The Danish and Swedish governments, together with their private sector partners, faced an array of challenging issues in constructing and then operating the Øresund Bridge. Some of these issues were successfully surmounted, while others continue to impede the financial stability of the project. The key issues and strategies to address them are described below:
• Design-Build: The use of a Design-Build procurement approach was one of the most successful decisions of the Øresund Bridge project. The Øresund Bridge presented a range of difficult technical challenges, and the entire project was constrained by demanding environmental requirements both during construction and after completion. The national governments were able to define their performance standards (for both the road/rail traffic and the environmental requirements), and the private sector responded with innovative design, fabrication, and mitigation approaches. For projects where sponsors face difficult design requirements but can define their ultimate needs as measurable standards, Design-Build can be a very attractive approach.
• Risk Analysis of Costs and Revenues: The national governments were assured in 1991 that the Øresund Bridge would be self-financing, but the Danish Auditor-General later determined that the Transport Ministry had done four appraisals of project viability, and each concluded that only minor variability from the projected costs and revenues was required to make the project non-viable (i.e., unable to pay back its costs in the 30-year time frame). As it turned out, such variability was likely and the project is not expected to meet its 2030 payback goal unless traffic growth in the next 20 years is very strong. In the meantime, taxpayers in the two countries must make up the difference. It is critical in such projects that reasonable ranges of outcomes be explored and understood from the outset, so that decision-makers can determine whether to proceed as planned or whether to make design or performance changes in response to the possible range of outcomes.
• Timeframe for Self-Sufficiency: For a new project of the magnitude of the Øresund Bridge, the 30-year target for project self-sufficiency may have been too low and raised unrealistic expectations among sponsors, the financial community, and the public. Facilities such as this typically have service lives of 100 or more years, yet are expected to fully pay for themselves in only 30 years. This is driven more by the nature of traditional debt financing instruments used in Europe than the nature of the infrastructure asset.
• Entry into an Established Competitive Market: The Øresund Bridge was a new entrant to an established transportation market consisting of multiple ferry service operations. Potential customers for the bridge were accustomed to these ferry services which had a distinct cost advantage, especially for truck traffic. These factors have undermined the traffic and revenue projections for the bridge in its early, ramp-up years of operation. Over time, competing ferry services may reduce operations or go out of business entirely as more auto and rail patrons choose to use the Øresund Bridge due to its greater reliability. However, it is expected that some form of ferry service will continue as an alternative to the bridge to preserve a back-up in case of bridge or tunnel failure, adverse wind conditions that force the closure of the high bridge (which may also curtail ferry operations), or other emergencies or incidents.
• Environmental Impacts: Environmental groups in the Nordic countries have significant influence on public policy, and the Øresund Bridge project was no exception. In this case, the influence went beyond issues like monitoring of impacts to actually dictating the alignment of the link and some of the basic performance specifications of the facility (relating to water flow). Despite these constraints, the project was successfully completed and is now seen as a model of environmental sensitivity and protection. In projects of this size and complexity, environmental impact concerns will naturally be addressed in the planning process, but if the concerns can be translated into specific performance standards, then the design process can incorporate the standards from the outset.