The First International Conference on: Underground Multi-System Utility Tunnels

The conference will aim to cover a wide range of topics, while learning from their worldwide use, including town planning, transportation planning, various aspects of engineering, economic issues, organizational and judicial issues.

GENERAL
Town planners and sociologists see the "city" as a "service center" for the population. In the wide scope of services supplied by the city, those supplied through pipelines or ducts over and under the ground stand out in their importance. Conventionally, each utility is laid in the ground or on it usually within the statutory boundaries of the street or even under the road or pavement themselves. Underground Multi-System Utility Tunnels are an alternative and progressive measure that solves the problems that exist in the conventional method.

DEFINITION
A Multi-System Utility Tunnel (MUT) is an underground construction that serves several utilities, being a carrier of various materials, energy and data channels, through pipelines and cables that are designed and activated together. The tunnel includes service corridors that enable access, installation, monitoring, control, maintenance and connectivity to other sites.

POSSIBLE TUNNEL CAPACITY
• Water
• Sewage
• Rainwater drains
• Electric power (low voltage, high voltage, extra high voltage)
• Communications (several types)
• Street lighting
• Traffic control
• Pneumatic systems (home garbage disposals etc.)
• Fuel (and its various products)
• Hazardous material
• Gas

ADVANTAGES OF MUTs
• Reduced road digging costs that involve traffic, road restoration difficulties and safety hazards.
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Reduced energy losses
• Utilization of public ground
• Better use of resources
• Knowledge about the utilities
• Monitoring and control
• Lower material and pipeline costs
• Encourage mid and long-range thinking
• Improved public safety

DIFFICULTIES OF USAGE OF MUTs
• Initial costs
• Coordination of authorities
• Complex design
• Tunnel management
• Security

REASONS TO COMMENCE THE USE OF MUTs
Several reasons have led to the increasing of MUTs:

• Never stopping interference to traffic and its safety during repeated digging in city streets and no need to restore the original road quality.

• The immense growth in energy consumption (electric power, water), communications (telephone, cable TV and other lines), sanitation (sewage, drains and garbage disposal) in the big cities.

• Considerable reduction of available public ground, preventing conventional utility laying and density in the roads which would need more space than is available.

• A rise in public demand for quality of life and environment, the need for underground burial of power and telephone lines, addition of parking spaces, demand for green areas etc.
• Lack of control and monitoring of existing systems and difficulty in making repairs and improvements.

• Fear of terrorist damage to main and national utilities.

ALL THESE HAVE LED TO A WIDE-SCALE INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION THAT THE
OPTIMUM SOLUTION IS THE USAGE OF UNDERGROUND MULTI-SYSTEM UTILITY TUNNELS.

SECONDARY SUBJECTS REGARDING MUTs
• Monitoring and control technology
• Maintenance
• Judicial aspects
• Financial aspects
• Safety

STUDY FIELDS
Dimensions and loads, life length, safety factors, construction methods (use of pre and pipeline materials, facing serious influences of earthquakes, influence of war and terrorism, pipeline utility joints, sealing, entrances and exits of the tunnels, sensoring, monitoring and control, tunnel service systems and internal handling and moving of equipment, implications in city planning, street layout, use of open grounds etc.