of Paris as the other partners. The loser in the final selection was Israel Transport Ventures consisting of Transroute, Yona Group, Atkinson (UK), Parsons Brinck with Combitech as the toll system provider.

The selection started with 6 pre-qualified groups and when it was narrowed to the two finalists they were each required to submit a CIHL design-compliant bid for comparative price purposes together with a second bid-with-suggested-options in order to make it a competition in innovation as well as price.

The Canadian Hwys/Hughes team had an advantage in that on Highway 407 in Toronto they have a successful model of their proposed toll system for Israel in actual operation. The first European designed fully automated tollway is about 2 years from operation on Melbourne’s City Link. Another factor apparently was the greater flexibility for future expansion of the North American style of developing highways proposed by Derech Eretz — see “Inside-out or Outside-in.”

The highway will be Israel’s first to be built in a wide right-of-way (100m) with space to widen into the central median space. It is being built with generous 3.75m travel lanes vs the more usual 3.5m or 3.6m. To make the project financially viable the developers will now build just 2x2-lanes, except along 4km of shared alignment with the H1, where just an extra lane each side will be built. Interchanges will be mostly 2-level but they have been designed to be upgraded in stages to more elaborate structures as traffic warrants. A leading US interchange design consultant Joel Leisch of Boise ID has suggested a strategic plan for phasing of ICs to accomodate new cross-roads and growing traffic.

A CHIC official told us the Israelis prescribe environmental controls and landscaping far in excess of what is usually required in North America, and that the project will provide major work for landscapers. He said another advantage of the outside-in phasing of highway expansion is that buffer planting will not need to be disturbed.

Shekeling: There will be no toll plazas, all tolls being paid offsite. The Hughes “cashless toll road” technology of Toronto’s-407 will be used. This involves active radio transponders in the 900MHz frequency band together with imaging of the license plates of vehicles without transponders and matching of those with a motor registry database to allow vehicles to be “tolled” at highway speed, and billed by debiting a prepaid account in the case of tnasponder accounts or mail for others. (see TR#15 May 97 407 special issue)

The major difference from 407 is that the Hughes system will be set up to do point tolling rather than trip tolling (where entries and exits are taken on ramps and matched.) Toll readers in Israel will be erected on gantries over the mainline (vs 407’s ramp gantry location) and vehicles will be registered at each tolling point along the way. The toll registrations , whether a transponder identifier or a license plate read , will be sent to the central toll management system. The toll will be set to charge for a minimum of 3 sections and a maximum of 5 sections. The average ride will be $2 for a car, Levon told us, though the concession contract is flexible about how the average toll is distributed. There may be special arrangements for subscription discounts and lower toll rates off-peak. The section near Lod where H6 coincides with H1 will not be tolled.

A Hughes guy told us that Israel’s tolling should be easier than Toronto because license plates being all-numeric and single issue are easier to read than the many different provincial and US state license plates that appear in Ontario. Also they don’t have bouts of Artic weather. Of course if peace were to break out and drivers from all over the Arab world were to be driving the H6 that would change. That however appears about as likely as snow in Tel Aviv. (Contact CIHL 972 3 696 9889 Derech Eretz 972 3691 2890)