UK’s Saltash Tunnel gets hi-tech safety upgrade

The UK's Saltash Tunnel is undergoing a major US$1.53 million upgrade to the incident detection system to provide quicker detection of vehicle fires and other incidents. The scheme will see close to 5,000m of cable installed inside the 410m tunnel on the A38 in the county of Cornwall in England. Overall design of the new system and integrated control systems are from PDS – Paul Ducker Systems – and includes smoke detectors from UK firm SICK Sensor Intelligence and SmartVision fiber-optic temperature sensi
June 4, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
More than US$1.5 million of new safety equipment is being installed in the Saltash Tunnel in England
The UK's Saltash Tunnel is undergoing a major US$1.53 million upgrade to the incident detection system to provide quicker detection of vehicle fires and other incidents.


The scheme will see close to 5,000m of cable installed inside the 410m tunnel on the A38 in the county of Cornwall in England.

Overall design of the new system and integrated control systems are from PDS – Paul Ducker Systems – and includes smoke detectors from UK firm 3316 SICK Sensor Intelligence and SmartVision fiber-optic temperature sensing systems from AP Sensing in Germany. Way-finding signs are from Roomfoss.

All the systems will be aligned to the public address system – installed along with a new CCTV system two years ago - to direct drivers to the safest tunnel exit in the event of an incident, according to 8100 Highways England.

The tunnel, which opened in 1988, has a speed limit of 50kph and a reversible central lane to cope with holiday and rush hour traffic. Each day, more than 38,000 motorists use the tunnel  that was designed by Mott, Hay and Anderson, built by 1146 Balfour Beatty and has a design life of at least 100 years.

Highways England said it will hold joint emergency test exercises with the fire services and police when work is finished sometime this spring.

Highway & Network Management

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Latest VMS keeps world’s motorists moving safely
    April 10, 2013
    VMS for what is thought to be the longest road tunnel in the Middle East, and the installation of the latest VMS technology in Canada’s oldest national park to help motorists travelling through it are among the projects discussed by Guy Woodford. A large volume of VMS from Italian firm Solari has been installed in the new 4.2km-long Zayed Street Tunnel in Abu Dhabi – thought to be the longest in the Middle East. The Solari VMS supply consisted of 204 lane control signs, with Red, Yellow and Green LED pre-de
    Read More
  • Turner & Townsend picks up services deal for Stonehenge in the UK
    April 6, 2018
    Professional services company Turner & Townsend has been appointed to provide commercial services for two major Highways England programmes, including its flagship A303 Stonehenge scheme. The A303 upgrade includes plans to build a road tunnel near Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument in western England believed to have been built around 3,100 BC. The road project is part of a series of planned upgrades to A303/A358 corridor to improve connectivity between the south east and south west of England. The
    Read More
  • Dynniq to deliver technology on England’s South West motorways
    July 19, 2017
    Highways England has awarded Dynniq a major construction deal in South West England under a framework contract. Dynniq picked up the South West region four-year Construction Work Framework Lot 6 (Technology). Highways England’s South West region comprises Areas 1 and 2 - the largest highways are in England covering 11% of the strategic road, around 370km running between the cities of Cheltenham and Penzance.
    Read More
  • Lanes removes 400tonnes of debris from flood-scheme tunnel in UK
    March 28, 2017
    It was “dirty work” for drainage engineers from Lanes Group in the UK when they recently removed 400tonnes of silt and debris from a culvert in northern England. Before sludge removal started, the 3m-wide concrete box culvert under the A38 on the outskirts of the city of Derby had been full almost to its roof. Lanes Group's East Midlands depot, based in Derby, desilted the culvert in a 17-day operation for North Midland Construction, working for Highways England, under its civil engineering framework.
    Read More

Highlighted Content