Autopista Central is a 61km urban toll highway through Santiago, Chile, that has prioritised safety, improved surrounding public areas and sought to minimise the environmental impacts of the project.

Project Introduction
Autopista Central (AC) is a 61km free-flow multilane toll highway that runs from north to south through Santiago, Chile. An average 150,000 vehicles use the route daily and are tracked by a state-of-the-art virtual tolling system to ensure the smooth flow of traffic. The project involved the construction of 106 bridges, 28km of concrete walls and 2636m of cut- and cover-tunnels, all of which are designed to withstand strong earthquakes that are typical of the region.

In 2000 the Chilean government awarded Skanska and other partners a 30-year concession to build, own and operate Santiago’s North-South transportation corridor. The AC concession company was formed and has invested US$811 million in the construction of the project. AC became fully operational in May 2006 and is part of an integrated system of 5 highway concessions that have been awarded to private sector consortia. The system, which has significantly upgraded Santiago’s highway network, is part of the Chilean government’s response to a need for approximately US$15 billion of new infrastructure.

AC uses onboard transponders that have been distributed free of charge to 900,000 vehicle owners and can be registered online, at AC customer centres and in numerous retail outlets around Santiago. The transponders are read by highway sensors and are compatible with all Santiago’s five toll highways. Toll evaders are identified through optical character recognition technology that is matched with the government’s vehicle registration database. 82% of customers have a contract and are invoiced every month based on the number of kilometres travelled on the highway, although day passes can also be purchased. The average journey is 12km and costs around US$0.50, which is comparable to Santiago public transport fares.

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Skanska AB