| Network
of Excellence |
CARiMan |
The
Internet Portal for Computer Aided Risk Management |
Responsible:
ETRA
Assistance: CEFIN, PRO,
all partners
European countries have been dedicating great efforts
in improving safety in traffic management. This improvement is accomplished, on
the one hand, by researching and technological development that has increase
people’s awareness and understanding of the reasons for failure in the actual
processes and methodologies of preventing or minimising consequences in tunnel
accidents. And, on the other hand, by improvements made in operations
controlling through advances in management systems, auditing and analysing human
factors, such as behaviour.
Major programmes in the European Union have
enhanced the necessity of a further study in tunnel safety based on actual
researches. According to several studies, Europe counts approximately with a
total number of 11.000 railway tunnels, covering an overall of 6.750 Km.
Considering European road tunnels, there are approximately 10 very long road
tunnels of more than 10 Km, and 146 long road tunnels: 54 tunnels between 10 Km
and 5 Km, 92 tunnels between 5 Km and 3 Km m and around 450 between 3 Km and 1
Km.
In order to identify the key
issues for safety improvement, the processes that occur in the pre- and post-
accident phases should be considered, including accident generation, the
accident itself and the accident development. The methodology to use should
describe the processes’ time dependency, the information exchange between the
different entities involved (organisations, individuals, monitoring and
communication systems), and the role and effectiveness of the diverse actions
regarding prevention and mitigation of accidents.