Road tunnels: operational strategies for emergency ventilation

During normal operation, ventilation, whether natural or mechanical, is required to provide a clean air environment and to prevent the accumulation of pollutants. During emergency operation, ventilation is needed to influence the flow of smoke. Smoke control plays a key role to increase the chances of survival for tunnel users experiencing a fire, in particular during the self-rescue phase. After describing ventilation ant its essential role, the report provides a list of countries that have introduced [...]

Road safety audit guidelines for safety checks of new road projects

This guideline is a comprehensive catalogue of design safety problems and countermeasures that outlines the common types of design failures in a definitive guide for road engineers and professionals working in the road transport sector. With the UN Decade of Action soon to be launched by the World Health Organisation and a commitment to reduce road deaths through careful planning and innovative solutions the guidelines provide an excellent resource for road agencies and the private sector. The guidelines [...]

Tools for road tunnel safety management

This report is dedicated to the basic tools needed for management and decision support on road tunnel safety issues. It defines the general demands on tunnel safety documentation, referring to each of the three different stages of a tunnel project: design-construction, commissioning, operation. An overview table and detailed checklists are given. It deals with collection of incidents and their analysis. The report defines the significance of incidents to be recorded and presents the basic data [...]

PIARC Catalogue of design safety problems and potential countermeasures

This catalogue presents a set of commonly design errors and suggests a range of measures to overcome them; it also gives an indication of the comparative countermeasure costs to facilitate prioritisation of the work. The catalogue can be used both as a proactive safety tool to ensure the design faults do not arise in the first place, or a reactive safety tool to assist in designing cost-effective countermeasures where problems already exist on the road network. The situations considered are organized [...]

Road Safety Manual

After six years of diligent work led by the PIARC Technical Committee on Road Safety, this reference publication compiles the experience from different countries; it presents state-of-the-art information and guidance for the design and operation of road infrastructure in order to increase road safety. This manual is split in four parts: Part 1 is an introduction to Road Safety and gives an overview of the problem. It is designed to help transportation professionals better understand [...]