The history of tunnel disasters shows that accidents in tunnels, although generally less frequent than on open roads, could occur. The likelihood of escalation of these accidents into major events is low; however the consequences of such accidents can be severe in terms of victims, damage to the structure and impact on the transport economy. More specifically, the catastrophes of the Mont Blanc tunnel, the Tauern tunnel and St. Gothard tunnel demonstrated the urgent need for improving the prevention and mitigation of tunnel accidents, including adequate detection systems, proper procedures and preparedness of operation staff and emergency services. This can be achieved by providing safe design and construction criteria for new tunnels, re-organising the management and the configuration of in-service tunnels, providing management with proper decision support safety tools, following-up the state of safety in tunnels, and ensuring improved information and better communications with tunnel users. The purpose and objectives of this report are to: • assist responsible persons (those in charge of the management and follow-up of studies, engineering and design offices, constructors, emergency services, etc.) in preparing safety documentation of a road tunnel, setting a common profile and describing the principal contents of such documentation; • describe the necessary rules and procedures for continuing feedback and update of the safety documentation taking into account variable/new influencing factors or data (safety exercises/drills results and debriefings, incidents and accidents analysis, equipment upgrading and addition, traffic regulations, maintenance policy changes, etc.); • describe the necessary procedures for internal and external (expert) validation and checking of the safety documentation; • propose a common methodology for incident data collection and incident report preparation regarding tunnels; • develop a method for performing safety inspections, analysing the major tunnel components (safety equipment, operation procedures, safety documentation, staff organisation, etc.); • describe a systematic approach for drawing conclusions on tunnel safety as result of safety inspections. (Author/publisher)
Abstract