Project Is Featured in Bentley Systems’ New Publication “The Year in Infrastructure 2008,” Available Online at www.bentley.com/YearInInfrastructure2008


EXTON, Pa. – Jan. 21, 2009 – The Gautrain Rapid Rail Link in South Africa won a 2008 Be Award of Excellence in the “Innovation in Rail and Transit” category. The award was presented for the new rapid railway that links Pretoria, in Tshwane, with Johannesburg and also links Sandton with the ORTIA International Airport in South Africa. The project is featured in the new publication “The Year in Infrastructure 2008,” available online from Bentley Systems, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, at www.bentley.com/YearInInfrastructure2008. The Gautrain Rapid Rail Link’s primary goals are to enhance and support economic growth and generate employment in the region. Trains on the new railway will travel at 100 miles per hour along approximately 50 miles of rail route. Ultimately, with upgrades, the trains will be able to transport more than 60,000 passengers per hour and, thereby, reduce the number of cars on parallel roads by 20 percent. The project offers a cost-effective, efficient, environmentally friendly, and safe answer to some of the worst transport and road traffic problems in the most densely developed area in Gauteng province – the economic engine of Southern Africa. Through its use of Bentley’s ProjectWise collaboration system, the Gautrain team is effectively managing this highly complex design-build-operate, maintain-transfer public-private partnership project to successful completion.

The project involves a team of 350 specialists and experts working locally at various offices as well as a number of international experts. ProjectWise allows the entire Gautrain team to find, control, transmit, collaboratively review, and report project data, and enables workflows that ensure quality control as part of the ISO quality system. Streamlining this process through its use of ProjectWise gave Gautrain the means to keep the project on track.


Johan Venter, project and administration manager at Gautrain Rapid Rail Link, said, “An army marches on its belly. A concession contract marches on its integrated documentation and its ability to manage and find documents.”

He continued, “In this case, the full tender and procurement process and all initial designs and collaboration were done with ProjectWise. Without a collaboration system such as this, we would not have been able to complete the project in the required time frame. It is an essential component of the project management and control system for a large project.”

For additional information about the ProjectWise collaboration system, visit www.bentley.com/projectwise.


About the Be Awards of Excellence


The Be Awards of Excellence, which are judged by independent panels of industry experts and presented at an evening ceremony during the annual Be Conference, honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world’s infrastructure. These projects set benchmarks and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them.

To learn about the hundreds of innovative projects nominated for the Be Awards of Excellence during the past five years, visit www.bentley.com/YearInInfrastructure and read Bentley’s “Year in Infrastructure” annual publications. For information about how to enter projects for consideration in the 2009 Be Awards of Excellence competition, visit www.bentley.com/BeAwards.


About Gautrain Rapid Rail Link


Gautrain Rapid Rail Link comprises two links, one between Tshwane (Pretoria) and Johannesburg and one between OR Tambo International Airport and Sandton. Seven other stations will initially be linked by approximately 50 miles of rail, and future extensions are being planned. This modern train system will offer international standards of public transport with high levels of safety, reliability, predictability, and comfort. Traveling at maximum speeds of about 100 to 110 miles per hour, the train will reach Tshwane from Johannesburg in less than 40 minutes, on the busiest transport corridor in South Africa.


The project is now managed as part of the Gauteng Department of Finance and Economic Affairs Public Private Partnership Unit. Gautrain was initiated as one of 11 Blue IQ projects of the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG), a multibillion-Rand initiative to develop economic infrastructure for specific major projects in smart industries, high-value-added manufacturing, and tourism. It works in partnership with business and government departments as a catalyst to promote strategic private sector investment in key growth sectors of the Gauteng economy. For additional information about Gautrain Rapid Rail Link, visit www.gautrain.co.za.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Architects, engineers, constructors, and owner-operators are indispensable in improving our world and our quality of life; the company’s mission is to improve the performance of their projects and of the assets they design, build, and operate. Bentley sustains the infrastructure professions by helping to leverage information technology, learning, best practices, and global collaboration – and by promoting careers devoted to this crucial work.

Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 2,800 colleagues, offices in more than 50 countries, annual revenues surpassing $500 million, and since 1993, has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions. Nearly 90 percent of the Engineering News-Record Top Design Firms are Bentley subscribers, and a 2008 Daratech study ranked Bentley as the world’s #2 provider of geospatial software solutions.

For additional information about Bentley, visit www.bentley.com. For information about Be Communities, a social networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit http://communities.bentley.com.