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Design Fires in Road Tunnels (2011)

Chapter: Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review

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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Design Fires in Road Tunnels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14562.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Design Fires in Road Tunnels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14562.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Design Fires in Road Tunnels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14562.
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Design Fires in Road Tunnels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14562.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Design Fires in Road Tunnels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14562.
×
Page 13
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Design Fires in Road Tunnels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14562.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Two - Tunnel Safety Projects Literature Review." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Design Fires in Road Tunnels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14562.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

10 OVERVIEW OF RECENTLY COMPLETED AND ON-GOING TUNNEL SAFETY PROJECTS There are a number of recently completed and on-going proj- ects on tunnel safety and design for tunnel fires in the United States and Europe (see Figure 1). Each project addresses dif- ferent components of design practice for tunnel fires. Results of these projects findings are documented in this chapter. PREVENTION OF TUNNEL HIGHWAY FIRES Prevention and Control of Highway Tunnel Fires (FHWA- RD-83-032): The principal investigator interviewed 18 U.S. agencies operating 35 vehicular tunnels for this study. Responses from single agencies operating more than one tunnel (such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission) carry more numerical weight than others that operate one. The numbers illustrate the range of opinions, practices, and systems encountered. This FHWA publication (7 ) states that: 1. Trucks, in general, have an accident frequency that ranged from 6.89 to 7.50 accidents per million miles (4.28 to 4.66 per million kilometers) from 1976 through 1981. In comparison, tank trucks had an accident fre- quency that ranged from 3.97 to 5.98 accidents per mil- lion miles (2.47 to 3.72 per million kilometers) for those same years. It was noted that tank truck operators may have a more favorable accident history than general truck operators. 2. Few truck accidents resulted in fires (1.7% of all truck accidents). Hazardous material tank trucks had a 70% higher fire-to-accident ratio than the general trucking industry, with 2.9% of all accidents result- ing in fire during the period from July 1966 through December 1968. 3. Approximately 50% of the reported fires were caused by collisions. The remaining 50% were caused by non- collision type accidents, such as overheated brakes or tires, defective exhaust systems, and defective electri- cal systems. Control of hazardous material tank truck tunnel crossings may reduce the probability of colli- sion accidents and subsequent fires. However, inspec- tion of hazardous material tank trucks before tunnel crossings also appears to be needed if the anticipated fire frequency is to be reduced appreciably. 4. Hazardous material tank truck accidents resulted in cargo being spilled in 8.5% of the accidents. 5. The cargo was involved in 87% of the fires involving hazardous material tank trucks. This information was used to calculate a hazardous mate- rial tank truck fire frequency for highway tunnels. The FHWA report states that: • The average tanker truck accident frequency was 4.91 accidents per million miles (3.05 accidents per million kilometers). • Assuming that 8.5% of the accidents resulted in spilled cargo, the number of cargo spills per million miles was estimated at 0.418 (4.91 accidents per million miles times 0.085 cargo spills per accident equals 0.418 cargo spills per million miles or 3.05 accidents per million kilo- meters equals 0.259 cargo spills per million kilometers). • Assuming that 2.9% of the accidents involving tank trucks result in fires, the number of fires per million miles of tank truck travel are estimated at 0.142 fires per million miles (4.91 accidents per million miles times 0.029 fires per accident equals 0.142 fires per million miles) or 0.088 fires per million kilometers. • Assuming that 87% of the tank truck fires involve the cargo, the cargo fire frequency is estimated at 0.124 cargo fires per million miles (0.142 fires per million miles times 0.87 cargo fires per fire equals 0.124 cargo fires per mil- lion miles) or 0.077 cargo fires per million kilometers. The fire and hazardous cargo spill frequency for the Ref- erence Tunnel are predicted by using these frequencies (7): 1. One cargo spill per 2,390,000 tunnel crossings. 2. One cargo fire per 8,064,000 tunnel crossings. Assuming that hazardous material tank truck crossings occur at the rate of 100 crossings per day (36,500 crossings per year), the hazardous material fire and spill frequencies are predicted as (7): 1. One cargo spill occurring every 65 years. 2. One cargo fire occurring every 221 years. The incident frequencies for other tunnel lengths or for a dif- ferent number of hazardous material tank truck crossings may be calculated in a similar manner. CHAPTER TWO TUNNEL SAFETY PROJECTS—LITERATURE REVIEW

