INSIGHT | SAFETY/RISK/O&M
EVACUATION Under the theme of Evacuation, one of the papers at the ISTSS 2023
symposium examined the growing interest in use of shelters inside single-tube road tunnels in Norway, albeit with such possibility considered only for some – and with Oslofjord tunnel the primary focus, for now. The research concludes that evacuation shelters could offer a
“cost-effective solution to a major challenge of enhancing the self- rescue principle” that is the case in many of the country’s numerous single-tube road tunnels. The paper describing the work is by Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, University of Stavanger and the national roads authority (Statens Vegvesen, or NPRA). As the paper notes, most of Norway’s road tunnels have limited traffic volume as well as complex geometry and steep gradients. But more than 500 of its single-tube tunnels are more than 500m long, and almost 100 are more than 3km in length. No requirements exist for emergency exits in existing tunnels. With all these factors, the self- rescue principle could be a challenge for drivers in many cases.
The shelters are being studied through the Oslofjord installation, which was installed only as an interim, preliminary step pending construction of a second tube tunnel. Also in Norway, this time presented in a papers by Sintef
researchers, there was again discussion of rescue rooms in road tunnels but from the perspective of users’ acceptance – and doing so through using virtual reality (VR) systems to get feedback on layout designs. The research involved 37 people look at five designs – and pointed to two key factors in helping acceptance by users, and increased feelings of safety – approach to lighting, and use of separate areas (for injured). The researchers say: “The outcomes of this study show that design and spatial factors are crucial if rescue rooms are to be implemented and used in road tunnels.” A further Keynote paper, and also from Sintef, discussed this
research and the findings as part of a focus on human behaviour during fires in tunnels.
those dimensions to a obtain a more effective analysis.
Perhaps there needs to be less onus on seeing safety in the frame of assets that happen to be used by people but, rather, as combined systems of technical-human interaction if they are to be viewed as being competently enhanced in terms of safety.
1 - EMERGENCY AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT The ISTSS event had Emergency Management and Safety Management in two themes.
Emergency Management Four papers were presented in the theme Emergency Management. They looked at transport tunnels in parts of four countries – Belgium, Austria, Norway and Sweden. The first two papers concern rail tunnels, then second two road tunnels.
Antwerp rail tunnels: Infrabel, the Belgian publicly-owned rail network owner, presented a paper of safety management enhancement for three main passenger tunnels in Antwerp. The upgrade works on installations followed works on other systems in other important rail tunnels in its network and digesting the lessons learned. A preliminary risk analysis pointed the way to the
upgrades, including improved links with control room operators. Both the visualisation system and instruction for emergency services are to be standard for the entire Belgian rail network.
Koralm rail tunnel: Graz TU and OBB, the Austrian federal rail company, presented a paper on incident management in long rail tunnels, drawing upon Koralm tunnel as an example. Its focus was on ventilation solutions to aerodynamic
DIGITALISATION While digitalisation was touched upon in some papers across various
themes, at the ISTSS 2023 symposium it was also a theme in itself. Four papers were given to the event covering separately: decision support; control centres; Digital Twin (DT) for real-time incident monitoring; and, locating people with wi-fi technology. Additionally, in the poster session there were papers on computer-
aided resilience assessment and computational assessment of critical velocity in rail tunnels, respectively. On the DT paper, its authors are from The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University and Southeast University, Nanjing, respectively. It discussed using an artificial intelligence (AI) enabled system that draws together data from sensory networks (like an ‘Internet of Things (IoT) this is a network ‘of Things’, and is given the acronym AIoT).
The authors’ paper presents information on developing their AIOT-
based smart Digital Twin to monitor fire in real-time in a tunnel. The test area for the Digital Twin-based system was a full-scale (8m x 6m in section) and 140m long. Before the test, the AI model had to be trained on data and only then could the Digital Twin-based system be used in the full-scale, short tunnel used to validate the modelling. They said the modelling was 98% accurate in predicting fire information. Trained and validated, the AI system can generate different tunnel fire scenarios to study. AI was also used in another paper, by ILF consulting Engineers and Germany’s Federal Highway Research Institute, to help establish how tunnel control centres can analyse real-time data to carry out risk assessment of safety.
38 | January 2024
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