2004 IEEE intelligent Transprtation Systems Conference
1
Washington, D.C., USA, October 36,2004
Attilio Sacripanti
SIT1 ( Safety In Tunnel Intelligence)
An Italian global project
Issue on Tunnel Safety
The problem of accidents in tunnel is an
already open issue, in particular in Italy, due
to its morphology. In our country all the
typologies (except under marine tunnels), are
covered by more than 2000 km of roadway
and rail way tunnels located. For example we
have the 95% of short roadway tunnel < 1000
m till to the 12,900 Km of Frejus.
Fire in Tunnel is not a very simple matter for
our knowledge [1,2] as Figure 1 displays
dramatically.
Fig. 1 Monte Bianco tunnel
Fire accidents in tunnel are dangerous and
heavy, mainly for three reasons.
First, for the related human life problems, like
the 39 human deaths in the Monte Bianco
accident (Fig.]), and the 12 deaths and the 59
injured Tauem accident, [3]
(Fig. 2)
PG. mw e Y I h - L $
. k ,”lm(..ii
Secondly for the severe structural damages
like: large zone of spalling (detachment and
explosion of concrete), or concrete and
underlying ground cracks, steel damages, and
destruction of the tunnel finish equipments,
0-7803-8500-4/04/$20.0002004 IEEE
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TuB5.
that accounts for the tunnel restoration very
high price (about 300 Million Euros only for
the Monte Bianco tunnel).
Third for the time of restoration and the
related economical loss.
Today in Italy the 98% of goods are carried by
trunks, from the South of Italy to the North
Europe.
(For example: from the 1965, 50 million cars
and tmnks passed through only the Monte
Bianco Tunnel).
Particularly in Italy until now, safety against
the maximum accident, as fire in tunnel, is: a
matter of ‘)passive” approach to the problem; a
collection of separate problems among road,
rail and underground tunnels; a problem very
far from the application of more integrate and
innovative technologies, normally applied in
advanced transportation fields like ITS or
other structures advanced in safety like
Nuclear Power Plant; a vision restricted only
to the Tunnel boundaries.
In contrast with this old and pragmatic vision,
in July 2000 by ENEA, under the Prof.
Ruhbia’s patronage and the author’s
coordination, FIT (Fire In Tunnel) project was
proposed. Initially its texture embraced a set
of 18 research sub-projects [ 5 ] ; today this first
“meta project” is evolved in SIT1 (Safety In
Tunnel Intelligence), a more solid set of 35
sub-projects among ENEA, National
Industries and Italian Universities; for about
20 million Euro in three years, approved by
the Italian Research Ministry and submitted by
TRAIN Consortium. In the next paragraphs,
the stale of the art, the current evolution of
tunnel safety, and the SIT1 Project
philosophical approach will be discussed in a
necessarily short way.
The state of the art-
1. Highway
For long-one tube tunnel, the last word on
safety is certainly the Monte Bianco
equipment stmctured system.
The technological apparatus of the tunnel
increased until the actual 41 video cameras for
521
 traffic control, 116 safety boxes (with visual
variable messages), 72 emergency places
(every 300 m with phone and extinguisher ),
15 tuming-bays (evely 600 m allows rescue
vehicles to operate in the tunnel), 116 new
aspiration ores, and fresh air ventilation on
one new underway emergency exit, two
control room a computerized help for
emergency, three special "Giano" fire brigade
trunk, posted 24 h a day, (one in the middle of
tunnel the other two at the opposite
extremities) [4]
In Japan, some time ago, tunnels were
categorized in five level, in term of dangerous
structures and decreasing severity class:
AA, A, B, C, D, and
I'.. .the categorization is determined in such
way, that a probabiIity of one accident every
22 miIIion vewh is ensured, regardless of
tunnel length and traffic volume.. ,
As matter of fact, it means to consider one
unified safety approach providing a nearly
equal safety level, for all tunnels!
