A disused slipway. A brief to convert it into a working ship pier. A decision about wear management that will still be paying off in thirty years.
The slipway at this industrial harbour in Sweden had been sitting unused. The brief was to convert it into a dedicated ship pier capable of handling the daily demands of ro-ro and ferry operations -- vessels docking repeatedly throughout the day, every day, over a service life measured in decades.
The conventional answer to that brief is straightforward: sheet piling, backfill, asphalt surface, commission and hand over. Structurally sound. Functionally adequate. And expensive to maintain within a decade.
We asked a different question first: what does this pier need to withstand, and for how long?
A ro-ro ferry does not dock once a day. It docks multiple times -- the vessel ramp engaging the pier surface on every arrival, every departure, in all weather, across a schedule that does not stop for winter. The wear that creates is not incidental. It is the defining load the pier has to manage.
The surface was finished with asphalt and topped with a concrete touch plate. Built into that touch plate: railway bars running in the direction of vessel approach.
That detail is the decision. Railway bars -- the same material specified for railway track because it is engineered to absorb repeated impact loads over decades -- manage the wear at the exact point where the vessel ramp meets the pier. The surface around them wears at a normal rate. The contact zone does not.
The completed pier was delivered without a single day of disruption to the vessels already using the harbour.
The railway bars cost more at the point of installation than a standard concrete finish. They cost significantly less over the life of the asset -- because the alternative is a pier surface that requires intervention within years rather than decades, on a structure that cannot easily be taken out of service for repair without disrupting the operations it serves.
This is the same principle that governs every project we work on: the decision that looks like an added cost at the specification stage is often the decision that removes a much larger cost later. Long-term value is only visible to those who look past the surface.
The pier at Ystad was built to last. The railway bars are still doing their job.
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The decisions that determine long-term value are made at the specification stage. We are happy to start with a conversation.
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