📋 Tender Overview
How difficult can it be to build the railway bridges that ensure that in the future we can travel by train from Copenhagen to Hamburg in 2.5 hours? It's actually a bit complicated. But it doesn't matter – quite the opposite. It is precisely the large, complex construction projects that Mette Koch Sonnenborg is passionate about.
In high school, Mette had a dream of saving the world as an environmental engineer. Despite great efforts, she ended up following in her mother's footsteps as a structural engineer and specialized in wave hydrodynamics and sediment transport.
As a construction engineer, Mette has her luggage full of large and successful construction projects. Her career started in a small harbour construction company, later she helped build Amager Strandpark and the Copenhagen-Ringsted railway at Niras - and she has several years of experience as Contract Manager on the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel project.
It can be big – and difficult
Since Mette joined Banedanmark in 2017, she has been in charge of the major bridge projects on the Ringsted-Fehmarnbelt line. She has been project manager for the construction of the Masnedsund Bridge, and now she is project manager for King Frederik IX's bridge over Guldborg Sound.
"It is clearly the large bridge projects that I see as my projects. I like that it is a relatively large task that is complicated and involves many professional groups. I'm at my best when there are a lot of people involved, because I can make teams work," says Mette.
These are not challenges they have lacked on the King Frederik IX project and they take Mette in stride. She explains: "I am good at structuring, delegating and keeping people's spirits up, and Banedanmark is a perfect place to be. You can say a lot, but we have complicated, challenging projects all the time."
Saved 70 million
One of the things Mette is particularly proud of on the King Frederik IX project is that she and her team managed to save Banedanmark a large amount of money on the tender contract.
The project was put out to tender with negotiation, which Mette has experience with from previous projects. By adjusting the geotechnical parameters in the contract to make them more realistic and less conservative, Mette and her team minimized the risks of losing money on the work that had to be done after the geotechnical surveys.
"I myself believe that it was a rather ingenious decision, which, among other things, allowed us to save the project around DKK 70 million from the first to the second tender. We also ended up getting a really good partner in MT Højgaard, who won the tender," she says.
Railway projects of the future
The bridge will be one of the first electrified railway bascule bridges in Denmark. King Frederik IX's bridge is scheduled to be completed with traction current and a new digital signalling system in 2029. Looking ahead, Mette finds it hard to imagine more exciting projects than the ones she has been a part of so far.
As it is now, she is very satisfied with the role, she concludes:
"I cannot imagine better projects than the Masnedsund Bridge and King Frederik IX's Bridge. It may well be that there will be others, but I am actually a little excited about what will happen when I finish with King Frederik. Fortunately, there is a long time to go and we have plenty to do."