In Japan many further studies have been
performed also about evacuation systems,.
From the experience of earthquake, vantages
and disvantages of principles, utilized in the
system for people evacuation, are analysed in
order to find the best way to obtain more easy
exit and to lower time-queues, very dangerous
during fire accidents.
1. Railway
The most advanced safety organization for
railway tunnel is, up to now, in the opinion of
the author, the systems utilized in the undersea
Euro Tunnel. As it is well known, this tunnel
was designed with a service tunnel between
the north and the south running tunnels. After
the 1996 fre accident, inside safety systems
have been improved much more. Fortunately,
this accident occurred with no deaths or
seriously injured, but the damages were very
high, nevertheless the very big emergency
organization involved: about 450 firemen
from France and England, who exhausted at
least 250 oxygen portable reservoirs. [5]
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In spite of this very effective and rapid safety
response the Channel Tunnel was closed no
less than 15 days for restoration.
3. Underground
The underground safety system is the most
complicated situation, especially for the
evacuation problems from the tunnels or the
stations until to 1100 people in Philadelphia in
Sept.6 1979. In the annual of statistics it is
possible to find that between the years 71 -87
it was possible to count around the world
about 30 significant metro fires, including also
the tragedy example of the King's Cross
Underground Station fire (1987), with 31
passengers killed in the hall of the station.
4. Risk Analysis
Quantification of risk is the main way to
." perform a good safety approach. Risk analysis
started in the US for the nuclear power plants.
This methodology was also applied to road
and rail, in E.U. especially in the northem
countries. In Denmark, it was applied to both
road and railway about in 1970. In Germany
in 1983 was edited the Safety Concept for
Tunnels in New Railway,
applied to the new high-speed rail. One study
on the risk [6] conceming the dangerous
goods through the tunnel
(OECD-PIARC-E.U.) 1999 is showed in Fig 3
as total risk of open route versus tunnel route
(frequency iyr - fatalities)
7- ~-l-nN"n* -m
lm mm rmm
Wt""b.r*'We+.
In Italy, until now, PRA is very far from
tunnels, roads or, other transport systems, but
a new E.U. Directive, asking for it, is in
preparation.
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 The SITI innovative vision
1. Static v/s Dynamic consideration.
The first different and meaningful approach,
applied in SIT1 was a comparative evaluation
among new and old highway, road, railroad
and underground tunnels.
This methodological approach showed clearly
that classical safety vision, until now utilized,
must be improved at light of the new results
obtained.
This study let us not only to understand the
deeper differences among highway, roadway
and underground tunnel safety, but very
important, it lets to clarify unknown
similarities and methodological connections.
The aim of the project is the application of ITS
technologies with regard to prevention;,
intervention and restoration of sever accidents
in tunnels [7,8,9,10,1I].
For example, interactive Virtual Reality, that
will be the actual border in the ITS projects,
could be very useful as operational support in
emergency situations for long tunnel, (by
sending, a 3DVR interactive image of the
tunnel, without smoke, with thermal field and
car positions inside, to the Fire Brigade before
intervention).
This comparative analysis of tunnel safety let
us to introduce and define the concept of
“Dynamic Tunnel”, a different point of view,
that is opposite, for example, to the Japanese
unified safety vision.
A conclusion of this analyses is that,
considering some kinetics parameters, one
tunnel is never equal to itself.
In other words, each tunnel has its own degree
of risk, variable during the daytime [ 5 ] .
Would this approach be useful to Safety?
Substantially it is !
At first, it underlies the importance of the
dynamic evolution of the system, or the time
dependence role of the kinetic parameters, and
for second it underlies the necessity of a
systemic vision for tunnel safety.
These two important improvements are the
basis of the safety methodology named:
“Effective Safety” that will be built with the
SITI research project.
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Till now the tunnels are described by “Static”
parameters as length, width, height, historic
number of accident and so on.
