First elevated station on Barcelona L10 Metro line is now operational

On February 1st, 2020, the Zona Franca metro station on line L10 was open to rail traffic, to become the eight station of this line. Metro line 10 in Barcelona is one of the two branches of the 47.8 km long Line 9. It connects the “Zona Franca” – the intermodal logistics platform of the Port of Barcelona – to Line 9. The last 2.2 km of the line consist of an elevated guideway on a viaduct with three stations and access to the maintenance facilities. Zona Franca is the first of these stations and upon its opening it became the first elevated station of the Barcelona Metro network. With a cost of approximately € 40 Million, the new service will improve the public transport coverage to an important economic area of the city, with an expected 3600 daily users.

Pedelta carried out the detailed design and construction engineering for the elevated viaduct and stations, which runs along the median of busy street “A”. The deck is designed as a succession of 24 m long simply supported spans to minimize interferences with existing utilities and the heavy road traffic from the Port of Barcelona and nearby industrial areas. It consists of prestressed concrete U girders supported on top of T piers.

The viaduct was mainly built on deep foundations, consisting of drilled concrete piles, which extend to a depth of up to 20 m. Since the construction site was on a street with heavy traffic close to the Port of Barcelona and limited access points, the design concept and construction staging were carefully planned to minimize impact on road traffic and access to nearby businesses.