The international FORUM of fire research directors: A position paper on future actions for improving road tunnel fire safety

Fire safety in tunnels has come in focus owing to numerous catastrophic fires and extensive monitoring in media. Casualties can be counted in hundreds and the economic damages have been enormous not only for tunnel owners but also for users and bordering communities. The recent increase in serious road tunnel fires is closely associated with the increase in the traffic volume as well as in the large number of tunnels being built in recent years. In particular, volumes transported on heavy goods vehicles have increased by 40–80% over a decade in many European countries. Today, about 75% of all goods traffic is by road, and is expected to increase by 40–60% over the next 10 years [Thamm B. The new EU directive on road tunnel safety. In: Proceedings of the international symposium on catastrophic tunnel fires (CTF), SP Swedish National Testing and Research Institute, SP Report 2004:05. p. 19–30].This FORUM position paper discusses some aspects on how to improve the design of road tunnels in order to obtain a higher level of fire safety. It discusses briefly design principles of tunnels as well as of fire safety of vehicles, use of forced ventilation systems and of active fire suppression.