Hindhead Tunnel safety demonstration

A full scale major incident emergency exercise has been carried out in the UK’s brand new Hindhead Tunnel on the A3 in Surrey. Located just to the south of London, the A3 route carries heavy traffic volumes and the existing road link has been a major bottleneck for capacity as well as proving a safety risk for the area. The new tunnel, due to open soon will relieve traffic jams in the area and boost capacity.
April 20, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSSA full scale major incident emergency exercise has been carried out in the UK’s brand new Hindhead Tunnel on the A3 in Surrey. Located just to the south of London, the A3 route carries heavy traffic volumes and the existing road link has been a major bottleneck for capacity as well as proving a safety risk for the area. The new tunnel, due to open soon will relieve traffic jams in the area and boost capacity. However the link has also been designed with the latest safety technology and to meet the tough new European regulations on tunnel safety, introduced in the wake of two disastrous tunnel fires that caused multiple fatalities in Switzerland and Austria. At the 1.9km Hindhead Tunnel emergency crews from ambulance, fire and police services tested response times for a major incident. The staged scenario involved 16 mock casualties from two separate vehicle crashes and a serious fire underground. The emergency exercise involved 280 people and following the staged incident, car drivers, played by actors, began to walk outside to safety. Statistics suggest that a major incident can be expected in the A3 tunnel on average once every seven years, and a minor incident will lead to a tunnel closure every three years. The tunnel is due to open to traffic shortly. The link will carry some 30,000 vehicles/day and keep traffic away from the Devil's Punchbowl, a heathland site which is a special protection area for wild birds conservation.
Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision Classification & Data Collection Urban Traffic Control

Related Content

  • Substantial savings from smarter street lighting
    February 25, 2015
    As authorities strive to reduce expenditure and carbon emissions, Colin Sowman looks at some of the smart ways of managing street lighting while containing costs and maintaining safety. Street lighting can account for 40% of an authority’s energy consumption. So, faced with the need to reduce outgoings, some authorities are looking for smart ways of managing street lighting or even turning off swathes of street lights in the small hours. Back in 2008 the E-street Initiative report concluded that authorities
    Read More
  • AAA App provides step-by-step guidance following a traffic crash
    April 19, 2012
    AAA has launched the latest addition to its suite of free mobile applications with the release of the AAA Insurance app for iPhone and iPad that walks drivers through the post-traffic crash process of collecting information, photos, as well as providing one-touch access to call police and emergency services, AAA to request a tow, and the AAA Insurance claims department, for those AAA Insurance policyholders.
    Read More
  • Foundation funds research for informed campaigning
    April 29, 2015
    ITS International talks to Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the transport research and lobbying organisation, the RAC Foundation. It is through the eyes of an economist that Professor Stephen Glaister, emeritus professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London and director of the RAC Foundation, views current and future transport problems. Having spent 30 years at the London School of Economics and another 10 at Imperial, the move to the RAC Foundation was a radical departure from
    Read More
  • Too safe for safety’s sake
    October 22, 2013
    In-vehicle systems are making huge advances in vehicle safety with the introduction of ABS, collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control, lane departure alert and blind spot warning… the list goes on. But at the same time accidents are still happening and arguably getting bigger. A look at a list of multi-vehicle (30 - 300) accidents across Europe, North and South America and parts of the Middle East shows that the trend is increasing with 2013 already having witnessed seven such incidents – three of which
    Read More

Highlighted Content