http://www.vde8.de/ Deutsche Bahn's planned high-speed line to cope with current and future flows of passenger and freight traffic while minimising the impact on the environment, part of the eastern north-south axis runs through Germany. In the south it is linked up by 170 kilometres of upgraded and new lines between Nuremberg, Ingolstadt and Munich. In the plans for a trans-European transport network, the rail link that runs from northern Italy through Austria to Munich and continues via upgraded and new lines in Germany to Berlin, finally ending up in Scandinavia, is referred to as Project No. 1. On completion of the work, the journey time between Munich and Berlin will be around 4 hours. That is half the time required before work started. A total of 13 billion euros is being invested in the upgrading of the Munich-Berlin corridor. The German Unity Transport Projects (Verkehrsprojekte Deutsche Einheit - VDE) were introduced by the German federal government in 1991 following German reunification. The project is being implemented by DB ProjektBau GmbH, a subsidiary of Deutschen Bahn AG.