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In order to safely cross and create exposed construction roads that do not stress the under and surrounding road network, construction consortium The Green Arch used the services of Retrobridge. The Retro Bridge Group is one of Europe' s leading and leading modular bridge system suppliers. The Dutch branch in Den Bosch is set up and managed by Han Kastermans. He will take us through the various solutions that ensure a crossing in the three subareas of project A16 Rotterdam.
"We started at the ramp to the A20 and ended against the A13," Kastermans says. "In total, we are talking about 13 temporary bridges, distributed over the 3 sub-areas. Three types of bridges were used in the process. The Retro Heavy Bridge, the Retro Light Bridge and the Retro Beam Bridge. "The Retro Heavy Bridge is the type of bridge that started it all for Retro Bridge. Kastermans: "This bridge is freely usable up to 48 meters of span, but up to 27 meters it is 'oversized'. That is why the Retro Light Bridge was developed, which goes up to 31.5 meters span and can handle the same maximum load as its big brother. By using higher-strength steel, the Light version can be slimmer."
The Retro Beam Bridge is described by Kastermans as a "glorified outrigger shot. "The bridge is made by welding together a number of HE beams, inside and out. A precast guardrail is installed on one side. This bridge comes in 10.5-meter, 13.5-meter, 16-meter and 19-meter spans and is not linkable in length. However, a multitude of road widths of 1.8 meters can be worked with." Then there is the Retro Heavy Bridge with a maximum road width of 250 cm. "The three types of bridges are chosen according to site needs. Roughly speaking, we distinguish two types of users, on the one hand the contractors, on the other the public road users."
The 13 bridges are temporary solutions, built in 2019 and 2020, soon to disappear from the scene in 2022 and 2023. "The rental period is between 33 and 149 weeks," Kastermans calculates. "Retrobridge Nederland BV rents these elements itself from Retrobridge Holding. From Den Bosch, we assemble the ordered bridges and transport them to their locations. Part of the rent to be received, is forwarded by us to Retro Bridge Holding. In total, the Holding has 14,000 tons of bridge elements, with a utilization rate of 90%. That's why I think you come across us on virtually every major infrastructure project."
