Follobanen Report Reveals Organizational Failure and Time Pressure in Bane Nor, Norway

This was behind failures in several areas when the Follobanen had to close after only a few days in operation in December last year. This is shown in the internal investigation report from Bane Nor, which was presented on Monday.

– We have several points of improvement. This particularly applies to internal collaboration and quality assurance of our projects. The report points to both direct technical errors and organizational issues. We are now in the process of putting measures in place to respond to the recommendations. We have started some and others are in the planning phase, says Henning Bråtebæk, acting CEO of Bane Nor.

The direct reason why Follobanen was closed was that the joints and end terminations were not done well enough. Alkaline water dripped onto an insulator, which ended up creating heat conduction in cable joints.

The investigation also finds other findings that are not directly linked to the closure of the track.

* Time pressure.

* Lack of division of responsibilities.

* Lack of training.

* Disagreement, lack of understanding and interaction internally between those who were responsible for the project and those who were to operate the track.