Conference delegates to visit dual-purpose tunnel

Delegates to the ITS AP Forum will have an opportunity to visit Kuala Lumpur’s Stormwater Management & Road Tunnel (SMART), a unique solution to the Malaysian capital’s long-term traffic and stormwater management problems – the first tunnel of its kind in the world.
March 15, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Delegates to the ITS AP Forum will have an opportunity to visit Kuala Lumpur’s Stormwater Management & Road Tunnel (SMART), a unique solution to the Malaysian capital’s long-term traffic and stormwater management problems – the first tunnel of its kind in the world. The dual-purpose tunnel can divert floodwaters away from the confluence of two major rivers running through the city centre, while its central section doubles up as a twin deck motorway to relieve traffic congestion at the main southern gateway into the city centre.

SMART, which cost some US$515M and opened to traffic in May 2007, comprises 9.5km of tunnel with the central 3km incorporating the double deck motorway. There are three modes of operation:
Mode one operates under normal conditions when low rainfall means that no water needs to be diverted into the tunnel. Moderate storms activate mode two, when floodwater is channelled into a bypass tunnel in the lower section of the motorway tunnel, enabling it to remain open to traffic; during the once or twice yearly heavy Monsoon storms a switch is made to mode three when the tunnel is closed to road traffic and the full tunnel section, with a combined capacity of three million cubic metres, becomes available to divert the dramatically increased flows of water.
Urban Traffic Control

Related Content

  • How safe are smart motorways?
    March 3, 2020
    A valiant attempt to ease the UK’s congested strategic road system? Or an idea that should never have seen the light of day? Alan Dron reports on the controversy over smart motorways...
    Read More
  • Sign language reduces human error says Clearview
    September 26, 2019
    Wrong-way warning systems and advanced queue detection can help to reduce human error. They can also cut road accidents – and therefore road deaths, says Clearview Intelligence Where were nearly 1,800 deaths on the UK’s roads in 2018 – an average of five people dying each day. The largest single cause of serious injury is crashes at junctions (accounting for 33% of incidents), while the largest single cause of death was run-off road crashes (30%) “With vehicles increasingly being designed with saf
    Read More
  • Highways Agency awards maintenance contracts to telent
    June 18, 2014
    Technology services company telent has won three prestigious five year contracts worth over US$25.4 million with the UK Highways Agency to maintain critical roadside technology across the east, south-east and M25 regions' motorways and trunk roads. telent now manages all routine and reactive maintenance for over 12,000 technology assets, such as emergency roadside telephones, message signs, traffic signal sites, the Highways Agency weather stations, CCTV cameras, tunnels and many more. The company’
    Read More
  • Reducing high levels of particles in tunnels
    March 1, 2017
    A new study from Sweden’s National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) which aims to improve understanding of the differences between inhalable particles in highway versus railway environments has indicated that older types of trains produce more particulate emissions in railroad tunnels than do newer ones. Dust binding, improved paving and reduced studded tyre use could reduce coarse particle levels in road tunnels.
    Read More

Highlighted Content