The paper reviews the way provision for the fire hazard in the Channel Tunnel has been made by the designers and the Safety Authority set up by the British and French Governments. Most of this dates from as early as 1960, but much of the more recent design was made after construction work and tendering was already well under way, thus contravening safety design principles and increasing costs through continual changes in specification. Non-segregation of passengers from cars, far from ever having been an open question, had in fact been agreed by Government-employed advisors over many years. The distance between cross passages that link running tunnels with the service tunnel, forming an escape route for passengers in an emergency, has been substantially increased. Professional advice sought by the Safety Authority prior to 1987 was not the most relevant available; coupled with excessive secrecy this could explain why advantage was not taken of the 28 years the project was in the early design stages. The design process inclined more to a historically based ad hoc engineering approach than to a safety integrated approach on a conceptual basis. It is suggested that the treatment of other hazards that beset the tunnel might usefully be reviewed. (Author/publisher)
Abstract