Overnight between Thursday and Friday this week, new mobile overhead cables will be used to carry out a substantial amount of maintenance work on the eastern side of the Storebælt Bridge during the night.

Earlier this year, cables were mounted on the Storebælt Bridge as part of a comprehensive safety package, based on the latest technology in the field. The purpose is to disperse queues more quickly in the event of an accident and improve safety on the Storebælt Bridge, both for road users and for employees carrying out ongoing maintenance on the bridge.

Night-time work is safer and reduces closures during the day
On Friday nights, traffic will run in two directions on the southern lanes of the high bridge, so there will be a traffic-free area on the northern section of the bridge.

A/S Storebælt will use this time to carry out a number of repairs and maintenance work, which would otherwise have meant several closures if the work was to be carried out separately and during the day. At the same time, it also improves safety for the employees working on the bridge.

Some of the night-time work will be to prepare the erection of electronic traffic signs as part of the overall upgrade of signage and traffic management on the bridge. A total of 222 variable boards will be set up during the autumn, and new cameras will also be installed to monitor traffic and support safe traffic flow.

There will also be scope to test the use of drones for inspection at night.

- We’re also taking advantage of there being no traffic to test whether drones can carry out inspections of the east bridge’s large hangers. The drone is equipped with extra light so that the inspection can be carried out in the dark. We therefore have to find out if the quality of the images is good enough. This could save us from carrying out inspections during the day, which would otherwise require a closure of the area for reasons of traffic safety and disrupt traffic a lot more, says Kim Agersø Nielsen, Head of Department at Sund & Bælt.

Traffic restrictions
From 23.00 on Thursday 10 June and 05.00 on Friday 11 June, traffic will run in both directions with a speed limit of 80 km/h, and overtaking will not be allowed.
There may be a short wait during the conversion to bi-directional traffic immediately after 23.00 and again shortly before 05.00, as the bridge will be closed to cars for approximately 20 minutes while traffic is redirected.

For the duration of bi-directional traffic, exceptional load transport vehicles wider than 3.3 metres will not be able to cross the Storebælt Bridge. Read more on The Danish Road Directorates website under “printout for exceptional load transport vehicles”.