The bridge provides a permanent link:

• reducing crossing time to 5 min (compared to a current average of 45 min when before the bridge)
• improving crossing comfort to high standards and
• remaining in operation whatever the weather conditions

At present there are ferry-boats serving the strait crossing but they are no longer able to satisfy the ever increasing traffic needs.

The Rion-Antirion bridge is located at the intersection of two major roads: the Patras - Athens - Thessaloniki motorway which links the three most important cities of Greece and forms part of the European motorway network, the Kalamata - Patras - Igoumenitsa Western axis.

The bridge will facilitate communication between Greece and Italy (and thus Western Europe) through the harbors of Patras and Igoumenitsa.

What seemed to be sure before the construction of the Bridge, is now a reality. Development is evident both around the Bridge and in the every day life of the local community. From the western boundaries of Patras to the eastern ones of Nafpaktos, a new large regional metropolis is emerging.

The Harilaos Trikoupis Bridge boosted drastically the economic growth of the region. A serious proof comes out of the conclusions of a recent research of the University of Patras:

“Through a concrete research method founded on the interregional data, the index of the project came out and it was found to be 1.88, so on the basis of the whole investment cost of the Bridge (800 million Euros) it was estimated that the total influence on the national economy was near to 1.5 billion Euros. An important part of the total influence (67%) stays into the administrative limits of the Regional Prefecture of Western Greece”

The same research “… proved that the Rion-Antirion Bridge is a particularly important project for Western Greece and Greece in general, both from a financial and development point of view as well as in terms of social impact… The effects of the Project change the revenue and work conditions of the adjacent areas and the conditions of social exclusion, thus releasing new development forces, which thanks to the appropriate measures and policies will further develop the regional economies… the analysis documents the fact that the Bridge will play an larger role in the development, as an axis linking Greece to Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.”

[FINANCIAL & SOCIAL IMPACTS FROM THE OPERATION OF THE RION-ANTIRION BRIDGE, University of Patras, 2006]

The Rion – Antirion Bridge is the longest multi-span cable stayed bridge of the World with its 2,252 meters’ deck. Its foundations lay on a seabed that reaches 65 meters of depth. This is a world record for a bridge as well as their diameter of 90 meters making of them the world’s largest bridge foundations. Although according to the constructors, the best record of this great Bridge, is that it was built “without any serious accident, without a single drop of blood”.

However, the Bridge has been awarded 9 International Awards by the international scientific community, out of which we distinguish the following ones:

• Outstanding Structure Award 2006, of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineer (IABSE)
• Award for Outstanding Concrete Structures 2006, of the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib)
• Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award 2005, of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) (for the first time awarded to a project outside the US)

The bridge environment presents an exceptional combination of adverse physical conditions: water depth up to 65 m weak sea bed strong seismic activity and possible tectonic movements.

Top world ranked specialists from France and Greece have collaborated to design this high tech project which includes sea bed reinforcement (by 65 meter water depth), 90 meters diameter piers ( the largest piers ever built for a bridge) and a 2,252 m fully suspended deck (a world record).

The Rion-Antirion bridge is built to withstand a collision of a 180.000 tons tanker, wind speed of 250 km per hour and over 7 Richter scale earthquake.

Absorbing up to 2 meters displacement between any of its piers, the bridge is, for sure, one of the safest places to be, should a major earthquake happen in the Patras area.