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http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/
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The management and day to day operation, as well as the maintenance of a tunnel, involve high operational costs and funding requirements. In fact tunnels are among the most costly parts of a road network to be operated (in terms of energy requirements, staffing and monitoring). The definition and optimisation of the different cost elements in a tunnel and appropriate recommendations to reduce them have been analysed by the PIARC tunnel committee. The efficient use of energy and the progressive reduction of energy consumption should be considered, with a view to delivering a sustainable operation of the road network (Section 4.5). The final objective is clearly to guarantee an appropriate level of service and quality to the users. The achievement of the objective obviously depends on the nature and overall performance of the facilities and equipment. The performance of the equipment often depends on how this equipment is operated by the tunnel staff in terms of timeliness and appropriateness. Therefore the staff called to perform operational tasks must be well selected when recruited, well trained before starting their tasks and continually throughout their careers (Section 4.6). The safety level or the traffic capacity in a tunnel are influenced by changes characterising the road network and the evolution of the traffic itself. The tunnel operator may occasionally need to make minor or major changes to the system or to the management criteria to cope with these changes. It is therefore necessary to monitor changes and accidents using information and feedback, to continuously and systematically improve tunnel operations. The operator needs to receive feedback from the experience of operation to be used to make choices for the improvements (Section 4.7). Structural elements and the technical equipment need regular maintenance whose goal is to ensure safe driving conditions for the public by keeping the tunnel at its designed safety standard (Section 4.8). General recommendations for maintenance in tunnels are defined as well as the specic features and their facilities. When the tunnel equipment no longer satisfies the needs of the operator, the requirements of legislation or when the nature or the level of traffic changes, it may be necessary to upgrade or refurbish the tunnel. For the refurbishment of an existing tunnel, recommendations mainly concerning measures to facilitate the management of trafc network, equipment reliability and durability and whole life costing are defined (Section 4.9). The present chapter 4 essentially concerns tunnels of medium to long lengths, with medium or heavy traffic volume, located in places where prompt external emergency interventions are possible.These tunnels are operated with a specific organisation, dedicated to one tunnel or a group of tunnels, which are part of the same road network. Section 4.10 presents the specific conditions concerning short tunnels, or very low trafficked tunnels, or scattered tunnels situated in areas with low population densities. Contributors This Chapter was written by Working Group 1 of the C4 committee (2008-2011) in which:
Roberto ARDITI (Italy) authored section 4.0 and coordinated the work; Jean-Claude MARTIN (France) authored sections 4.1 to 4.10; Fathi TARADA (UK) reviewed the full chapter.
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/
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Major tunnels (in terms of length, traffic density and complexity of the tunnel) are usually managed from a Traffic Control Centre. Very often, the Control Centre is equipped with remote surveillance systems (e.g. television closed circuits, automatic incident detection) and can remote control certain equipment (ventilation, signalling, closing the tunnel, etc.).
Technical Patrolling
In certain cases, the operator can also deploy patrols that can provide a direct surveillance of the users by patrolling in the tunnels. These patrols can intervene very rapidly in case of need.
Management of civil engineering works
This means a permanent surveillance of the civil engineering works of the tunnel by conducting regular surveying and inspections. It also means carrying out regular maintenance of facilities such as drainage systems, gutters and all secondary structures (premises inside the tunnel, technical rooms, etc.),
Management of equipment
In major tunnels, the operator deploys several types of equipment that in the operation phase are under his own control. To this purpose tunnels are also equipped with systemsthat allow the operator to monitor the status of equipment. The operator must also cater for the maintenance of equipment fitted in the tunnel. Here again, it is possible to have access to computerised tools for assisting him in performing this task.
Management of emergency situations
Whatever the nature of the accident, whether it is a problem related to traffic (accident, interlinked accidents, fire, etc.) or to equipment (loss of power supply, malfunctioning of data transmission network, etc.), to intervene or to inform/activate the pertinent service/authority is the standard duty of the operator in charge of the surveillance.
Technical and Administrative management
In addition to tasks directly related to the tunnel operation, the operator provides the technical and administrative services supporting the management of the infrastructure and, of course, the personnel. The operator caters for the design of any equipment upgrading, the direction of the works, the investment and operational budgets for the proper functioning of the tunnel. Lastly, the operator also develops statistics and monitors the achievement of its own objectives by preparing periodical reports on the operation of the tunnel/route (financial indicators, traffic indicators, etc.). http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/operational-tasks.htm 4 / 14
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The Technical report 05.13.B "Good Practice for the Operation and Maintenance of Road Tunnels" deals with this subject in parts 2 and 4.
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/operational-tasks.htm
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kept informed;
The public services (fire and rescue services, traffic police, medical services...) with whom
coordinated intervention plans have to be prepared so that they can intervene in a coordinated and efficient manner in response to any types of incidents;
Other sub-contractors (cleaning, maintenance, breakdown services for users, etc.)
