Safety guidance and training for tunnellers can boost efficiency and reduce costs. It has been a busy time for tunnelling projects. Tunnelling work on London’s 25km Tideway super sewer officially finished in April. The two tunnelling boring machines (TBMs) working on High Speed 2’s (HS2’s) tunnels under the Chilterns completed the first stage up to the ventilation shaft at Chalfont St Peter in March. And work continues apace on the Silvertown Tunnel in east London.
But before projects reach major milestones there are challenges to be overcome and accidents can occur.
Need for harmonised training
When it comes to health and safety, client organisations have their own training requirements and, as it stands, these are not aligned to those of other projects. As such, contractors – and particularly labour subcontractors – have to spend money on a plethora of courses. This is where the Transforming Tunnelling Safety (TTS) Group comes in. Formed in 2014 by client organisations, the group is pushing for industry-approved courses along with an increased openness to help the industry learn from mistakes.
Alongside the British Tunnelling Society (BTS) – which promotes the TTS Group’s work – the group is sharing best practice so standards can be raised while the risk of accidents is reduced. It is hoped that this will transform the health and safety performance on tunnelling work projects in the UK. It could also show cost and efficiency benefits in the process.