Planning and procurement of the Queensferry Crossing in Scotland

The Forth Road Bridge has carried road traffic across the Forth estuary in Scotland since 1964. It will be replaced at the end of 2016 by the Queensferry Crossing, Scotland’s biggest infrastructure project in a generation. Currently estimated to cost around £1·3 billion, the replacement crossing project consists of a 2·7 km long cable-stayed bridge, associated connecting roads and junction improvements, and a state-of-the-art 22 km long intelligent transport system to manage traffic through the project corridor. All of these elements are key to maintaining the strategically vital link. This paper concentrates on the various stages of the project’s development from initial scoping through to the award of the construction contracts. Construction will be covered in a future paper.