More and more tunnels and coverings are being constructed in the Netherlands. When constructing them, the Guidelines for Motorway Design (ROA; Traffic Research Centre, 1993) advise building emergency lanes and indicate that they do not have to be constructed if the decision is a "consequence of a careful weighing up of important arguments based on a cost-benefit analysis". In practice, tunnels (and coverings) are often constructed without emergency lanes because of cost-effectiveness considerations. However, the cost-effectiveness is not always well founded. The Civil Infrastructure Department of the Ministry of Transport developed a 'Decision-supporting Emergency Lanes and Tunnels Model' (BOMVIT). The intention is that BOMVIT will be used as the basis for decisions about emergency lanes in all tunnels yet to be constructed and covered. That is why it is of great importance that this model is correct and complete. SWOV has been asked for a second opinion of the draft version of BOMVIT. This second opinion tested the principle of BOMVIT, as well as the completeness of the model. The correctness of the data, the parameters, the assumptions, and the calculations of BOMVIT have also been tested. An important conclusion is that the model does not take calamities caused by fires in lorries into account. Only the emission of inflammable gases is included, whereas many more inflammable materials are transported. In addition, a number of the data and parameters are used that deviate from those that have been found in the literature. No well-founded justification for these deviations is given. In spite of its limitations, BOMVIT provides a good, careful, and systematic weighing up of the advantages and disadvantages of constructing an emergency lane in a tunnel or covering. We therefore recommend developing this model further, thereby using the possibilities for improvement that are given in this report.
Abstract