11 This study demonstrates the risk of tanker truck and heavy goods vehicle (HGV) accidents in road tunnels. Those vehi- cles provide the most dangerous, largest, and most rapidly growing category of fires. MAKING TRANSPORTATION TUNNELS SAFE AND SECURE NCHRP Report 525: Surface Transportation Security and TCRP Report 86: Public Transportation Security series pub- lications have jointly published Making Transportation in Tunnels Safe and Secure (1). The report is Volume 12 in each series. This research project was developed to provide safety and security guidelines for transportation tunnel owners and operators (1). To accomplish this task, a team of experienced design engineers, builders, and operations personnel collab- orated with safety and security experts to address the follow- ing questions: • What natural hazards and international threats do they face? • How would they be introduced? • What are the vulnerable areas of their tunnel? • How much of a disturbance would there be? • How can they avoid these hazards and threats? • How can they prepare themselves for this disturbance if it occurs? The report provides guidelines for protecting tunnels by minimizing the damage potential from extreme events such that, if damaged, they may be returned to full functionality in a relatively short period of time. It examines safety and security guidelines in identifying principal vulnerabilities of tunnels to various hazards and threats. It also explores potential physical countermeasures, potential operational countermeasures, and deployable, integrated systems for emergency-related command, control, communications, and information. The report is organized in seven chapters and covers the following topics: • Hazard and threats analysis • Case studies on fire events in road and railway tunnels in different countries • Tunnel structural and vulnerabilities analysis • Countermeasures and system integration. This report also focused on tunnel structural and vulnerabil- ity analysis. FIGURE 1 Seven recently accomplished European projects on tunnel safety (6).

INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY SCANNING PROGRAM—SUMMARY An 11-member team was formed to study European practices on the aforementioned topics. The team consisted of repre- sentatives from FHWA; state DOTs; Bay Area Rapid Tran- sit District (BART); Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, who also represented the International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turn- pike Association; plus a design consultant and the report facil- itator. The scan was sponsored by FHWA, AASHTO, and NCHRP. During late September and early October 2005, the team visited Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, and Switzer- land. In addition, the team had meetings with representatives from Austria, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. These countries were selected on the basis of desk scan findings that showed that they are innovators of underground transporta- tion systems. The objectives of the scan were to learn what is being done internationally for underground transportation systems in the areas of safety, operations, and emergency response. The focus of the scan was on equipment, systems, and procedures incor- porated into modern underground and underwater tunnels by leading international engineers and designers. The study con- sidered the following: • Tunnel systems and designs that provide fire protection, blast protection, and areas of refuge or evacuation pas- sages for users. • Arrangements of the various components to maximize their effectiveness, assure that it can be inspected and maintained, and promote cost savings. • Tunnel operations, including incident detection and deterrent technology, and incident response and recov- ery planning. • Specialized technologies and standards used in moni- toring or inspecting structural elements and operating equipment to ensure optimal performance and mini- mize downtime during maintenance or rehabilitation. Regarding the safety and security aspects, the team was interested in learning about planning approaches, standards, manpower roles and responsibilities, communication tech- niques, and state of the art products and equipment used to deter, detect, deny, defend, respond to, and recover from both natural and manmade disasters and other incidents. Team members were interested in not only tunnel prac- tices and innovations for highways, but also for passenger and freight rail. The results of this project were published as Under- ground Transportation Systems in Europe: Safety, Operations, and Emergency Response (2). The scan team learned that the Europeans consider response and safety measures already in place for crashes and other inci- dents to also be applicable for many terrorist actions. 12 Europeans are providing extensive research, resulting in innovative design and emergency management plans that consider how people react in tunnel emergencies. Because motorist behavior is unpredictable in tunnel incidents, Euro- peans provide instructions for drivers, passengers, and tunnel operators as straightforward as possible to reduce required decision making during an incident, such as a tunnel fire. Appendix D (web-only) provides additional information on nine initiatives and practices related to human factors, plan- ning, design, and incident and asset management that came from the International Technology Scanning Program. UPTUN—SUMMARY The UPTUN project was carried out within the fifth frame- work program of the European Union by a consortium in which 41 partners from 19 European countries worked together from 2002 to 2006 (8). The primary objectives of the UPTUN project were: • Development of innovative technologies. The focus was on technologies in the areas of detection and monitoring, mitigating measures, influencing human response, and protection against structural damage. The main output is a set of innovative cost-effective technologies. • Development, demonstration, and promotion of proce- dures for safety-level evaluation, including decision sup- port models, as well as knowledge transfer. The main output was a risk-based evaluating and upgrading of models. The desired spin-off of the UPTUN project was: • The restoration of confidence in tunnels as safe modes of transportation systems. • Reducing trade barriers caused by evidently unsafe tunnels. • An increase in the awareness of stakeholders for the necessity to develop initiatives to link all relevant research. The project was specifically targeted at ensuring a pan- European approach toward the improvement of fire safety in European tunnels. The work was divided into seven technical work packages: • WP 1: Prevention, detection, and monitoring. • WP 2: Fire development and mitigation measures. • WP 3: Human response. • WP 4: Fire effect and tunnel performance; system struc- tural response. • WP 5: Evaluation of safety levels and upgrading of existing tunnels.

