Partnering for the preservation of tunnels in Europe
Key issues
For the majority of European countries, the Refurbishment and Renewal of Critical Objects (tunnels and bridges) is high on the political and implementation agenda. In April 2024 the Declaration of Dublin was signed by the GB members to encourage a process of collaboration and common research on these two critical nodes. What are the key issues?
- The task is huge and acute. If these critical nodes fail, entire regions and corridors will fail, with major economic and social damage.
- The available resources are insufficient. Not only in terms of finances, but also available capacities at both clients and contractors. The feasibility of the task must be more effective and smarter.
- The costs for management and maintenance are significantly higher after renovation and existing budgets and organisations are not set up for this.
- Actual residual life is unknown in many aspects; unexpected failure is lurking.
- The social requirements (cyber security, sustainability, new fuels) make the manager uncertain: is my infrastructure object future proof after renovation?
Steps towards a transnational tunnel programme
Based on the key issues as indicated above, a document is designed with the help of CEDR members. This document, Time to maintain tunnels, presents the practical translation of the Declaration of Dublin for Tunnels. It has been built from input from national and local tunnel owners/managers from Austria, Belgium-Flanders, CERN (Europe), Denmark, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and United Kingdom in both national workshops and meetings, further detailed in the Invited sessions on the 16th of October 2024 in Antwerp, following the Beyond a tunnel vision conference. As such, this document is a stepping stone in a process of building a transnational network for effective knowledge exchange and knowledge development on the challenges of refurbishment and renewal of ageing tunnels in Europe.
Are you interested in Time to maintain tunnels? Please send an email to Ellen.vaneijk@cob.nl
Pre-conference webinar
Time to maintain tunnels
Activities 24th and 25th of June 2026 two-day workshop ‘Time to maintain tunnels’, Brussels
This years theme: Skills and resources: better, smarter, together
As part of our ongoing goal to build a European knowledge network we organize a two-day workshop for tunnel owners (both road as rail). In this workshop we share best practices, smart tooling and new insights. This years theme is: Skills and resources: better, smarter, together. Too much work, not enough staff, not sufficient budgets … this message is heard all over Europe. That means we have to be better, work smarter and evolve together into the professional assetmanagementorganisation we aim to be. Happily we don’t have to invent everything alone. Colleagues from all over Europe are ready to share what they’ve learned! From the Netherlands and Flanders we will share our (free of charge and open) e-learnings about ‘how to renovatie tunnels’ and our model to calculate the amount of working hours that a renovation takes for both owners, contractors and engineeringcompanies. We aim for contributions from every country that participates, so register now (use the green button) and share your tools, best practices or insights!
