A Directive to make European tunnels safer

Transport plays a crucial role in supporting European integration and ensuring a high level of wellbeing amongst Europe’s citizens. Efficient infrastructure for transport is vital for EU competitiveness for reducing costs and providing a good service.

Moreover, European integration requires sufficient access to EU transport networks for all regions. Therefore, the European Union must aim to promote the development and running of Trans-European Networks as a key element for the creation of the internal market, and the reinforcement of economic and social cohesion, as expressed in the treaty establishing the European Community, OJ C 325, 24/12/2002, articles 154, 155 and 156.

The European Union has acted swiftly in response to tunnel disasters in recent years. Directive 2004/54 on minimum safety requirements for tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network sets out standards for all tunnels longer than 500 metres on the trans-European road network. Member States have been applying the rules of this Directive since May 2006.

Because of the confined environment, accidents in tunnels – and particularly fires – can have dramatic consequences. Fires develop rapidly, temperatures rise considerably and a thick, toxic smoke fills the air in a few minutes. The limited connections with the outside increase the difficulty for people involved to rescue themselves, and for emergency teams to efficiently intervene. In addition, the potential disruption of the transport system following a major fire amplifies these consequences and can cause severe disturbances in the economy of a whole region.

In new and renovated road tunnels, structural and technical safety installations usually comply with national and international recommendations, requirements, or standards. These safety installations can only be fully effective if they are well-operated and combined with an efficient emergency service and correct behaviour of road users. Traffic control and monitoring by the police or other authorities can have a preventive effect. However, the constant and intensive efforts of road construction authorities and traffic police cannot fully eliminate the occurrence of accidents and fires in tunnels.

The European Directive

In its White Paper on transport policy – Commission White Paper of 12/09/2001: European transport policy for 2010: time to decide, COM (2001) 370 – the Commission emphasised the need to consider a European directive on the harmonisation of minimum safety standards. These would guarantee a high level of safety for the users of tunnels; particularly those in the Trans-European Transport Network.

On 30 April 2004, Directive 2004/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on minimum safety requirements for tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network, OJ L 167, 30/04/2004, (P. 39 – 91), entered into force. It applies to all tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network over 500 metres. About 600 tunnels in operation, whether under construction or at the design stage, are affected.

The primary purpose of the directive is to increase the level of safety of European tunnels, in order to prevent accidents endangering human life. Moreover, it aims at improving self-rescue conditions for people involved in serious accidents, such as large-scale fires.

Essentially, an accident is the consequence of one or more faults in a complex system involving drivers, vehicles, the road and the immediate surroundings. So, efforts to increase the level of road safety have to primarily aim at preventing human error. The second step will have to ensure that errors made by drivers do not have serious consequences.

Thus, the two main objectives of the Directive are to prevent possible critical events such as incorrect behaviour, inadequate installations, and vehicles with technical defects, as well as reducing possible consequences. This can be achieved by enabling self rescue, allowing immediate intervention by emergency services, protecting the environment, and limiting material damage.

To achieve these objectives, the directive defines a set of standards relating to the organisation. These include the roles and responsibilities of the various bodies in charge of safety in tunnels, as well as technical standards for tunnel infrastructure, operation, traffic rules and user information.

Organisational requirements

Insufficient co-ordination has been identified as a contributing factor to accidents in trans-border tunnels. Moreover, recent serious accidents show that non-native users are at a greater risk of becoming a victim in an accident, due to the lack of harmonisation of safety information, communication and equipment. Considering that the diversity and complexity of organisations involved in managing, operating, maintaining, repairing and upgrading tunnels increases the risk of accidents, the directive establishes procedures for the organisation of safety at a national level and clarifies the different roles and responsibilities.

