Title: Exploring the effect of national policies on the safety level of tunnels that belong to the trans-European road network: a comparative analysis

Authors: Panagiotis Ntzeremes; Konstantinos Kirytopoulos; Ioannis Benekos

Addresses: Sector of Industrial Management and Operational Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Building E, 1st Floor, Heroon Polytechniou 9, 15780, Zografou, Athens, Greece ' Sector of Industrial Management and Operational Research, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Building E, 1st Floor, Heroon Polytechniou 9, 15780, Zografou, Athens, Greece ' World Road Association (PIARC), School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Heroon Polytechniou 9, 15780, Zografou, Athens, Greece

Abstract: The trans-European road network (TERN) was defined to improve EUs road network guarantee users a high and uniform level of safety. TERNs tunnels must be designed to serve these purposes. To this respect, the EU introduced the Directive 2004/54/EC. The Directive imposed minimum infrastructure and equipment requirements for all TERNs tunnels attributing high importance to risk assessment method. This paper illustrates that the variety of the methods adopted by each member state do not guarantee the same level of safety for all TERNs tunnels. Presenting the general principles of EU methods, two methods, which share a high degree of similarity, are used to study the same fire accident at the same tunnel. The differences occurred in the estimated level of safety raises skepticism, as the tunnel has different safety level depending on the method and national policies used. The outcome illustrates the need to improve policy formulation on this matter.

Keywords: road network; transportation; road tunnel; Directive 54/2004/EC; risk assessment; infrastructure safety.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCIS.2018.090650

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 2018 Vol.14 No.1, pp.40 - 58

Received: 07 Jul 2017
Accepted: 24 Sep 2017
Published online: 25 Mar 2018 *

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