13 • WP 6: Fire effects and tunnel performance; system response. • WP 7: Promotion, dissemination, education and training, and socioeconomic impact. The first four work packages were designed to increase insight and develop new measures to reduce probabilities and mitigate consequences of fires in tunnels. The fifth and sixth work packages were primarily focused on the development of the innovative integral upgrading approach. The final work package (WP 7) promoted and disseminated the results. The work packages tasks and objectives are discussed in Appendix D (web-only). FIT FIT is the European Thematic Network on Fire in Tunnels. FIT provides a European platform for dissemination and information of up-to-date knowledge and research on fires and tunnels. FIT represents 12 European countries with 33 members (9). The following main objectives have been identified for the FIT Thematic Network: 1. The network had as its main objective the dissemination of road tunnel design results obtained from European and national projects. The aim was to optimize research efforts, reach critical mass, and enhance its impact at the European level by combining the results of the different projects. 2. FIT established a set of consultable databases contain- ing essential knowledge on fire in tunnels. 3. A third common objective of the network members was to disseminate recommendations on design fires for tunnels. 4. Consequently, FIT also had as an objective developing a European consensus for fire safe design on the basis of existing national regulations, guidelines, code of prac- tices, and safety requirements. 5. The final objective was the definition of best practices for tunnel authorities and fire emergency services on prevention and training, accident management, and fire emergency operations. The FIT work plan defines six work packages with corre- sponding deliverables and milestones that are further sum- marized in Appendix D (web-only): 1. Consultable databases on fire and tunnel topics [road tunnel design projects, test-sites, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), equipment, fire accidents, and upgrad- ing of tunnels]. 2. Recommendations on the design fire scenarios (report). 3. Compilation of guidelines for fire safe design (report). 4. Best practice for fire response management (report). 5. Information and communication (website, newsletter, and workshop). 6. Management. DARTS DARTSs stands for Durable and Reliable Tunnel Structures (10). The objective of DARTS was to develop operational methods and supporting practical tools for the best proactive decision-making process. Its focus was to compile the optimal tunnel design and construction procedures regarding environ- mental conditions, technical qualities, safety precautions, and long service life. The approach is based on a minimum total life-cycle cost, including operation and maintenance, and aims to optimize safety and reliability, create the best environment and safety for users and establish the best benefit for society and the owner. DARTS was developed for the most common current types of tunnels: rock tunnels, bored tunnels, New Austrian Tunneling Method tunnels, immersed tunnels, and cut and cover tunnels. The project, a partnership of eight European companies, was undertaken from 2001 to 2004. The DARTS project received the financial support of the European Communities and Sustainable Growth Program (GROWTH 2000). SAFET SafeT is a thematic network on tunnels that was started in May 2003 and finished in April 2006. The objective of the SafeT network was to develop comprehensive guidelines for pan-European decision making on the safety of existing tunnels (primarily road, but also rail) by investigating, iden- tifying, assessing, and proposing best practice solutions for: (1) preventing incidents/accidents in existing tunnels, and (2) mitigating its effects—for both people and goods—to ensure a high level of tunnel safety in Europe. From the literature search and the discussions in the SafeT network it can be concluded that many different methods are used to assess safety during the design and operation of a tun- nel. The applied methods vary from qualitative to quantita- tive, from probabilistic to deterministic (11). Important for the selection of a tunnel safety assessment method is the level of detail in the available input for the method. In the early stage of tunnel design it is important that more generic methods such as checklists be applied. In the outline design, more detailed methods can be implemented. At this stage deterministic and probabilistic methods are used. In the detailed design phase, the application of risk assess- ment methods is important to ensure that assumptions made in earlier tunnel risk assessments are correct and that the