Therefore, it foresees that each Member State appoints an Administrative Authority that has responsibility for ensuring that all steps to ensuring safety of a tunnel and compliance with the Directive are taken. It is assisted by an Inspection Body for commissioning visits and periodical technical inspections. The Administrative Authority shall identify a Tunnel Manager, which shall be responsible for the management of the tunnel in the design and construction, or operating stage. The Tunnel Manager shall nominate the Safety Officer, who will co-ordinate all preventive and safeguard measures, to ensure the safety of users and operational staff.

Technical requirements

Risks have increased in recent years with the ageing of tunnels and changing traffic patterns. Most tunnels have been built according to specifications that have since been superseded. Either their equipment is outdated, or traffic conditions have significantly changed since their initial opening. Recent tunnel accidents have shown that further to the human tragedy linked to these accidents, a tunnel closed for the reconstruction work causes substantial social costs.

In order to prevent accidents in tunnels and to limit the consequences of fires – especially in terms of lives – the directive imposes minimum technical requirements, based on a classification system according to length and traffic volume. They come from research carried out by international bodies such as the Tunnel Committee of the World Road Association (PIARC) and the Economic Commission of the United-Nations (UN-ECE).

The requirements concern, among others, escape routes, emergency exits, access for emergency services, road signs, illumination and ventilation equipment, and monitoring and communication systems; as listed in Annex I of the Directive. The necessary refurbishment of existing tunnels shall be carried out and finished by April 2014. This period may be extended by five years for Member States with a large number of tunnels.

Risk analysis

Improvement costs include three components; refurbishment and equipment, operational costs, and the cost of traffic delay, with refurbishment and equipment accounting for the majority of costs. However, traffic delay is estimated to account for one quarter of the total. The costs for refurbishing road tunnels in accordance with the full set of requirements of Annex I can be very high. For this reason, the Directive allows Member States to implement less costly measures under certain conditions where they achieve a sufficient safety level.

In fact, where certain structural requirements can only be satisfied through technical solutions that either cannot be achieved, or can only be achieved at disproportionate cost, the directive allows the implementation of alternative risk reduction measures, if they result in equivalent or improved protection. The efficiency of these measures must be demonstrated through a risk analysis.

Risk analysis is a tool which was initially developed to investigate the safety of potentially dangerous industrial processes, or potentially dangerous industrial sites, such as nuclear power plants. The application of risk analysis should help to establish a pro-active safety strategy by systematically investigating potential risks. It was intended to replace experience-based concepts by relying on findings from previous incidents or accidents. Extended work on risk analysis is being made by PIARC with Working Group 2 Management of Road Tunnel Safety of the Technical Committee C3.3 Road Tunnel Operation of the World Road Association PIARC, for example.

In general, risk analysis deals with the potential negative consequences of a system in the future. And as future events are unpredictable, the only option in such a situation is to develop – as realistically as possible – a model of the risks associated to the system in question. As there are essentially an unlimited number of possibilities concerning how dangerous effects may develop, it is impossible to take all possible situations into account. Any investigation has to therefore be limited to selected representative scenarios, thus including the possibility that important scenarios are lacking, or that too much emphasis is put on effects of minor importance. For these reasons, it should always be kept in mind that every kind of risk analysis – whichever method is used – is a more or less simplified model relying on pre-conditions and assumptions, and is not a copy of reality. Nevertheless, risk analysis provides a much better understanding of risk-related processes than experience-based concepts may ever achieve.

Importantly, the cost of structural work for refurbishing road tunnels may be reduced by a factor of up to five for tunnels that benefit from the derogation on risk analysis of the directive.

Conclusions

The tunnel fires in recent years have raised the question of the sustainability of transport, particularly in mountainous areas. Directive 2004/54/EC on minimum safety requirements for tunnels only applies to tunnels longer than 500 metres on the Trans-European Road Network. However, it recommends that Member States also apply the standards to road tunnels that are not part of the trans-European network. This recommendation has been followed by most of the Member States, including those with a high number of tunnels. The measures introduced by the directive will be implemented in the European tunnel by 2014 – or by 2019 for some Member States – and will help to reduce the risk of accidents in tunnels.