Light Rail to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Ramboll Designs the Western Section from Airport to Tikkurila

At the end of 2020, Ramboll was awarded the engineering contract for the Vantaa Light Rail project.

In partnership with Sweco, Ramboll will design the 9-kilometre rail line which connects Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, Aviapolis, Jumbo Shopping Centre, Flamingo Entertainment Centre and Tikkurila with a total of 12 stops. Currently, Ramboll and Sweco are preparing the street and park designs necessary for enabling the construction as well as the preliminary building design for the planning phase starting now. The design principles all incorporate accessibility, greenery and good routes for pedestrians and cyclists.

The Vantaa Light Rail is a significant investment. It will improve sustainable mobility, enable the city's growth through public transportation while promoting regional, new land use and long-term investments. The light rail route will serve as the city's most important growth channel and is estimated to bring about 37,000 new residents and 30,000 jobs. Estimations also show that the Vantaa Light Rail will have over 80,000 passengers per day in 2030.

"Besides a solution that works in terms of transportation technology and takes several modes of transportation into account, the design aims to find solutions which use resources wisely. For example, the aim is to use reusable land masses as extensively as possible. Urban biodiversity will be sustained, for instance, by reusing topsoil, the natural treatment of rainwater, and vegetation that promotes diversity," Mikko Leppänen, Managing Director at Ramboll, says.

"The Vantaa Light Rail will supplement the Helsinki region's public transportation towards the airport and support sustainable mobility for the entire central Vantaa area simultaneously. The light rail will connect the worker commuting area of the airport, Aviapolis, and Jumbo Shopping Centre to the rest of Vantaa's urban structure seamlessly. Consequently, this advances Vantaa's goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030," Juho Siipo, Managing Director of Infrastructure at Sweco, says.

Ramboll and Sweco have vast experience cooperating on tramway projects already underway, such as the Tampere Tramway, Jokeri Light Rail and the Crown Bridges Light Rail.