reliability of tunnel technical systems meets the design crite- ria. During the operation and maintenance of the tunnel it is important to use methods that assess if the actual safety per- formance of the tunnel meets the tunnel safety criteria. Also important are methods that monitor possible changes in the use of the tunnel, changes in technical tunnel systems, and changes in the tunnel operation. SIRTAKI SIRTAKI stands for Safety Improvement in Road & Rail Tunnels using an Advanced Intensive decision support sys- tem. The strategic goal of the project was the development and assessment of an advanced decision support system that specifically tackles safety issues in tunnel management, as well as emergency handling and integration within the over- all network management. SIRTAKI aims to improve mobility management by the development of advanced surveillance and control systems focused on safety in road and railways tunnels that can be coor- dinated within urban and interurban traffic management sys- tems. This in turn can perform management of large-scale events and crises, which can be supported by Inference Module and Knowledge Basis tools based on advanced modeling and simulation of emergency situations. The introduction of this system can reduce risks and enable the management of emer- gency situations in roads and railways, making the transport chain more efficient and safe for both passengers and freight. SIRTAKI provides innovations in four main aspects of tunnel management and emergency situations: (1) prevention of conflicting situations and emergencies, (2) support for tun- nel managers, (3) integrated management within the transport network, and (4) improvements to sensors and surveillance equipment. The benefits from SIRTAKI project can be summarized as follows (12): • Improving safety in tunnels: reducing the risk of accidents in tunnels and the severity of those that do take place. • Reducing stress in operators and citizens who are on the frontlines of an emergency situation. • Managing tunnels and the rest of the transport network in a coordinated way and, therefore, improving the per- formance of the available transport infrastructures. • Using the integrated management of not only emergen- cies, but also other special situations such as congestion, maintenance works, and so forth. • Reducing the total time of emergency analysis by 15%. VIRTUAL FIRES Initiated in November 2001, the Virtual Real Time Emergency Simulator, or “Virtual Fires,” was a three-year project with 14 eight partners from five European countries (13, 14). It was coordinated by the Institute for Structural Analysis (Austria) and the goal was to develop a simulator that helps train fire fighters in the efficient mitigation of tunnel fires, using a computer-generated virtual environment. This is a low-cost and environmentally friendly alternative to real fire fighting exercises that involve burning fuel in a disused tunnel. The sim- ulator can also be used to test the fire safety of a tunnel and the influence of mitigating measures (ventilation, fire suppression, etc.) on its fire safety level. The end users will include tunnel operators, designers, and government regulatory authorities. SAFE TUNNEL The main objective of this project is to reduce the number of accidents inside road tunnels through “preventive” safety measures. The primary focus is to achieve a dramatic reduc- tion of “fire accidents,” which, although rare, are the most serious safety risks inside tunnels. The primary goal is to introduce measures capable of reducing the number of HGV incidents in the Frejus Tunnel by 40% within 10 years, with the additional objective of cutting the frequency of fires in tunnels by 50% within 6 years. The basic ideas are: • To increase awareness of vehicle status to avoid tunnel access to those vehicles with detected or imminent anomalies. • To achieve tele-control surveillance of vehicle speed inside the tunnel. Specific objectives are: • Development of two demonstrator trucks equipped with preventive diagnosis devices, tele-control, and human machine interface (HMI) facilities. • Development of the control center to manage Safe Tunnel applications. • Analysis of the needs of tunnel operators for managing safety-related operations. • Transmission of data by a public telecom network. • Demonstrations of the Safe Tunnel concepts through field tests in Frejus Tunnel. • Evaluation includes technical and impact analysis, user acceptance estimation, socioeconomic impact estima- tion, and cost–benefits analysis. • Recommendations for standards. Methodology: • Develop or adapt existing on-board vehicle sensors to monitor primary vehicle functions to forecast and detect anomalies in on-board devices. This information will be transmitted to the control center and managed by the tunnel operator through a public telecommunications network.

