A week in the French Alps for PIARC’s “Road Tunnel Operations” Committee !
The “Road Tunnel Operations” Committee of PIARC – World Road Association met in Annecy on 9th and 10th March 2026 for its fifth plenary meeting. Following this meeting, four of the Committee’s working groups were welcomed the next day at Egis’s offices to continue their respective work.
Within this PIARC technical committee, the CETU:
- is the official representative for France (Éric Premat), alongside Frédéric Waymel (Egis),
- leads the working group on the operation and safety impacts of new propulsion technologies in road tunnels
- co-leads the working group on the impact of integrating active modes of transport in road tunnels
- participates in the work of the working group on sustainable operation as well as in the work of the working group on the digitalisation of road tunnel design and management
- leads the DG QRAM task force.
The CETU also serves as the French-speaking secretary, thereby ensuring a strong French presence within the Committee, which helps to showcase France’s expertise and benefit from feedback from other countries around the globe on key issues!
The Committee members then travelled to Chambéry on 12th March to take part in the ‘tunnels’ session organised as part of the 17th World Congress on Winter Maintenance, Resilience and Decarbonisation of Roads. During this session, which it moderated, the CETU presented the Committee’s work on the integration of active transport modes in road tunnels.
The day continued with a technical visit to the Tunnel du Chat (managed by the Savoie local authority). By chance, barely an hour before this visit, an accident involving a light vehicle and a heavy goods vehicle occurred in the road tunnel, fortunately without any serious injuries. The Committee was thus able to observe the speed with which the operator (the Savoie local authority) closed the tunnel to traffic, dealt with the incident and reopened the tunnel to traffic. After a tour of the safety gallery, which allows cyclists and pedestrians to cross the tunnel safely and enables road tunnel users to evacuate in the event of a major incident, the group visited the ventilation plant and the emergency control centre.
Next, the group headed to the César control centre managed by AREA (a subsidiary of APRR), a few kilometres from the tunnel, for a tour of the control room, which allowed the group to compare French practices in motorway network management with those of their respective countries. Finally, a behind-the-scenes tour of the 107.7 motorway radio station, located on-site, demonstrated the effectiveness of this medium in communicating real-time traffic information to users.
The CETU would like to thank all the staff at the Tunnel du Chat and the César Control Centre for their time, with a special mention for Jean-Paul Cart, Jérôme Grégis and Gabriel Derain (CD 73), as well as Pascal Philip and Olivia Burgaud (APRR).