"The Old Lady belongs to the Rotterdammers again"

At 4 p.m. on Thursday, October 15, 2020, the handover of the totally renovated Maastunnel took place. This marks the end of an intensive partnership between the City of Rotterdam and construction combination CAM (Combinatie Aanpak Maastunnel, consisting of Mobilis, Croonwolter&dros and Nico de Bont) during the realization period. A collaboration that dates back to late 2015, when preparations for the renovation began.

For Benjamin Mooijaart, project manager of CAM and Diederik van Zanten, project manager on behalf of the client, Municipality of Rotterdam, it's a moment to swallow. Mooijaart explains: "Everyone remembers well how the car tunnel was festively inaugurated on Monday morning, on Aug. 19, 2019. It was celebration and emotions ran high. The collective pride, the discharge after all that hard work and the mutual camaraderie between everyone working on this project is something you rarely experience. The completion should have been a celebratory sequel to that. However, because of corona, the signatures were signed in silence."

One construction site, one team, one common goal

The renovation project in itself can be called special, looking at all that has been conceived, developed and arranged to make the Maas Tunnel future-proof again in a monumentally responsible way. Even more special is the collaboration within which this was successfully done. Van Zanten outlines, "The teams from CAM and the municipality deserve kudos for the way they worked. The contract was drawn up according to the KIS model, namely Quality, Integrity and Cooperation. On paper that looks nice, but acting on it requires commitment. If there was anything, it was commitment."

Mooijaart adds: "I begrudge every project manager at least once in his or her career a project like this. The CAM staff were together with the municipality's team in one shack. That meant we had very short lines of communication and there was also great transparency back and forth. Everyone got everything from each other. That called for horizontal programming. Diederik and I could consult very directly and our teams could consult directly with each other. That created a bond that was phenomenal. The collaboration was great, people worked as one team, everyone facing the same direction. It was also great to see how the Municipality of Rotterdam was present not in the role of client, but in the role of cooperating partner. Diederik's people took -among other things- the lead in applying for and arranging permits. I can't tell you what that does for the speed of the process."

The human factor is decisive

"Establishing ourselves as a construction partner created an atmosphere of healthy consultation, open communication and a sense of common purpose," Van Zanten says. "That ensures that you can address problems immediately and everyone can put their own interests aside." For Mooijaart, it was abundantly clear that everyone was willing to give and take. "My job and Diederik's was to make sure both 'camps' could continue. Working together is sitting together. As technical as this project was, it was mostly human work, by people with emotions, with pride, with willpower and with respect for each other and the project. For that reason alone, even with some big jobs outside the original scope, we were still able to meet all deadlines on time. Hats off to all the people who made this possible."

The Old Lady belongs to the people of Rotterdam again, now that the pedestrian and bicycle tunnel are also ready. The realization process is complete and the contract ends at the end of 2022, after the maintenance period.