October 26, 2020, Asturias, Spain |

SICE to remodel six tunnels of the Cantabrian expressway (A-8)

The tunnels of El Carmen, Llovio, Tezangos, El Fabar, Arena de Morís and Duesos, in the Ribadesella and Caravia section, will be adapted to the European Safety Directive.

Thanks to the award of the project “Safety in Tunnels of the Spanish Road Network” by the Ministry of Infrastructure, six tunnels of the Cantábrico expressway, which will increase their safety within the upcoming months.

El Carmen, Llovio, Tezangos, El Fabar, Arena de Morís and Duesos: located in the Ribadesella-Caravia stretch. In all of these, SICE, subsidiary of ACS Group, will adapt the control facilities to the current regulations, while minimally affecting traffic (alternatives have been presented to reduce interference to the bare minimum).

Additionally, SICE will migrate the tunnels’ management system to the new SIDERA OP open control platform, which makes transport infrastructures smarter. This modern traffic management system uses cutting edge technological tools that will provide a greater degree of control while the works are being carried out as well as in the upcoming maintenance and operation tasks.

Road tunnels are a singular element with special characteristics that require specific care, since any issues within them could rapidly become very serious due to the specific conditions of these places: difficulty to evacuate or rescue, closure of different sections lacking alternative routes, etc.

Increasing safety in infrastructures is one of the main goals of transport: improvement of design and construction characteristics, increasing their efficiency, and guaranteeing that the appropriate safety conditions take place which are included in the European Directive, focusing on reducing the incidence of accidents on the road networks of the Member States.

Spain has specific regulations in terms of tunnel safety of the Spanish Road Network: Royal Decree 635/2006. In this regard, the Ministry of Infrastructures has designed an Adaptation Plan for the tunnels on the Spanish Network that strives to guarantee that it adapts to the regulations, which provide the framework for the actions that are carried out in these six tunnels and that SICE is also undertaking in the San Simón tunnel (Huesca).

When tackling a possible emergency situation as in the case of the daily management of the infrastructure, the SIDERA OP comprehensive management system, the open platform developed by SICE, enables monitoring of all the devices of the tunnels to guarantee a maximum level of safety and operativity. In other words, the SIDERA software platform enables the management of traffic and of possible accidents, providing surveillance, security, emergency management, electrical and mechanical management, etc., and it collects the data related to road operation and performance.

Thanks to its extensive trajectory (nearly 100 years) and its broad international experience, SICE has become a technological leader in smart tunnel management. Today, SIDERA manages over 2,500 km of roads and 346 km of tunnels on a global level. SICE’s technology has been installed in some of the largest tunnels in the world, which are also considered the safest: SR99 in Seattle, the Port of Miami tunnel, several segments of the Sydney WestConnex (the largest transport project in Australia), Waterview Connection (New Zealand), the Gambetta tunnel in Lima (Peru), etc. Domestically, SICE has undertaken the tunnels of Caldearenas, Arguis, and Escusaguas in Huesca, as well as the total integration of the Calle 30 tunnels in Madrid; doubtlessly one of the greatest challenges this platform has faced in the last 25 years.