15 • Develop a control center to receive and process the information transmitted by equipped HGVs or by infra- structure-based electronic systems (when the vehicles are not equipped). The preventive actions consist of access controls at the entry point. • Develop “Tele-Control” of the equipped vehicle through automatic actuation of the recommended speed. The project will study the possibility of installing an infra- structure system inside the tunnel capable of showing a light beam, which drivers of unequipped vehicles must follow. A thermal check system aims at identifying overheated vehicles before they enter the tunnel. This thermal gate, located before the toll station, is composed of an automatic gate with infrared sensors and a portable system for checking vehicles with anomalous heating situations. The thermal gate performs the following operations: • Acquisition of infrared images. • Image processing to detect possible hot spots. • Activation of a warning if the hot spot exceeds a threshold. • Stops the suspect vehicles. EUROTAP EuroTAP is the European Tunnel Assessment Programme (15), a program that checks the safety of existing European tunnels. The original 1999 checklist has been enhanced regularly by following these basic rules and opinions: • German regulations RABT 2003 (directives on the equipment and operation of road tunnels). • Recommendations of UNECE (United Nations Eco- nomic Commission for Europe) expert group on the safety of road tunnels, December 2001. • Opinions of PIARC (World Road Association) and CEDR (Conference of European Directors of Roads). • EU Directive 2004/54/EC (16). • National rules of the six major European tunnel states: Italy, Austria, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. By 2004, a total of 144 tunnels had been tested. SOLIT The Safety of Life in Tunnels (SOLIT) project was spon- sored by the German government. More than 50 large- scale tests were performed. Extrapolating from free-burn data, researchers calculated that the fire load of an HGV with idle pallets could grow to 180 MW (614 MBtu/hr). Water mist systems reduced the HRR to 20 to 50 MW (68–171 MBtu/hr). L-SURF Large Scale Underground Research Facility on Safety and Security (L-surF) studied safety and security in enclosed underground spaces of high importance for tunnel fires, terror attacks in metros, and so forth from March 2005 to May 2008 (17). However, the European Union’s (EU’s) competence related to safety and security is largely unstructured, frag- mented, and mostly national oriented. Especially missing is a large-scale research facility and the coordination and synergy of existing facilities. Within the design study for L-surF, all relevant aspects for such a facility were elaborated to a level that the facility could be established, at least as a legal entity with the necessary structures and activities. Preliminary con- cepts and plans for the physical construction are described. L-surF is a design study within the Sixth Framework Program of the European Community and involves the cooperation of five of Europe’s leading institutions on safety and security for underground facilities in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. EGSISTES EGSISTES, a French project funded by the National Research Agency, is a global evaluation of intrinsic safety and security for underground transport systems. It is a 3-year project dedi- cated to the evaluation of global security in underground infra- structures (January 2007 to January 2010). EGSISTES includes three work packages: 1. Vulnerability analysis • Risk analysis and • Accidental risk and threat. 2. Knowledge improvement and model development for consequences evaluation • Experimental approach (fire, explosion, gas disper- sion) and • Numerical simulation (one-dimensional and three- dimensional numerical tools). 3. Existing tools capability evaluation. One the most important projects at the European level is the HySafe network of excellence (18, 19) and projects such as HyTunnel and InsHyde, which were directly addressing the safety of hydrogen vehicles in confined spaces. In addition, a HyApproval project goal is to make a “handbook for approval of Hydrogen refueling stations” that will be used to certify public hydrogen filling stations in Europe. The objectives of the HyTunnel project were to: • Review tunnel regulations, standards, and practice with respect to the management of hazards and emergencies, such as the European Community directive. • Identify appropriate accident scenarios for further investigation.

