Plenary broadcast

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Programme

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13.00  Opening

Eric Leca, the president of the steering committee of Beyond a tunnel vision, officially opened the conference. Your plenary hosts were Karin de Haas (COB) and Steve Phillips (CEDR).

13.10  Strategic round table discussion

In a round table set-up decision makers from public infrastructure managers engaged in a dialogue with representatives from the EC, industry and supporting research organisations on setting the direction for innovation collaboration over the next ten to twenty years.
Issues to be addressed included:

• Resolving the many current knowledge gaps in order to transit from reacting to unexpected incidents to predictive maintenance and renovation from a lifecycle, risk-based approach.
• Harvesting benefits from digitalisation in order to reinforce resilience and sustainability of tunnels
• Reinforcing professional competence development across the delivery chain in anticipation of changing societal needs and demands, such as smart mobility and cybersecurity.

At the table:

• Jürg Röthlisberger, CEDR president, ASTRA/FEDRO, Switzerland
  Representing the common perspective from the Swiss situation as director of the Federal Roads Agency as well as the 29 national road authorities in the Conference of European Directors of Roads.
• Jan Slager, programme director Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands
  Representing the perspective from the Dutch national programme for infrastructure replacement and renewal.
• Michael Ebbesen, director of operations and maintenance, and Gert Didriksen von der Ahé, director of technology, Denmark
  Representing the Danish Road Directorate and the administrative authority for the Fehmarnbelt tunnel consortium.
• Stefan Maurhofer, president of the EUTF, Switzerland
  Nine countries collaborating on a joined action plan/research agenda for tunnel innovation (both rail and road).
• Robert Missen, head of unit, research and innovation, DG Mobility and Transport, European Commission
  Representing the European Commission DG MOVE.

13.30 BREAK

13.35 Theme Asset management

Trond Michael Andersen, deputy director manager at the department of technology, operation and maintenance at the NPRA shared their views on predictable maintenance, life cycle thinking, the changed role of the tunnel manager, etc.

13.40 Theme Predictive maintenance

The first results of the tunnel programme 2030 were introduced. This joined effort by The Netherlands and Flanders lets 22 tunnels get a structural health analysis to bring more focus in the renovation task and close structural knowledge gaps. A virtual practice environment was launched, to play and practice with instruments. This system has been arranged by TNO/Deltares. Tom Roelants (DG Flanders) en Paul Carstens (ProRail) responded to the demonstration.

13.55 Theme Tunnel safety

ITA Cosuf and the PIARC tunnel committee have worked together on future tunnel safety challenges like new energy carriers. The highlights of this cooperation were discussed with Ingo Kaundinya, chair of PIARC Technical Committee 4.4 ‘Tunnels’, and Max Wietek, president of ITA Cosuf. Claude Van Rooten, president of PIARC, will shared his view as well as Jürg Röthlisberger on behalf of CEDR.

14.05 BREAK

14.10 Theme Lessons learned

Monitoring and inspection have to be brought to a higher level considering the huge renovation task. How does the Italian tunnelling community cope with this challenge? Interview with Andrea Pigorini, president of the Italian Tunnelling Society and responsible for the infrastructure engineering department at Italferr (the engineering society of the Italian state railways group).

14.15 Theme Adding value in tunnel renovations

Interview with René List, project leader renovation of thirty tunnels by ASFINAG /ASECAP (Austria). The renovations were combined with implementing cutting edge innovations in sustainability. He shared his results as starting point of a discussion with Jan Slager from Rijkswaterstaat about national investment programmes for renewal and renovation and how to invest and program in renovation and innovations. Robert Missen responded on behalf of DG MOVE.

14.25 Wrap-up: Bring your own tunnel

Back to the beginning: launching the European network. The direction are set. The process for a 2021-2022 working programme for CEDR was explained as well as the alignments of national programmes to a European programme. There was a ceremonial signing of a (renewed) MOU between CEDR and PIARC by Jürg Röthlisberger (president CEDR) and Claude Van Rooten (president PIARC), Steve Phillips (secretary-general CEDR) and Patrick Mallejacq (secretary-general PIARC).

14.40 BREAK