The Fréjus Road Tunnel is a

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

that connects

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It runs under Col du Fréjus in the

Cottian Alps The Cottian Alps (; french: Alpes Cottiennes ; it, Alpi Cozie ) are a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps. They form the border between France (Hautes-Alpes and Savoie) and Italy (Piedmont). The Fréjus Road Tunnel and Fréjus Ra ...

between

Modane Modane (; ) is a commune in the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France. The commune is in the Maurienne Valley, and it also belongs to the Vanoise National Park. It was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia unti ...

in France and

Bardonecchia Bardonecchia (; french: Bardonèche or ; pms, Bardonecia ; oc, Bardonescha ) is an Italian town and ''comune'' located in the Metropolitan City of Turin, in the Piedmont region, in the western part of Susa Valley. It grew out of a small village ...

in Italy. It is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes between France and Italy being used for 80% of the commercial road traffic. Construction of the long tunnel started in 1974, and it came into service on 12 July 1980, leading to the closure of the

motorail A motorail train or accompanied car train (ACT) is a passenger train on which passengers can take their car or automobile along with them on their journey. Passengers are carried in normal passenger carriages or in sleeping carriages on longer ...

shuttle service in the Fréjus rail tunnel. It cost 2 billion

francs The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...

(equivalent to €700 million at 2005 prices). It is the thirteenth longest road tunnel in the world. The French section is managed by the French company SFTRF, and the Italian section by the Italian company SITAF. (The French politician Pierre Dumas was chairman of SFTRF from 1962 to 1989). The tunnel can be reached from the Italian side by the A32

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

-Bardonecchia motorway, or by SS335 from

Oulx Oulx ( oc, label= Occitan, Ors) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about west of Turin, in the Susa Valley on the border with France. Names Like many other towns in the Susa V ...

, which joins SS24 (“del Monginevro”), and reaches Bardonecchia after . From the French side, it can be reached by the A43 (“l’Autoroute de la Maurienne”) from

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...

and

Chambéry Chambéry (, , ; Arpitan: ''Chambèri'') is the prefecture of the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France. The population of the commune of Chambéry was 58,917 as of 2019, while the population of the Chamb ...

. A toll is charged to all traffic. Over 20 million vehicles passed through the tunnel during the first 20 years.

Safety

Following a major fire in the Mont Blanc tunnel in 1999, measures were taken at the start of 2000 to improve safety in the tunnel. A strict speed limit, and a safe distance of between vehicles was imposed. The tunnel was equipped with the latest smoke and flame detectors, and a system of videocameras in the tunnel to detect the speed of traffic, as well as fire and smoke. Temperature sensors were installed at short distances throughout the tunnel, monitored from a central control post. Fire hydrants were installed every 130 m, fed from large water tanks. There are 11 safety points along the tunnel, equipped with telephones and loud speakers connected to the control room, with a separate ventilation duct to supply fresh air. These are separated from the main tunnel by two fire doors; the outer door closes automatically when the temperature in the tunnel reaches a certain level. Finally there is a ‘thermal gate’ system at each entrance to identify any overheating vehicles. Despite these measures, on 4 June 2005, a fire caused the death of two Slovak lorry drivers, and the closure of the tunnel to traffic for several weeks. It reopened to cars on 4 August 2005, and later to commercial vehicles. The tunnel was also briefly closed due to non-fatal fires on 9 January 2007, 29 November 2010, and 10 April 2014. A second bore, parallel to the existing one at a distance of , is under construction. Work began in 2009, following EU regulations put in place after the Mont Blanc Tunnel fire. Originally planned as an wide rescue tunnel, an agreement was reached in 2012 to open the new bore to traffic towards France while converting one lane of the existing bore into an emergency lane. The breakthrough occurred on 17 November 2014. The new bore is due to open to traffic in the autumn of 2023. As there will still be a single lane for each direction (the other lane being an emergency lane), the capacity of the tunnel will remain unchanged. Both bores will be connected by a series of passages, five of which can be used by emergency vehicles. The firefighting team consists of four intervention teams: positioned on the Italian and French sides, and two inside the tunnel, about from each end.

Fréjus Underground Laboratory

Near the midpoint is the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (also referred to as the Fréjus Underground Laboratory). This site houses the

Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory The Neutrino Ettore Majorana Observatory (NEMO experiment) is an international collaboration of scientists searching for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ). The collaboration has been active since 1989. Observation of 0νββ would indica ...

(NEMO experiment), an international collaboration of scientists searching for

neutrinoless double beta decay The neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) is a commonly proposed and experimentally pursued theoretical radioactive decay process that would prove a Majorana nature of the neutrino particle. To this day, it has not been found. The discovery o ...

. An observation of neutrinoless double beta decay would be evidence that

neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...

s are Majorana particles and could be used to measure the neutrino mass. Attempts are underway to build a larger laboratory, either in the same tunnel or in the even deeper Lyon Turin Ferroviaire 15 km to the east.Project of a Large International Underground Laboratory at Fréjus
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References

External links

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Frejus Road Tunnel Tunnels in the Alps Road tunnels in France Road tunnels in Italy Transport in Piedmont Toll tunnels in Europe France–Italy border crossings Tunnels completed in 1980 International tunnels 1980 establishments in France 1980 establishments in Italy Bardonecchia