The first Kapsch Green Gantry erected with HASSLACHER’s expertise in Teesdorf, near Vienna, Austria

Stationary toll systems on motorways have been made of aluminium or steel for decades. Now, Kapsch TrafficCom partnering with the HASSLACHER Group, have developed an innovative hybrid solution based on wood, replacing the steel and aluminium beams and supports with glulam. This innovative wood product stores around 850 kg CO2/m³. The test track in Teesdorf in Lower Austria is now home to the first Green Gantry, which sets the new standards for sustainable infrastructure.

The glulam used is hybrid. The larch used in the outer zones ensures high durability. The core consists of machine-sorted, high-strength spruce lamellas. This structure achieves both high strength and rigidity with simultaneous durability, and the beams and columns can be optimized in terms of their volume, thus saving overall resource demands.

In order to be able to realise this pilot project, a research project was initiated by the Forest Fund and carried out as part of the THINK.WOOD program of the Austrian Wood Initiative. The Institute for Timber Construction and Wood Technology at Graz University of Technology, the transport infrastructure provider Forster and the civil engineering firm freiraum ZT gmbh were all involved in the research project. The Green Gantry has been equipped with various monitoring sensors since its installation in order to be able to provide further feedback to further improve the use of sustainable materials used in new circumstances.