In T&TI this month is an important article by tunnel fire specialist, Gabriel Alexander Khoury, that describes the efforts being made under the European Union’s 5th Framework agreement to address the pressing issue of road tunnel safety in Europe. Also mentioned in the article, and of extreme importance, is the ‘Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on minimum safety requirements for tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network’, published by the European Commission in December last year. I would strongly recommend you to try and get hold of a copy of this (I found my copy at http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/themes/land/english/lt_7_en.html).
If adopted, and this seems very likely, the end could well be in sight for minimum tunnel safety performance standards. The proposal affects tunnels on the Trans-European Road Network longer than 500m, and assumes that people can rescue themselves in shorter tunnels. The contents are far too broad to go into detail within the confines of the editor’s comment, but a couple of the major points are included. One of the key issues is the appointment of people in positions of direct responsibility for the safety of their own tunnel. Each tunnel will have a ‘Tunnel Manager’ who has to nominate one ‘Safety Officer’ who will have to undertake a myriad of safety related tasks. This would seem to be as a direct result of research carried out following the Mont Blanc Tunnel fire in 1999, where a disturbing level of confusion was found centring around exactly who was responsible for what, at a time when clarity of judgment could have saved lives.
This initiative, and all other’s raised within the proposal (and there are a few!) will be applicable to tunnels at the design stage, tunnels already built but not yet open, and tunnels already in operation (as seen in Article 9, 10, and 11 respectively). Basically, all tunnels within the range of the proposal. This means that this will, in some way, effect all of the tunnelling community within the EU, and it has already been said that this could be an initiative raised internationally, so for our non-European friends, the proposal may also be worth some in-depth scrutiny. The obvious benefits of the proposal, once approved, would be a long-term increase in safety standards within European road tunnels. This is something of great concern to all within the tunnelling industry.
In next month’s T&TI we will look at the effects that this proposal, if approved, could have on you. We will keep more than an eye on the situation, I suggest you do too!
Tris Thomas
