This article is part of a daily series of MegaProjects articles. If you want to know more about PPP projects with a considerable size visit our MegaProjects section. You can receive them by email on a daily basis.

The government of Victoria (Australia) has announced that the final bids for the AUD6 billion (US$4.5 billion) Tunnel and Stations Public Private Partnership (PPP), the biggest public transport project in Victoria’s history, have been received.

The bids are currently being assessed by the Melbourne Metro Rail Authority.

The bids from three shortlisted consortia include some of the biggest construction firms in Australia and world-wide.

• Continuum Victoria – comprising ACCIONA Infrastructure, Ferrovial Agroman, Honeywell, Downer EDI and Plenary Origination
• Cross Yarra Partnership – comprising Lendlease Engineering, John Holland, Bouygues Construction and Capella Capital
• Moving Melbourne Together – comprising Pacific Partnerships, CPB Contractors, Ghella, Salini Impregilo, Serco and Macquarie Capital.

Their proposals include more than 100,000 pages of detailed plans to build the nine-kilometre Metro Tunnel and five new underground stations at Arden, Parkville, CBD North, CBD South and Domain.

At the same time, early works on the AUD10.9 billion mega-project have received formal planning approval, and will ramp up over the coming months.

Piling rigs are now on site at Franklin and A’Beckett Streets and construction crews have begun driving massive concrete poles deep into the ground. These concrete poles will reinforce the walls of the 35 metre-deep shaft where the new underground station will be built.

Early work will also ramp up at City Square over the coming months to build another underground station, which will have a direct connection to Flinders Street Station, the City Loop and the rest of the train network.

Building the Metro Tunnel will create at least 4,700 local jobs – part of the tens of thousands of jobs that are being created by the Victorian Government’s record investment in major transport projects.

A contract for the PPP is expected to be awarded by the end of the year, in time for construction on the Tunnels and Stations package to begin in 2018.