The Project
About the Tunnel
The Santos-Guarujá Tunnel will be Brazil’s first immersed crossing — a dry link between the two cities that will reduce travel time from about 50 minutes to less than 5 minutes.
Immersed crossing
Project dimensions
Approximately 1.5 km in length, with 870 meters submerged under the Port of Santos channel, the tunnel will have three traffic lanes in each direction, one of them adapted for the future implementation of a Light Rail Transit (LRT) system, in addition to areas dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists.
Technology
How an immersed tunnel works
Unlike a bored tunnel, an immersed tunnel is built from precast concrete modules in a dry dock. Once ready, these modules are floated to their final location and sunk, one by one, into a trench prepared in the channel bed, where they are joined together to form the complete structure.
A bridge crossing of the channel was ruled out because it would need to be very high to allow ships to pass, in addition to constraints from the proximity of Guarujá Airport. A traditional bored tunnel was also discarded, as that option would require going much deeper to find firm ground, significantly increasing the cost of the works.
Immersed tunnels are a globally established, safe engineering solution already in use on some of today’s most challenging infrastructure projects in several countries. Although new to Brazil, the track record of this technology and its proven effectiveness make it a viable and reliable alternative for future underwater crossings in the country.