Now in the “Dynamic” vision, the tunnel
description will be extended by new random
parameters, changeable in time, as: infensip of
traflc flow, ageing of the system structures,
etc. Naturally, this tunnel “dynamical”
description is connected to the stochastic
properties linking his risk state to a
straightforward time dependence, (for ex. in
“dynamic” roadway tunnels description, it is
necessary to bring-in new parameters as
“dynamic probabilistic occupancy”[5 1, hazard
rate functions, etc. [12]). The most important
parameter in term of “probabilistic
occupancy”, for road tunnel, is the car number
point flow, while, for railway and
underground tunnel, this parameter is the
people number flow.
In time-space, Poisson discrete distribution
describes road traffic phenomena, for which
the average probability of a passage is
constant in time and independent on the
number of previous event, [5] in this situation,
the order of events cannot be interchanged.
Baccelli, Hasenfuss and Schmidt [I31 give
some probabilistic conditions based on
coupling, for a Poisson point process; these
authors connect these conditions to the
queuing theory in a homogeneous Markov
process.
In fluid queues with several merging inputs,
stochastic integrals are used for describing the
total amount of cars aniving during a time
interval of random length.
If we pay attention to the probability of a
traffic accident in a tunnel, the time dependent
hazard function rate could have the special
form derived by the Weibull three parameters
distribution.
This last could describe traffic phenomena for
which the accident is a random occurrence.
So, those ones are accidents for which the
hazard rate function h (t) would be decreasing
for safety. systems or increasing with a
snowballing effect for the rise of cars dynamic
probabilistic occupancy in the tunnel.:
 rapid evacuation, are fundamental
arguments in the
. - ,

This last tragic occurrence will be verified if, emergency planning. However, it will be
regarding the Weibull parameters, the useful to consider these aspects also
following conditions are satisfied during the project phase of tunnel in a sort
a >1; p ’0; 0 5 5 5 t 5 m. of system planning safety organization.
The most general models of hazard rate The systemic vision underlies same
functions are the Multivariate Conditional problems for underground. The system
Hazard Rate Functions. With these general focalised for the underground by the time
functions it is possible to introduce a dependent risk analysis is formed not only
hazard rate ordering, among some by the upper road system (for intervention)
“dynamic” parameters, by introducing the but also by the complex incoming tunnel,
notion of positive dependence for station, out-coming tunnel. In addition,
dependent random lifetime parameters. also in this case it is easily to understand
This notion is useful for ordering kinetic that project engineering must take account
parameters by special weights. of these problems in the early phase of the
In SITI project many preventive ideas new underground project. Safety is driven
have been transferring from ITS world to by two principles:
tunnel safety. As examples: vehicle a) minimization of technical breakdowns;
control (in case of dangerous b) minimization of human error.
transportation) named “Aware Vehicle”;, But it worth’s to remember that it is not
possible to improve a safe system like a
communication between “Intelligent
Nuclear Power Plant over one accident per 10
Tunnel” and “Aware Vehicle”, control of
million (in term of safety unity- like running
traffic, interaction between flow traffic time, passenger per km and so on). Achieving
management and “Intelligent Tunnel”, and a total safety beyond this minimum quantity of
so on. The topic of the ITS application in accident is practically impossible. The
SITI was the optimisation of emergency solution of the overall problem depends on the
planning derived by time dependent risk global safety of the complete system. Then,
analysis, [14,15,16,17,18,19] for fire accident when safety of one part of one old system is
in all kind of tunnels, without forgetting the improved it means that you must implement
paramount importance of the system in which this part by an addition, rather than an
the tunnel is embedded. optimisation of the part. These actions make
the system increasingly complex. Really this
The integrated approach. means that the old system tends to be ageing
1. The systemic vision. or over regulated, in one world “rigid”, and
As it is shown by the time dependent risk the accident very often results from a
analysis it is not possible to consider the combination of factors none of which can
tunnel as a simply tube for example in a alone cause an accident, or even a serious one,
mountain. In the new dynamic vision, it is therefore such combination of “silly”
capital for highway tunnel analysis to pay situations is difficult to detect or to recover
attention to the connected route system using traditional analysis, [20] (remember the
burning role of butter in Bianco fire).
