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A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact

Tunnel lighting installations function 24 h a day, 365 days a year. These infrastructures have increased exponentially and now connect quite distant locations, even on different continents. This has led European administrations and international regulatory bodies to establish regulations for tunnel...

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Autores principales: Peña-García, Antonio, Nguyen, Thi Phuoc Lai
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313299/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30486333
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122658
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author Peña-García, Antonio
Nguyen, Thi Phuoc Lai
author_facet Peña-García, Antonio
Nguyen, Thi Phuoc Lai
author_sort Peña-García, Antonio
collection PubMed
description Tunnel lighting installations function 24 h a day, 365 days a year. These infrastructures have increased exponentially and now connect quite distant locations, even on different continents. This has led European administrations and international regulatory bodies to establish regulations for tunnel safety with the lowest environmental impact. However, until now, these regulations have almost exclusively focused on traffic safety, and relegated sustainability to the background. Even though they recognize the need to reduce energy consumption, they do not propose any tools for doing so. Given the impact of these installations and the lack of a specific regulatory framework, Asian countries will soon be forced either to update previous standards for tunnel lighting or elaborate new ones. A better understanding of the weaknesses of European regulations combined with a willingness to embrace innovation could position Asia as a world leader in the regulation of more sustainable road tunnels. The objective of this research was to improve the sustainability of tunnel lighting installations through new regulations or amendments to existing ones, without impairing the mental well-being of users, who could potentially be affected by energy-saving measures. Accordingly, this paper presents and analyzes a broad proposal for formulating tunnel lighting regulations. The originality of this proposal lies in the fact that it integrates road safety, lower environmental impact, and user well-being. Furthermore, it is expected to broaden the perspective of regulatory bodies and public administrations with regard to tunnel installations, which would ultimately enhance their sustainability.
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spelling pubmed-63132992019-06-17 A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact Peña-García, Antonio Nguyen, Thi Phuoc Lai Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Tunnel lighting installations function 24 h a day, 365 days a year. These infrastructures have increased exponentially and now connect quite distant locations, even on different continents. This has led European administrations and international regulatory bodies to establish regulations for tunnel safety with the lowest environmental impact. However, until now, these regulations have almost exclusively focused on traffic safety, and relegated sustainability to the background. Even though they recognize the need to reduce energy consumption, they do not propose any tools for doing so. Given the impact of these installations and the lack of a specific regulatory framework, Asian countries will soon be forced either to update previous standards for tunnel lighting or elaborate new ones. A better understanding of the weaknesses of European regulations combined with a willingness to embrace innovation could position Asia as a world leader in the regulation of more sustainable road tunnels. The objective of this research was to improve the sustainability of tunnel lighting installations through new regulations or amendments to existing ones, without impairing the mental well-being of users, who could potentially be affected by energy-saving measures. Accordingly, this paper presents and analyzes a broad proposal for formulating tunnel lighting regulations. The originality of this proposal lies in the fact that it integrates road safety, lower environmental impact, and user well-being. Furthermore, it is expected to broaden the perspective of regulatory bodies and public administrations with regard to tunnel installations, which would ultimately enhance their sustainability. MDPI 2018-11-27 2018-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6313299/ /pubmed/30486333 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122658 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Peña-García, Antonio
Nguyen, Thi Phuoc Lai
A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact
title A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact
title_full A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact
title_fullStr A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact
title_full_unstemmed A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact
title_short A Global Perspective for Sustainable Highway Tunnel Lighting Regulations: Greater Road Safety with a Lower Environmental Impact
title_sort global perspective for sustainable highway tunnel lighting regulations: greater road safety with a lower environmental impact
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6313299/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30486333
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122658
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