Studies on traffic accidents in Norwegian road tunnels

Norway is a country with nearly 900 road tunnels on national and county roads. With this number it is necessary to study accidents and other incidents in tunnels. The safety of our tunnels has also been debated in the media. The Norwegian Public Roads Administration therefore decided to do a study on traffic accidents based on police reported accidents with personal injury. The results showed that tunnels are as safe as high standard modern roads. The accident rates were,however, highest in the entrance zone and: the severity of accidents were higher in tunnels than on open roads. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.