The Technical Report 2007R04 "Guide for organizing, recruiting and training road tunnel operating staff" defines the organisational tasks in a more precise manner.
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/players.htm
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The Technical Report 2007R04 defines in its chapter 4 "Operating staff: tasks and facilities" the organisation of operation in greater detail.
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/organisation.htm
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http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/operating-instructions.htm
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http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/operational-costs.htm
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They should be well selected through a recruitment process They should be well trained before taking up their functions They need refresher courses throughout their career They should participate in exercises, possibly organised in cooperation with external services.
During recruitment phases, the qualifications required for the future operators must be defined according to the nature of operational tasks. It may be remembered that even if the tasks are similar in all countries, the people responsible for executing them do not necessarily belong to the same kind of organisation in each country. Nevertheless, the skills and aptitudes required should be similar. While designing the staff training (initial or permanent), the following two issues need to be addressed:
What kind of training need to be provided to the operating staff (or, what should be the
obligatory training)?
What criteria are to be applied by the operation manager for validating the quality of the training
and the results obtained? If there are no national rules on the content of training, the operator has to adapt his training programme to the specific characteristics and requirements of his tunnels. The Technical Report 2007R04 "Guide for organizing, recruiting and training road tunnel operating staff" specifies the recruitment and training of personnel in greater detail, chapters 7 "Recruitment of operation staff" and 8 "Training operating staff" . The operator needs to test regularly the efficiency of his personnel and the procedures he has set up. Thereby the operator needs to make sure that his staff are familiar with the different equipment installed in the tunnel and he can thus detect any possible deficiencies in the execution of specific tasks. In addition to internal exercises, the operator and emergency services need to organise jointrescue exercises with the participation of the traffic police, the operator, medical services and the fire and rescue services. The results of each exercise should be analysed. If lessons drawn from an exercise reveal lacunae, the intervention strategies should be reviewed. A new Technical Report on "Good practice for road tunnel Emergency exercises" will be available soon in the PIARC Virtual Library.
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/staff.htm
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definition and evaluation of improvement to be decided by the owner of the tunnel. They are also a decision-making aid for the general improvement of safety in a given road network;
At a national and international level: they form a key basis for the reference framework allowing
authorities to formulate and adapt the general policies related to tunnel safety. In particular, they allow quantifying the magnitude (in terms of frequency and severity) of critical events that can cause a danger to the life of users. They also allow measuring the efficacy of safety installations and in certain cases, comparing the level of safety in a given tunnel with national or international safety data. Lastly, they provide information (national statistics according to the type of tunnel) useful for the analysis of risks relating tunnels in project stage or tunnels under operation that do not yet have an adequate database. The lessons drawn from the operation, particularly during incidents and accidents, should be analysed. In fact if the results of these analyses reveal deficiencies, there is an opportunity to intervene by improving strategies and/or operating instructions. The Technical Report 2009R08 "Tools for road tunnel safety management" defines in detail the conditions for analysing data from incidents and/or accidents in its chapter 3 "Collection and analysis of data on road tunnel incidents" .
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/feedback.htm
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the equipment in a good operating condition. Preventive maintenance offers the advantage of preventing, as far as possible, unforeseeable failures and, by the way, it is easy to plan in advance. It can however lead to high costs if the interventions are too frequent: therefore, they need to be optimised suitably.
The corrective actions that are carried out when a system or a part of a system has failed or been
damaged. Corrective maintenance offers the advantage of using a system to the maximum extent of its service life. Its disadvantage however is that it cannot be planned and therefore emergency repairs are normally carried out with a significant surplus cost. It is recommended to use preventive maintenance where possible and for those systems that are not redundant and are related with safety. Preventive maintenance allows the joint planning of different maintenance tasks in the event of every closure of the tunnel to the traffic. Moreover it helps keep the equipment in a good operating condition. It may be noted however that even when preventive maintenance is carried out very well, the operator cannot avoid corrective interventions. Usually the operator's staff do not carry out all maintenance tasks; the operator normally entrusts contractors and several options are consequently available:
It is possible to contract only those maintenance tasks related to a specific technical level. The
operator can thus contract tasks that present no technical complexity (cleaning, washing, ...) or it can contract only very complex tasks (supervision system, radio retransmission equipment, ...)
It is possible to contract all tasks of one or more equipment groups (all ventilation systems, all
remote surveillance installations, etc.). The Technical Report 05.06.B in its chapter 7 "Cost of maintenance ", the Technical report 05.13.B in its chapter 4 "Maintenance and operation" and the Technical Report 2007R04 in its chapter 6 "Organising operating staff", give more complete information on the subject of maintenance.
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/maintenance.htm
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http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/refurbishment.htm
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services, etc.,
economic context, exposure to risk and level of risk.
This analysis will then make it possible to organise and to implement the most suitable operating system, according to the specific conditions of these tunnels.
http://tunnels.piarc.org/en/operation-maintenance/short-tunnels.htm
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