Good preparedness and safe solutions in the tunnels are essential for us to achieve the vision. Fortunately, we have avoided major accidents in Norway so far, but it takes time and resources to build good preparedness so that we are able to limit the consequences of future incidents.

Fire and rescue operations in tunnels are complex work situations for emergency crews who arrive first to an incident. The ability to make correct decisions, based on the specific characteristics of the tunnels, requires well-trained task managers equipped with sufficient knowledge and skills. However, the competence of intervention managers varies considerably (Bjørnsen et al., 2022).

There are few education and training offers for tunnel fire preparedness today, and there are no requirements for either content, teaching method or the required level of competence. There is also little contact between the different phases of a tunnel's life cycle in terms of fire preparedness.

A tunnel has a long life cycle — from the planning and design phase, through the construction phase and handover to the long-term operational phase with necessary updates and rehabilitations. In all phases it is important to have a good preparedness, especially with regard to fire, which can have disastrous consequences in tunnels. New tunnels are constantly being built, both in Norway and in a number of other countries, and safety and preparedness have increasingly become a societal concern.

Both VIA, Rogaland Fire and Rescue IKS (RBR), the University of Stavanger (UiS) and Rogaland County Municipality (RFK) are working to increase knowledge about tunnel safety and preparedness, find new solutions and communicate knowledge and opportunities to the right actors — to those who can use the new within their area of responsibility. In the Erasmus+ project SAFEINTUNNELS and Capacity Lift Tunnel Safety, RBR and UiS have established new knowledge that can be applied at all stages of a tunnel's life cycle. At the conference “Tunnel — readiness in a life course”, new knowledge about both needs and solutions will be disseminated in a new and expanded setting — where the entire life course is represented. Stavanger University Hospital, Hovedrescue centralen, Salten fire and rescue IKS, Statens vegvesen and SINTEF will communicate results and experiences from their point of view.

A satisfactory level of security requires common understanding. Increased competence on preparedness in both own and other phases will be important for understanding the overall picture. Seeing the needs of all phases together will enable us to exploit synergies between the phases. But to achieve that, we need to increase the competence of the actors involved and ensure that they have a common understanding of the challenge in the different phases. In this way, the understanding of the system and the ability to succeed with the principle of cooperation are strengthened.

The work of designing educational programs requires careful assessments of what, why, and how learning takes place. In order to increase the competence of response managers and ensure adequate preparedness during incidents in tunnels, support was granted in 2020 for the Erasmus+ project SAFE IN TUNNELS, one of the objectives of which is to develop an educational programme. As part of this programme, a pilot course was conducted in Stavanger in autumn 2021. This educational program, results from the pilot course and what mechanisms are most likely to promote learning will be presented at the conference. Among other things, the results indicate that students need to be engaged in activities that emphasize problem solving and critical reflection in order to be able to understand complex situations and act effectively.

The event supports and contributes to ripple effects and follow-up activities related to the cluster activities in VIA, the training activities in SASIRO and the Tunnel Centre at Ganddal, the project SAFE IN TUNNELS and Capacity Lift Tunnel Safety. At the same time, it puts into focus the responsibility of the county council and the municipalities as tunnel owners.

The conference will be held at Sola Strand Hotel over two days: 31 May — 1 June 2022.

Cluster leader Helen Roth will lead the event. The program addresses preparedness in six tunnel phases: plan phase, design phase, construction phase, handover, operational phase, and rehabilitation. Day 1 will start with a review of experiences from the fire in the Hundvåg Tunnel. A good example of good preparedness working. Next, the posts will deal with understanding of system and uncertainty in risk management, preparedness in municipal planning, tunnel safety in the design phase, risks to road users in the operational phase and presentation of the training program developed in SAFEINTUNNELS. At the end of the day there will be an excursion to the Tunnelscenter at Ganddal with practice and demonstration under the auspices of Rogaland Fire and Rescue.

Day 2 will start with a panel reflection after the exercise the day before, as well as an evaluation. Then the topics will be emergency analysis, contingency planning and system perspective on safety in the life course of a tunnel based on Rogfast. Last post will be about the principle of cooperation in major accident incidents.

Watch the program and sign up here.