Safety-related current state of knowledge

of road tunnel users in Greece

2nd Eastern European Tunneling Conference

Tunnelling in a Challenging Environment
Making tunnelling business in difficult times
September 28 October 1 2014, Athens, Greece

K. Kirytopoulos1,2, K. Kazaras2, P. Papapavlou2 & I. Tatsiopoulos2

1
School of Natural and Build Environments, Barbara Hardy Institute, University of
South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

2
School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens,
Athens, Greece
 Introduction

Tunnels key element of modern transportation and a cost

effective engineering solution

Greece is ranked 4th for the absolute number of road tunnels

longer than 500 m belonging to the Trans-European road
Network

Increasing number of tunnels is a double-edged sword

Severity of accidents (Mont Blanc etc)
Introduction
ROAD TUNNEL SAFETY
Human Element

Key factor
Tunnel Control
infrastructure Centre How an accident occurs
and the way it evolves

Road
Vehicles 95% of accidents caused
tunnel
by human error
users
 Introduction

European Commission issued the Directive 2004/54/EC,

suggests information campaigns in order to promote road
tunnel safety

Evaluation of users awareness and state of knowledge

so as to identify the knowledge gaps

Despite the great increase in road tunnels the last

decade, there hasnt been conducted any relevant
information campaign or survey
 Method

Internet Survey (through sites, forums, social media, etc)

Closed type questionnaire (scenarios and questions were

based on extensive literature review)

Pilot testing

Due to methodology there cannot be generalization to the

whole population

(Although considerations can be raised about whether the

sample is representative of the population no clear
conclusions can be drawn as there are no official records for
statistics related to demographic variables of Greek drivers)
 Participants profile

from May to August 2012

1243 responses

Demographic and other variables:

Gender Gender
Driving
Education
Experience
Agedriver
Professional
100% (TAXI, Bus, HGV)
50%
50%
42.6%
University 85.5%
Age 100%
40% 40%
80%
32.0%
40.5%
80.8% 96.8%

30%
80%
30% 25.9% 25.4%
25.4%

Driving experience
Percentage 20%
Percentage 60%
60%
High School
20%
14.0%
(TAXI,
,
40% > 3,5)
Percentage 10%10% 7.1%
Professional driver less than High
40%school 0.5%
19.2% 1.1%
0%20%
0%
20% 0-6
18-25 26-35 7-12
36-50 51-65 13+ 66+
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Education level 0%
0% 3.2% Years driving
Age groups (inFemale
Male
Percentage
years)
Yes No
6
 Statistical analysis

Have you received any information about road tunnels safety?

100%

77.9%
80%


60%
Percentage
40% :
22.1%
20%

0%
Yes No

People who have been informed about road tunnels safety tend to
answer correctly and adopt recommended behaviours in higher
percentages
 Statistical analysis

Users basic knowledge:

27.3% declared that they do not know how they

can receive information by the tunnel control centre
in case of an emergency.

47.7% stated that they do not know how to use fire

extinguishers.

66.6% believe that in order to use the emergency phones, one must
dial the specific number of the authority to ask for help
 Statistical analysis
In case of an emergency, when the tunnel is blocked, drivers are allowed
to exit the tunnel by driving in reverse gear or by making a U-turn

8.3%
TRUE 8.8%

57.5%
FALSE 57.9%

34.2%
I don' t know 33.4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Percentage

Females more likely to evacuate by driving in reverse gear

People having received information on the road tunnel safety
respond in a higher
percentage with the correct answer in both questions
Age and experience have a positive impact
 Statistical analysis
While driving in the tunnel, the control signals are turned from green to red. How do you react?

Reduce speed and continue driving through the tunnel 60.1%

Stop driving and wait for further information 24.0%

Continue driving normally through the tunnel in order to search further information 12.1%

Stop the vehicle and evacuate the tunnel 3.7%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Percentage

tunnel users are prone to ignore control signals and continue their
route since there are many reasons for them to reach their
destination
People have a reason for travelling and they are reluctant to stop
their route unless they face the danger.
 Statistical analysis

While driving in the tunnel you face a burning vehicle in your direction. What would you do?

Carefully overtake the burning vehicle 27.1%

Stop the car immediately and evacuate the tunnel 25.5%

Come closer to the burning vehicle and try to extinguish the fire 24.5%

Make a U-turn or evacuate the tunnel in reverse gear 4.7%

Stop the vehicle, close the windows and wait for help 18.2%

0% 10% 20% 30%

The priority in self-rescue rather than fighting the fire should be crystal
clear.

An effect was observed between familiarity with fire extinguishers and

intension to come closer to the burning vehicle to extinguish the fire
(2=20.720, df=6, p<.001).
 Statistical analysis

While driving via a tunnel, smoke emits from your vehicle. What is your first reaction?

I stop driving immediately and try to extignuish the fire with a fire extinguisher 35.8%

I stop driving immediately and I abandon my vehicle in order to exit the tunnel 0.6%

If possible, I continue driving and try to exit the tunnel 38.5%

I stop driving immediately and I inform the tunnel's control center about the incident via an emergency telephone 25.1%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

Conclusions

Several misconceptions on the road tunnel safety

Greek road tunnel users are not aware of the recommended

behaviours in both normal and emergency situations (Intensive
campaigns have not been performed in Greece)

Consistently with previous studies, the results of this work

highlight that drivers tend to underestimate the danger of a
tunnel accident and act like if driving in an open road

People are influenced by the behaviour of others, so even

if few of them would adopt the recommended behaviour
in case of an emergency this would be an important
prompt for the rest of the tunnel population
Limitations and further research

Considering the emotional state during an emergency, it is

always possible to observe deviations from the declared
behaviour

Interview road tunnel operators so as to confirm if people act

in real conditions as they have stated in this survey

Conduct evacuation experiments and field research so as to

better comprehend human behaviour in the road tunnels
domain

Another future work could concentrate on drivers of dangerous

goods vehicles
 Part of this research has been co-financed by the European
Union and Greek national funds through the
Thank you
Operational for attending
Program "Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship" of
the National Strategic Reference
Framework Research Funding Program: Support of SME
EETC 2014
clusters for Research & Technological
Development activities.
This research has been undertakenPapapavlou Panagiotis
by the companies SIEBEN,
Mediascape and SYNERGEIA
with the National Technical University of Athens - Laboratory of
Industrial of this research has been contact:
co-financed by the
European Union and Greek national papapavlou.pan@gmail.com
funds through the
Operational Program "Competitiveness and
Entrepreneurship" of the National Strategic Reference
Part of this research
Framework Research hasFunding
been co-financed by the of SME
Program: Support
European
clusters forUnion and Greek
Research national funds through the
& Technological
Operational
Development Program
activities."Competitiveness and
Entrepreneurship"
This research has been of the National by
undertaken Strategic Reference
the companies
Framework
SIEBEN, and SYNERGEIA
Research Funding Program: Support of SME
clusters
with thefor Research
National & Technological
Technical University of Athens -
Development
Laboratory ofactivities.
Industrial Engineering as a scientific
consultant-subcontractor.g as a scientific consultant-
This research has been undertaken by the companies
subcontractor.
SIEBEN, Mediascape and SYNERGEIA with the National