Welcome to the ita@news n°28

Sir Alan Muir Wood It is with the deepest sadness that we have to inform you of the death of Sir Alan Muir Wood. Alan died on the 2nd February 2009.  He had been suffering from cancer and died peacefully while receiving palliative care.

Leave a message and read the condolences book.

Alan was a past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, based in Westminster, London; a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering; a Fellow of the Royal Society; Chairman of The British Tunnelling Society, as well as the first President of the International Tunnelling Association – an Association...

Review of the 6th Austrian Tunnel Day

On 8th October 2008, the doors were opened in Salzburg for the 6th Austrian Tunnel Day organised by the Austrian National Committee of the International Tunnelling Association. 733 participants from 19 countries accepted the invitation to hear interesting talks on the themes “Tunnelling then and now“ and “Particular Challenges on current Large Construction Projects“. The articles on these themes are printed in this issue of Geomechanics and Tunnelling and can be read again, a wish of many participants at the Tunnel Day.Martin Knights, President of the...

Opening of Vítkov Tunnels as part of the New Connection Project

In the second half of 2008 tunnels of New Connection were opened for public transport. Client of the project were České dráhy, s.o. (Czech railways), construction of tunnels was realised by local companies Metrostav a.s., Subterra a.s., tunnel design was prepared by SUDOP Praha, a.s. Tunnel construction was ongoing from 2004 to 2008.New Connection is a transport line structure located in the urban area of the Capital City of Prague. The New Connection connects Prague Central Railway Station, Masaryk’s Railway Station,...

New Board

The French Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (AFTES) has elected its new board. Alain Balan, consulting engineer and former manager of large infrastructure projects at the SNCF, has been elected President for a three year term.

The other members of the AFTES Executive Council are :Vice-President Monique Labbe - ArchitectVice-President Jacques Burdin - Consulting engineerVice-President Michel Deffayet - Managing director of the CETuVice-President Michel Lallement - President of the Underground Works FederationVice-President Philippe Millard - Consulting engineer,...

JTA (Japan Tunnelling Association) held a session of “ITA report on 2008 Agra” on 30th of January. Members of JTA were invited and about 50 members participated in the session. First, an overview of ITA was presented by Mr. Katsuji Fukumoto of ITA executive council member, and then, working group activities of Contractual Practices (WG3), Shotcrete Use (WG12), Mechanized Tunnelling (WG14) and Urban Problems Underground Solutions (WG20) were presented by the delegate of each working group. Report on WTC, Training session, Open session, Exhibition and post conference technical tour were also...

Railway link from mainland to Sakhalin island.

On the 14th of January, during a visit in Tokyo, the Russian Transport Minister, Igor Levitin, invited Japanese companies to participate in Russian transport projects and highlighted the planned railway link between the mainland and the Sakhalin island. According to Vice-Minister, Andrei Nedossekov, the government has allocated 282 million euros in its 2010-2015 budget to build a 580 km long line from the Selikhin station near Kosomolsk-na-Amur towards the town Nogliki on the Sakhalin island. The crossing of the Neveski Strait would include...

At the occasion of the Seminar " Shotcrete in Africa", SANCOT invited the ITA Executive Council to have a meeting in Johannesburg.

At the occasion, Members of the ExCo participated in the annual dinner of SAIMM. 

At the end of the meeting a visit on one of the site of the future Gautrain which will link johannesburg, Pretoria and the international Airport has been organized. It was the opportunity to visit this huge project, including 15 km of underground infrastructures. (read the presentation)

The Seminar" Shotcrete in Africa" organized by SAIMM gathered some 150...

The Executive Director of ITA visited Vietnam end of March and had a fruitful meeting with ITST (Institute of Transport Science and Technology), the representative of ITA in Vietnam and notably with Dr Nguyen Xuan Khang, Vice Director General, Ta Van Giang, Deputy Director International Cooperation Dept and with Dr Do Huu Thang, Director of Institute of Bridge and Tunnel Engineering. 

The main topics discussed have been the participation of Vietnam representatives in ITA Working Groups, the method of getting the Vietnamese ITA representative more effective inside Vietnam and also the...

On March 24th, has been organized in Vientiane, Capital of Laos a seminar on the "Awareness of building underground structures for sustainable development"; This seminar, the first of this kind in Laos was organized by TUTG (Thailand Underground & Tunnelling Group), ITA, the faculty of Engineering National University of Laos and the Chulalongkom University, Bangkok Thailand and sponsored by several companies, among them two ITA Prime Sponsors (BASF and NORMET). 

Around 80 persons participated into this seminar with presentations on the needs of underground structures in...

On January 1st 2009, Olivier Vion took the position of ITA Executive Director. 

Olivier Vion, born in 1962 was graduated in Civil Engineering in 1986 from the Ecole Supérieure des Travaux Publics, Paris. He has been working for French contractors before creating his own company specialized in marketing and communication for civil engineering and tunnelling.

He began to work with ITA in 1995, beeing in charge of the ITA Newsletter Tribune and in 1998 of the creation of the ITA website. Since 2003 he was the Associate Editor of the Association.

ITA-CET (Committee for Education and Training) – under the leadership of Andre Assis – is now preparing for a major shift in momentum in education and training. Last December in Frankfurt, the committee met to co-ordinate efforts.The group discussed the various university training initiatives offered by the members; the needs of continuing education in the industry; the experiences of nozzle-man training; and the results of the EC project Tunconstruct.It is expected that the ‘ITA-CET Foundation’ will be officially launched after the ITA General Assembly in Budapest.

All previous issues of Tribune - ITA Newsletter are now available on the ITA website as pdf files. Do not hesitate to download them if needed.

TUST on line

ITA members are entitled to receive an electronic version of Tunnelling and Underground Space technology (TUST) and browse all previous issues.

To do so, ITA members should contact the secretariat to receive instructions or go to the ITA members area. 

LOVAT has announced that they completed recently their 250th TBM. It is a 3.4 m diameter EPB TBM that will be used for the construction of Thames Water’s West Ham Flood Alleviation Scheme in East London, UK. (read more)

6-7 May, 2009, Shanghai, China. Sponsored by ITA

18-20 May 2009 - Iranian Tunneling Association - Tehran (Iran). Sponsored by ITA

TUNNEL VISION TOWARDS 2020The World Tunnel Congress 2010 and 36th ITA general Assembly will take place in Vancouver Canada; 14-20 May 2010.

More infos on the congress at  www.wtc2010.org

7-10 June 2009, Davos, Switzerland. Sponsored by ITA.

22 - 25 June 2009 - NTNU - Trondheim (Norway)

The ITA General Assembly chose Helsinki-Finland to host the 37th ITA General Assembly at the occasion of the World Tunnel Congress which will take place from 21 to 26 May 2011, under the theme "Underground spaces in the service of sustainable society".

The second bulletin for the WTC 2011  is now available for downloading. 

The abstract submission is also available from the website

17-19 March 2010, Francfort, Germany

18-19 March 2010, Shangai, China