Fire and life safety provisions for a long vehicular tunnel

Abstract

Recent major incidents in European road tunnels such as the 12 km Mont Blanc Tunnel between France and Italy and the 17 km St. Gotthard Tunnel between Italy and Switzerland have caught world attention on safety in long road tunnels. These tragic incidents have resulted in loss of lives and severe damage to tunnel structures. Current publications on road tunnel fires also indicate that the major factors that contribute to the protection of life and property in road tunnels are safe tunnel layout, effective ventilation system, adequate safety equipment, good incident response strategies, proper driver behaviour, and appropriate regulatory control. This paper describes the fire and life safety provisions for the Kallang/Paya Lebar Expressway which is a major expressway in Singapore providing a link between the East Coast Parkway in the south and the Tampines Expressway in the north. It is a complex project made up of tunnels, slip roads, viaducts, open expressways and ventilation buildings. It has a total length of 12 km of which approximately 8.7 km is in tunnel. The Expressway tunnel is linked to eight entry and nine exit slip roads and will be one of the longest dual 3-lane road tunnels in Southeast Asia when completed in 2007. As the Expressway tunnel is designed as a heavy traffic urban road tunnel, it is essential that there are adequate fire and life safety provisions to allow early warning and detection of incidents, safe evacuation of motorists, and rapid access to the incident site by emergency services. This paper addresses the major fire and life safety provisions in the Kallang/Paya Lebar Expressway tunnel including: (a) Tunnel and slip road layout (b) Means of escape (c) Construction material and structural fire precautions (d) Emergency ventilation system ( e) Safety equipment and tunnel systems (f) Incident management and responses (g) Emergency services (h) Regulation and enforcement (i) Driver behaviour and awareness. Each of the above factors will contribute to the total solution of fire and life safety in the tunnel. This paper describes the design objectives of fire and life safety provisions, how each of the provisions was considered and how they were co-ordinated to form integrated emergency procedures and fire fighting strategies for the Operator and the emergency services. (A). Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. For the covering abstract see ITRD E124500.