Current safety issues in traffic tunnels

Haack, Alfred

doi:10.1016/s0886-7798(02)00013-5

Cited by 85 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…Such differences in operation environment greatly increase the drivers' visual perception load, which subsequently may lead to bad driving behavior and even accidents. This severe safety situation of the tunnel sections, especially at the entrances, has drawn the widespread attention of the highway safety experts [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study on Driver's Fixation Variation at Entrance and Inside Sections of Tunnel on Highway

Yan

Hou

Wang

et al. 2014

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

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How drivers' visual characteristics change as they pass tunnels was studied. Firstly, nine drivers' test data at tunnel entrance and inside sections using eye movement tracking devices were recorded. Then the transfer function of BP artificial neural network was employed to simulate and analyze the variation of the drivers' eye movement parameters. The relation models between eye movement parameters and the distance of the tunnels were established. In the analysis of the fixation point distributions, the analytic coordinates of fixations in visual field were clustered to obtain different visual area of fixations by utilizing dynamic cluster theory. The results indicated that, at 100 meters before the entrance, the average fixation duration increased, but the fixations number decreased substantially. After 100 meters into the tunnel, the fixation duration started to decrease first and then increased. The variations of drivers' fixation points demonstrated such a pattern of change as scatter, focus, and scatter again. While driving through the tunnels, drivers presented a long time fixation. Nearly 61.5% subjects' average fixation duration increased significantly. In the tunnel, these drivers pay attention to seven fixation points areas from the car dashboard area to the road area in front of the car.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study on Driver's Fixation Variation at Entrance and Inside Sections of Tunnel on Highway

Yan

Hou

Wang

et al. 2014

Advances in Mechanical Engineering

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“…Furthermore, the probability of a fire starting in a tunnel or the probability of an accident occurring cannot be calculated reliably since there is not a uniform, comprehensive and obligatory reporting of accidents and incidents in road tunnels (Beard and Cope, 2008). Apart from the lack of statistical data and the difficulty to calculate the probability of a tunnel accident, it is also very difficult to estimate the consequences of such accidents (Haack, 2002). It is hard to predict exactly how a fire may develop in a tunnel due to the numerous specific conditions that influence the situation (number and type of burning vehicles, location of fire, number and behavior of tunnel users, time to activate appropriate actions etc.).…”

Section: Lack Of Data and Uncertaintiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing the STAMP method in road tunnel safety assessment

2012

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After the tremendous accidents in European road tunnels over the past decade, many safety assessment methods have been proposed worldwide, most of them based on Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA). However, QRAs based on causal chains and event modeling (i.e. fault and event trees), have been subject to strong criticism for their limitations to capture the overall risk picture of complex socio-technical systems. In such systems, human and organizational factors, software errors, design flaws and the safety culture of the system are not efficiently handled by the current QRA methods and systemic accident models have been proposed as an alternative approach to better understand and manage safety. The aim of this work is to overview the limitations of current QRAs in the road tunnels field, and to introduce a STAMPbased technique as an alternative method for establishing a proactive safety strategy and evaluating the overall safety of these critical infrastructures, with the objective to overcome the QRAs limitations. The STAMP method is applied to a case study analysis in the safety critical process of tunnel ventilation during an emergency.

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“…Some tunnels still in service were constructed over 50 years ago, and many have exceeded their intended design service life [3]. Only in Europe in 2002, the overall length for operational transportation tunnels had grown up to 15000 km [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%