Congestion is a problem in many countries, both developed and lagging. That happens because the increase of population which followed the vehicle, but not followed by adequate road infrastructure accretion. Congestion seemed to have become the daily community meals in various cities.
Gotthard_BaseDi any developing country like Indonesia, congestion has become a daily problem. For more than a decade, particularly in Jakarta, was never able to overcome bottlenecks worsen. In fact, the solution is actually quite easy, the government provides a mass rapid transportation (MRT). Transjakarta bus was already there. But because the congestion was resolved as well, meaning the existence of the bus as MRT not yet effective.
Perhaps our government could emulate the Swiss Government's seriousness in addressing congestion. Recently, the Swiss Government to build a railway tunnel (KA) the longest in the world to accommodate the mobility of citizens. Congestion in Switzerland actually occurs only in the streets for access to the outside of the city. Within the city, people do not experience congestion because it is available MRT effective.
Problems arise in Switzerland because of the detour twisty, steep, and dangerous because the country is located in the highlands. In such circumstances, the Government of Switzerland had the clever idea of building a railway tunnel for the means of mass transport through the Alps.
Initially only 16 km Early in development, in 1982, the length of the tunnel was only 16 km. However, in line with population growth and mobility are high, in 1994 the government agreed to rebuild the tunnel is longer.
Construction of the tunnel to reduce the trucks that pass around the Alps are growing. The Swiss government felt the need to reduce motor vehicle passing around the mountains, especially the pickup truck. By building the tunnel was expected that the previous means of transportation using trucks, trains can switch to so that pollution in the surrounding Alps can be suppressed. The move to maintain environmental sustainability.
The cost for the megaproject was around Rp 90 trillion. Cost is indeed worthy to overcome the problem of congestion in Switzerland. Swiss voters finance the project by paying 1300 U.S. dollars per person. Society approved the construction of the tunnel through a referendum about 20 years ago.
Mid-October, 57 km long tunnel called the Gotthard Base Tunnel broke through the Alps and is expected to fully completed by 2017. That's the longest tunnel in the world, beating the tunnel underwater Seikan Tunnel in Japan.
The process of building the tunnel was not playing because it takes 16 years just to penetrate Pegunugan Alps. The tunnel is made in such a way that if something untoward happens to be evacuated. In addition, to avoid delays due to waiting for another train in the tunnel was made along the 57 km double track.
Drilling Drilling is done in two ways, ie blasting with dynamite to very hard rock drilling for soil and standards. 3,000 tons of heavy drilling machine with a length of 396 m. Machine drillers can drill along the 25-30 m per day. Need to drill four tunnel boring machine made from both sides. Requires together 25 employees who work in turns to operate the giant drilling machine.
Every day it took six hours to check the drilling machine due to vibration caused loud can cause some parts of the equipment was damaged. Every day 7,000 tons of rocks dredged. The rocks were drilled and channeled through the conveyor behind the drill bit. A quarter of the rocks that were dug to patch up the tunnel.
Drilling can be very dangerous for the workers because the air temperature inside the tunnel can reach 50 degrees Celsius. To overcome the high air temperature inside the tunnel was built ventilation holes along the 15 km. Ventilation holes that will maintain the air temperature in the normal state and keep the humidity inside the tunnel.
Tunnel diameter between 8.8 m and 9.5 m. With a diameter of that size, the tunnel can load the KA-charged double the standard charge. To speed up development time, four access tunnels built so construction can be started simultaneously at four different locations.
A total of 459 million m3 of dredged rocks from the Alps. That's enough to fill the Empire State Building 13 in New York, USA. Furthermore, the rocks to restore Lake Alpine has been dredged. To build the tunnel was employed 2,500 people.
For 14 years, machine drillers dredge in the northern mountains of Erstfeld to Bodio in the south. Last dredging completed on 15 October. Furthermore, the resolution process scheduled to be completed in December 2017.
If completed, later, the travel time between the city of Zurich in Switzerland and Milan in Italy as far as 216 km is only about an hour. According to plan, train passengers that pass in the tunnel will be speed 250 km / h, while the goods train 160 km / hour.
When it opens to traffic in 2017, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will replace the Japanese record with a 53.9 km long Seikan Tunnel as the longest tunnel in the world, including water lines, and allow millions more tons of goods to be transported quickly through the Alps.
Switzerland, a country covering an area of only 42 km2 and a population of 7.2 million people, has made a bold move to build the largest tunnel. What about Indonesia?
Gotthard Base, World's Longest Tunnel
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Oleh
Agus Prasetyo
