Government agencies are undertaking a variety of congestion-busting initiatives to ease and optimise traffic flow in our cities. One of the foremost treatments is to roll out tunnels to provide rapid connection between major arterials. In Australia, there are currently multiple tunnels in the design or construction phase. Some of these include the West Gate Tunnel (Vic), WestConnex (NSW), the North-East Link (Vic), the North-South Corridor (SA), and the Western Harbour Tunnel (NSW). 

 

Australian Tunnels are built to high safety standards. A suite of plant and traffic control and management systems are set up to work in harmony for safe operations, with a strong reliance on an effective incident management system. This paper focuses on managing incidents within the tunnel environment. 

 

Tunnel operators and emergency services personnel are trained to deal with emergencies, unlike motorists. Under normal operating conditions, tunnels appear the same as regular roads to motorists, and it is understood that no special training is necessary. However, when there is a major incident involving a fire the Tunnel Safety systems will implement a planned response. As much as this is intended to keep people safe, motorists may panic or otherwise act in a dangerous manner. This can impact the emergency response.

 

This paper provides a literature review of current approaches to tunnel safety and shares recent observations following a tunnel emergency services exercise. This paper provides recommendations for education of motorists on safe use of tunnels and proposes better messaging and control for tunnel emergency response plans.