Recent Trends in Design Technology for Railway Tunnels and Summary of Revisions in Design Standards for Railway Tunnels

Abstract

More than 20 years have passed since the three design standards for railway tunnels were published. In the meantime, design methods for structures other than tunnels have shifted to performance-verification design methods. Since 2014, a committee consisting of academic experts, railway operators has been set up to study the introduction of performance-based design, and as a result, in April 2022, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism issued the design standards for railway structures as a notification. This outlook commentary introduces trends in tunnel design technology for railways and an overview of new railway tunnel design standards based on performance-verification design methods.