At the end of April 2017 the construction of the section 1 of the Tehran-Shomal Freeway (or Tehran-North Freeway) project, connecting Tehran to the city of Chalus at the Caspian Sea in the northern Mazandaran province, has progressed significantly and is now 83% complete.
The EUR1.96 bn (USD2.2 bn) four-lane freeway project includes four sections spanning 121 km.
The 32 km section 1 from west of Tehran to Shahrestanak Village, with 28 tunnels having a combined length of 28.4 km, includes the 4870 m Talun tunnel, recently completed. This section will reduce the current distance from Tehran to the northern cities by 60 km.
The 25 km section 2 is from Doab, Shahrestanak, Alborz to Pol-e Zanguleh, Kelardasht District, in the Mazandaran Province. The section has 20 tunnels with a combined length of 24.2 km and includes the twin - tubed Alborz tunnel (6378 m. This tunnel is located at the highest point of the freeway at about 2400m above sea level, between the km 47.8 and km 54.1 points. The tunnel has a service tunnel, located between the two main tunnel tubes, driven by the Taloon Company (Teheran) with a TBM and includes 314 m of drill and blast tunnel previously excavated from the south portal and 46 m for the TBM starting from the N-portal tube.
The 46 km long section 3 is from Pol-e Zanguleh, Kelardasht District, Mazandaran Province to Marzan Abad, Kelardasht District, Mazandaran Province. The section will have 92 tunnels totaling 33 km in length. The length of longest tunnel wil be 1,330 m. The project is the joint venture between the Ministry of roads and transportation, the executive for construction and development of freeways and the Tehran-Shomal freeway Company (part of the Mostazafan Foundation). Shahran Sazeh is a management consultancy and is part of the joint venture of POYRY- STUCKY Pars Consulting Engineers.
The 20km section 4 of the highway, connecting Marzanabad in Kelardasht District to Chalous (both in Mazandaran), includes 5 tunnels with a total length of 1410, there are 2 twin tunnels with a subsidiary tunnel the tunnel was inaugurated in March 2014.
The joint venture in this case was between the Ministry of roads and transportation, executive for construction and development of freeways/ Tehran-Shomal freeway Company (part of the Mostazafan Foundation); Shahran Sazeh as the management consultants which also includes Pars consulting engineers, Shanghai Corporation for Foreign Economic & Technological Cooperation (SFECO China) and the contractors were Melli Sakhteman company, Day company and Omran Maskan Shomal Company.
The construction of the four-lane freeway project started 20 years ago. Initially, a group of Iranian engineers living in the United States proposed the project to the government of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997). The government later rejected the proposal, assigning the project to Mostazafan Foundation—the second-largest conglomerate in Iran. Click ir/15 for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit http://www.moch.gov.iq and http://en.shahransazeh.com/ and http://www.taloon.ir/index.php/en/. 20/17.
