Skip to main content

London's new Silvertown Tunnel set to open

TfL says average peak journey times expected to be 20 minutes quicker
By Adam Hill January 13, 2025 Read time: 2 mins
Tunnel vision (© Hupeng | Dreamstime.com)

The new Silvertown Tunnel beneath the River Thames in the east of London, UK, is set to open on 7 April 2025.

The 1.4km-long twin-bore tunnel has two lanes per tunnel with dedicated lanes for heavy goods vehicles and buses. 

Indra has equipped the new structure with its In-Mova Traffic platform and intelligent transport systems including communication systems, radio communications network and traffic signals. 

Citilog has integrated its automatic incident detection system, which includes 59 CCTV cameras, to help reduce congestion in and around the tunnel. It provides real-time incident detection and response to enhance safety and incident management, and is designed to minimise false alarms while maintaining high detection accuracy.

Using thousands of video clips will help train an advanced network to reduce false positives, allowing operators to focus on genuine emergencies.

The new tunnel runs between the London borough of Greenwich, the peninsula area, and West Silvertown on the northern bank of the Thames.

Transport for London (TfL) says modelling shows it will help reduce congestion at the existing Blackwall Tunnel, with average journey times expected to be up to 20 minutes quicker at peak times.

It will also help manage overall air quality and allow for better cross-river public transport, TfL says, with new bus routes - free for the first year - meaning that bus crossings increase from six to 21 per hour.

While you will not be able to walk or cycle through the tunnel, a new zero-emission cycle-shuttle service is due to operate every 12 minutes, seven days a week.

Related Content

  • January 23, 2012
    Hard shoulder running aids uniform traffic flow and safer driving
    David Crawford detects a market for European experience. Well-established now in at least three European countries, Hard Shoulder Running (HSR) on motorways is exciting growing interest in the US. A November 2010 Report to Congress by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), on the Efficient Use of Highway Capacity, notes the role of HSR in the European-style Active Traffic Management (ATM) strategies now being recommended for implementation in the US where, until recently, they were virtually unknown.
  • May 22, 2012
    Video developments in automatic incident detection
    David Crawford reviews technological progress with automatic incident detection Highway safety problems are likely to intensify given recent predictions of future traffic growth across the world. In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that currently over 30,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries occur as the result of accidents on the nation’s roads each year. These figures will increase with the number of kilometres travelled each year in the US expected to gr
  • September 19, 2017
    European tunnel safety steps up a gear
    David Crawford reviews the latest safety systems installed in European tunnels. Blueprints for the safer road tunnels of the future are emerging fast as European operators invest in technologies to enhance travellers’ prospects of surviving an accident. Central to modern emergency planning is the principle that, following an incident, drivers should be enabled to rescue themselves and their passengers with the aid of prompt and correct identification and communication of the hazard. Roles for cooperativ
  • November 25, 2021
    Digital twin coming to Moscow 
    Data from the project to be used when testing unmanned vehicles and V2I connection