• Review previously published experimental and model- ing work. • Extend the understanding of hydrogen hazards inside tun- nels by physical experiments and numerical modeling. • Suggest guidelines for the safe introduction of hydrogen- powered vehicles into tunnels. During the course of the project, ten experiments were per- formed with hydrogen and compressed natural gas (CNG), as well as benchmark exercises for the numerical simulations. The small- and large-scale tests show the various combustion regimes according to the size of the cloud (air-hydrogen) and the concentration of hydrogen in the mixture. In addition to the results gained, the HyTunnel project has revealed needs for further research, in particular on the fol- lowing topics: • Realistic scenarios in tunnels (release downwards under the vehicle) with delayed ignition of nonuniform mixtures. • Scientifically grounded requirements to the location and parameters of PRD. • Impinging jet fires and conjugating heat transfer in con- ditions of blow down. • Releases into congested space with Deflagration to Detonation Transition (DDT). • Development of hydrogen safety engineering method- ology and applying it to a tunnel scenario. In general, the project improved the modeling of small releases and led to a better understanding of the hydrogen dispersion and combustion phenomena. The project delivered a 90-page document entitled Initial Guidance for Using Hydrogen in Confined Spaces (19). SUMMARY There are a number of recently completed and on-going proj- ects on tunnel safety and design for tunnel fires in the United States and Europe. Each project addresses different compo- nents of design practice for tunnel fires. The findings of these projects are essential for understanding fire dynamics in tunnels and for developing prevention and protection means against tunnel fires. The most important recent U.S. projects were: • Prevention and Control of Highway Tunnel Fires (FHWA-RD-83-032) (7 ). • Making Transportation Tunnels Safe and Secure [NCHRP Report 525/TCRP Report 86 (1)]. • International Technology Scanning Program (Under- ground Transportation Systems in Europe: Safety, Oper- ations, and Emergency Response) (2). • National Tunnel Scan. 16 The most important recent international projects were: • UPTUN – Development of innovative technologies. Focus was on technologies in the areas of detection and monitoring, mitigating measures, influencing human response, and protection against structural damage. The main output is a set of innovative cost-effective technologies. – Development, demonstration, and promotion of pro- cedures for safety-level evaluation, including decision support models, as well as knowledge transfer. The main output was a risk-based evaluating and upgrad- ing model. • FIT – Optimized research efforts to reach critical mass and enhance the impact at the European level by combin- ing the results of the different projects. – Established a set of consultable databases with essen- tial knowledge on fire in tunnels. – Developed recommendations on design fires for tunnels. – Developed a European consensus for fire safe design on the basis of existing national regulation, guide- lines, codes of practices, and safety requirements. – Defined best practices for tunnel authorities and fire emergency services on prevention and training, acci- dent management, and fire emergency operations. • DARTS—Durable and Reliable Tunnel Structures. • SafeT—developed guidelines for the safety of existing tunnels by the prevention and mitigation of tunnel fire effects. • SIRTAKI—Safety Improvement in Road and Rail Tun- nels using an advanced intensive decision support system. • Virtual Fires—developed a simulator that allows for the training of fire fighters in the efficient mitigation of tunnel fires, using a computer-generated virtual environment. • Safe Tunnel with the basic goals of – Increasing awareness of vehicle status to avoid tun- nel access to those vehicles with detected or immi- nent anomalies. – Achieving tele-control surveillance of vehicle speed inside a tunnel. • EuroTAP—European Tunnel Assessment Programme— Inspection and testing of existing tunnels. • SOLIT (Safety of Life in Tunnels)—with the goal of per- forming fire load testing and study water mist systems in tunnels. • L-surF—Large Scale Underground Research Facility on Safety and Security. • EGSISTES—a global evaluation of intrinsic safety and security for underground transport systems. HyTunnel and InsHyde directly address the safety of hydrogen vehicles in confined spaces.

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 415: Design Fires in Road Tunnels information on the state of the practice of design fires in road tunnels, focusing on tunnel fire dynamics and the means of fire management for design guidance.

Note: On September 20, 2011, the following errata was released related to NCHRP Synthesis 415. The electronic version of the publicaiton was changed to reflect the corrections.

On pages 106 and 107, an incorrect reference was cited. In the final paragraph on page 106, the last sentence should read: One study came to the conclusion that, although some minimum water application rates would achieve a certain objective, a marginally higher rate would not necessarily improve the situation (79). The figure caption for Figure 35 at the bottom of page 107 should read: FIGURE 35 NFPA 13, NFPA 15, and other International Water Application Rates (79).

The added reference is as follows:

79. Harris, K., “Water Application Rates for Fixed Fire Fighting Systems in Road Tunnels,” Proceedings from the Fourth International Symposium on Tunnel Safety and Security, A. Lönnermark and H. Ingason, Eds., Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Mar. 17–19, 2010.

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