The 43rd ITA-AITES World Tunnelling Congress was held in Bergen Norway from 9-15 June. The Congress provides a platform for a high quality technical conference with diverse topics and projects from across the globe (from the Faroe Islands to Nigeria) and for detailed discussions on composite shotcrete structures to the challenges of gaining community acceptance of major tunnelling infrastructure.

The second key function of the WTC is as a focal point for the other ITA activities which often happen in parallel to the technical presentations. These activities include the important work of the various technical Working Groups, ITA Executive Committee and other specialist groups such as the ITAym.

The NFF (Norwegian Tunnelling Association) and ITA provided a new high water mark across all areas for the 2017 event with an exception technical programme, a polished delivery team and major developments in the Working Group Activities.

The ATS was well represented across a number of the ITA working groups, as well as delivering technical sessions across the conference.

The ATS had four key targets for this year’s event as part of the broader non-technical program;

  • Appointment of Arnold Dix to the ITA Executive Committee;
  • Ratification of a newly formed Working Group 22 for Information Modelling in Tunnelling led by Jurij Karlovsek;
  • Appointment of Keith Bannerman to the ITAym Steering Committee, and;
  • Deliver a successful outcome for the WTC2020 Melbourne bid team.

We are happy to report success with Mr Dix, WG22 and Mr Bannerman’s respective bids, but the WTC2020 bid was awarded to Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) in a very tightly contested bid process. The bid team led by Simon Knight and David Grist presented a strong bid which was well received by all in attendance.

Congratulations to the Malaysian delegation, and we look forward to a highly successful WTC to be held in the key South-East Asian region in 2020. For more information on the event you can read the ITA press release here.

See you next year for WTC2018 in Dubai.