The Macau Bridge is the city’s fourth vehicle crossing, linking the Macau Peninsula and Taipa. The bridge consists of approximately 3km long marine viaduct, crossing two navigation channels and located on the east side of Ponte de Amizade. It features eight traffic lanes, with two exclusively for motorcycles – a first in Macau. The bridge is also equipped with wind shields to ensure safe driving during typhoons. 

Arup provided project management, cost management, and site supervision consultancy services to ensure the successful delivery of this strategic infrastructure project. 

The bridge significantly relieves the increasing traffic flow between Macau and Taipa and helps meet the demand created by the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the future development of new reclamation areas. 

Ensuring construction safety 

The bridge features a typical 48m-wide steel deck section at the approach ramp and a truss structure for navigation spans. Most of the steel deck segments were installed by a bespoke lifting barge with a 2,200-tonne capacity.   

One of the biggest challenges was launching the 60m wide deck segment in place at the shallow water area. A temporary platform with a guide rail system was designed, leading to the deeper water area where the lifting barge could be manoeuvred. This allowed the deck segments to be pulled into the designated position along the rail, and welding could be carried out between segments. 

During the process, we placed great importance to detailed planning of the operation and site safety measures to ensure segment stability during construction.