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Efficient and widely available transport infrastructure is one of the most important prerequisites for sustainable economic development to meet the demand for mobility. In this context, being able to manage traffic growth forecasts is of particular importance. In Germany, current forecasts indicate a 40% increase in rail and road transport in the country. However, about 60% of bridges (as measured by bridge area) on the national German highway system that are suitable for freight transport were built before 1985. In other transport sectors as well, aging infrastructure is one of the key challenges for the availability and the resilience of European transport infrastructure. Many bridges in the national German highway system are already at their load-bearing limit. Furthermore, required maintenance measures have not been adequately carried out in the past due to limited budgets, leading to overall bridge deterioration. Further challenges for owners and operators of transport infrastructure result from the effects of climate change, associated climate extremes, natural catastrophes, and possible criminal and terrorist threats. To ensure that future infrastructure challenges can be successfully addressed, strategies and solutions must be developed and implemented in a timely manner to enable holistic and sustainable life-cycle management. The concepts of Resilience Management as well as Resilience Engineering are essential building blocks in this process. Resilience is the ability to survive in the face of a complex, uncertain, and ever-changing future. It is a way of thinking about both short-term cycles and long-term trends. Using this concept, owners and operators can reduce the risk of disruption in the face of shocks and stresses. Resilience requires cyclical, proactive, and holistic risk management practices.
Immediate user self-evacuation is crucial in case of fire in road tunnels. This study investigated the effects of information with or without additional virtual reality (VR) behavioural training on self-evacuation during a simulated emergency situation in a road tunnel. Forty-three participants were randomly assigned to three groups with accumulating preventive training: The control group only filled in questionnaires, the informed group additionally read an information brochure on tunnel safety, and the VR training group received an additional behavioural training in a VR tunnel scenario. One week later, during the test session, all participants conducted a drive through a real road tunnel in which they were confronted with a collision of two vehicles and intense smoke. The informed and the behaviourally trained participants evacuated themselves more reliably from the tunnel than participants of the control group. Trained participants showed better and faster behavioural responses than informed only participants. Interestingly, the few participants in the control group who reacted adequately to the scenario were all female. A 1 year follow-up online questionnaire showed a decrease of safety knowledge, but still the trained group had somewhat more safety relevant knowledge than the two other groups. Information and especially VR behavioural training both seem promising to foster adequate self-evacuation during crisis situations in tunnels, although long term beneficial behavioural effects have to be demonstrated. Measures aiming to improve users/ behaviour should take individual difference such as gender into account.