The Roertunnel is a land tunnel in the Dutch national trunk road A73. The tunnel was partially opened for traffic on the 18th of February 2008. It is the longest land tunnel for motor traffic in the Netherlands (2.45 kilometres long). The tunnel consists of two tunnel tubes, separated by an evacuation tunnel. Near the Roertunnel, the A73 also passes through another tunnel, namely the Swalmentunnel. The two tunnels differ in length but operate on very similar systems.
Automation of the largest land tunnel in the Netherlands | Roer- en Swalmentunnel
A73 tunnels
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Alex van Dalen
Managing Director
On the 18th of February, the tunnels were partially opened for traffic, although with some restrictions. Because not all the safety installations were yet ready, only one lane in each direction was opened with a speed limit of 70 km/per hour. As of the 1st of December 2009, both tunnels are open with 2 lanes in each direction and a speed limit of 100 km/per hour.
The Roer and Swalmen tunnels fall under tunnel category A, which means there is no restriction with regard to transportation of hazardous substances in the tunnels. Due to this high tunnel category, the tunnels have very high safety requirements. In order to comply with these requirements, the tunnels are equipped with a total of 53 systems, including a water mist system, CCTV, tunnel ventilation, temperature detection and a SDS system. All these systems are connected to an ABB System 800xA system. The intelligence and central control have been programmed in this 800xA system.
Batenburg IAS employees were commissioned by ABB in various phases of this project. For instance, they worked on setting up the functional and technical specifications for the software. Batenburg IAS employees also worked on building the 800xA software for the tunnel and connecting the various systems. In addition, various Batenburg IAS employees were intensively involved in the SAT and ISAT tests of the ABB system.