Abstract
Urban road tunnels are a reasonable remedy for inconvenience due to congested road traffic. However, they bring specific threats, especially those related to the possibility of fire outbreak. This work is a case study for selected urban road tunnels. Considering tunnel specificity, road traffic intensity, and structure and based on the literature data for vehicle fire probability, the chances of a fire accident were estimated for selected tunnels in Poland. It was shown that low power tunnel fires could be expected in the 10–20-year time horizon. Although such threats cannot be disregarded, tunnel systems are designed to cope with them. The chances of a disastrous fire accident were estimated as well. Such events can occur when an HGV with flammable goods or a tanker are involved. Such accidents are fortunately very rare, but, on the other hand, that is the reason why the available data are scanty and burdened with high uncertainty. Therefore, a discussion on the reliability of the obtained results is also provided.
Highlights
Road tunnels are an important element of the transport infrastructure, allowing drivers to overcome terrain obstacles, while at the same time, shortening distance and travel time.The location and conditions for the construction of tunnels result from difficult or even impossible passage between two significant transport nodes
Road tunnels, which are built more and more often in strict city centers, effectively reduce the impact of harmful substances emitted by internal combustion engines
Some considerations on the frequency of tunnel fires and their causes based on the Someliterature considerations on the frequency of paper
Summary
Road tunnels are an important element of the transport infrastructure, allowing drivers to overcome terrain obstacles, while at the same time, shortening distance and travel time.The location and conditions for the construction of tunnels result from difficult or even impossible passage between two significant transport nodes. In the case of cities, road tunnels are an effective alternative to ring roads They run under the city centers so there is no need to plan roads around a highly urbanized city center, and the difficulties with purchasing plots of land for road construction are avoided. Road tunnels, which are built more and more often in strict city centers, effectively reduce the impact of harmful substances emitted by internal combustion engines. Examples of such solutions include tunnels in the Big Dig project on routes I-90 and I-93 near Boston in the United States, tunnels on the M-30 route around the center of Madrid, or the Yamate tunnel, measuring over 18 km, near Tokyo [1]
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