before and after the tunnel. The
2. The “Effective Safety” concept.
availability of access for having support in
SITI project deeply revised the overall
easy and short time, the capability of a approach of the tunnels safety. So in this new
kind of approach, instead of Japanese

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 methodology, there are no tracks of the unified
categorization of tunnel risk, independent
from his length or his traffic volume, nor of
classic risk analysis result like a certain
number of death every “tot” years and so on.
In effect, the use of time dependent risk
analysis added to ITS technologies breeds the
methodological concept of “Effective Safety”
for each tunnel in his System. It seems
obvious that a short tunnel does not need the
same safety equipments of a long one, hut
what about a long connected series of short
ones?
The concept of “Effective Safety” is a flexible
methodology applicable to every tunnel in his
system situation.
It comes from different linked sources, like
the concept of “Djmamic Tunnef’, derived by
the time dependent risk analysis, the studies
about the system ageing or the response
capabilify against fire accident, the
application of the proper technologies, the
optimisation o f emergency response, the
integration of the system conditions to the
tunnel conditions, (for example a lot of very
near short tunnels connected by a roadway like
Autostrada dei trafori in Italy), the
consideration of different time scenarios, ex.
This flexible methodology is expressed by the
following three time steps, considering the
proper tunnel system description:
A) Preventive -
a) Interactive safety between tunnel and
aware vehicle;
b) Active safety between intelligent tunnel or
control robot (for short tunnels) and all
vehicles;
B) Interventionist -
Fire detection and suppression systems;
C) Synergetic -
Emergency optimization by interactive VR
and intelligent decision support systems and
emergency operators
The division in three logical and integrated
time blocks of the safety measures, allows us
to approach the risk in more flexible way for
each kind of tunnel, and with the ITS
technologies utilized it is possible also to
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minimize the heavy time dependence of the
problem, but it is important to remember that a
chain is no stronger than its weakest link. The
comparative evaluation force us to observe
that “Effective Safety” for roadway claims
that road tunnel needs to become intelligent,
with first target car safety, and indirect
primary target people safety. Instead
“Effective Safety” shows us that for rail and
underground tunnel, such kind of approach
is unsafe, it is very effective that train
becomes intelligent and not tunnel. Again
with primary target train safety and indirect
primary target people safety.
3. SITI
The overview of 35 integrated research
projects.
At the end, we show the complete connected
organization of the SITI Project the
description of dynamic environment goes
throughout a very deep understanding of the
global kinetics of the overall “dynamic
parameters” describing the new concept of
“Dynamic Tunnel”:
Underground diagnostic. Intelligent Tunnel
system. Human Factors pre andpost accident.
Aware Trunk. Intelligent Door Training
ovganization systems. Classical risk analysis.
Classical Risk monitoring. Source term. 3 0
snioke propagation study. Themzal
qualifications of structural tunnel materials
.Therm0 structural models.
Thermo structural superstructure models .
Geothecnical analysis. Underground cars
inflammable project principles. Emergency
simulation systems. Queues management
simulation systems. Emergency lightning
systems. Heat exchange among air-water and
concrete. Fire suppression system. Control
and Emergency Robot. Smoke detection
system. Interactive Virtual Reality Tunnel
model . Intelligent decision support system .
Inshtmentation for infrastructures.
Time dependent risk analysis. Application to
individual and collective risk . Cost benefit
analysis. Validation risk analysis. Validation
RAMS. Fractalfront flame modelling.
Reliability of electronic safety system.
Infield experimentationsfor prototypes.
 [I61 R. Webby, M. O'Connor Judeemental and
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