WHEN THE firstpassenger train runs through the Gotthard tunnel next year for its inauguration, the carriages will not be carrying dignitaries, politicians or senior construction personnel. Instead they will be filled with ordinary members of the public.

"The idea is to emphasise that since the public paid for the project, they should be the ones using it first," says Ambros Zgraggen, head of the public relations team for AlpTransit Gotthard. "Of course not everyone can be on the very firsttrain, and so there is a lottery for the tickets." It is already well subscribed.

Zgraggen and his team have spent the last decade and a half keeping the public and the press in touch with the project construction. According to other media managers like Simon Lohmann at the Brenner, he has helped set a benchmark for information on such schemes.

For all that they are hidden underground, and deep down at that, base tunnel projects are huge schemes and can have a disruptive impact at surface, particularly during their long construction, with noise, truck traffic dust and spoil deposition, at usually multiple sites.

Permanent impact comes from valleys filled forever with millions of tonnes of rock, and possible changes in surface and deep mountain drainage, affecting springs and, indirectly, ecology and wildlife. On some schemes, notably the Lyon-Turin route, protest has been significant and disruptive.

The big tunnels are also expensive. But there are huge advantages to these projects, which ultimately will see millions of tonnes of freight transferred to rail and the impact of ever growing lorry traffic much diminished. The European high-speed rail passenger routes get vital new strategic links. In addition there are significant measures to mitigate the impact including re-use of materials for concrete, careful siting and transport of waste, filtering of water and so forth. Notably on Brenner, one spoil area flood protection scheme has already saved a village from destruction during extreme rainfall conditions.

"The critical point is to make the project feel like one that belongs to people themselves," says Zgraggen, "and one that they can share in". That comes from both providing wide ranging information about it and being open and transparent.

INFORMED CONSENT

Switzerland with its long tradition of people’s referendums, was probably more concerned that most to make sure the population was in tune and informed, and it was a legal requirement for the client to do so from the beginning. But keeping those near the project in touch with it is vital anywhere.

An array of techniques has been used by his team to provide for local, national and international interest and concern including such standard methods as lea_ ets and local meetings. But perhaps the major tools have been three major information centres, a consistently and continuously updated website, and the opening of the project to visitors, allowing not just journalists and the media, but the general public to have access. "It is written into the constructors contracts that people go into the tunnels," says Zgraggen.

The information centres have been a central element, set up from the beginning of excavation work. Three were provided, one at the north end of the tunnel, one close to the deep shaft at Sedrun in the centre and the largest of all at southern end an Italian speaking.

These are large purpose built two storey facilities with signi_ cant exhibition space using not just written panels but modern museum-type interactive displays, to explain the project, the methods, TBMs, the geology and the environmental context. They are manned daily for questions and answers.

"We also gave the chance to take something away, a basket full of chippings from the tunnel face which we had to re_ ll every few days."

For meals there were local restaurants but he says visitors wanted to see where the miners ate and have something there, to understand how they worked – "so we offered meals, and it was even good business for the canteen."

Visiting the tunnels has proved exceptionally popular with the chance to see working conditions.

Tours were made once a week, mainly booked on line for a small fee, to join a group, properly kitted in safety gear and with a guide.

"We also made it possible to go down the 800m deep shaft, but not in great numbers. We set a cost of EUR 90 (USD 100) but it proved very popular anyway. Visitors from among 120 nationalities visited the site and would return each year for this."

To supplement visits there has also been an annual DVD of progress, made by an onsite video team.

It could be ordered via the project website which itself has had wide range of information kept up to date at least weekly, a key part being diagrammatic maps of the tunnel and its sections showing progress of excavation, tunnel lining and railtrack installation.

Site information like all the material produced has been in several languages, German, English, Italian and French, which is second nature in multilingual Switzerland. But the same is important on other base tunnels like Brenner and Lyon-Turin which are cross border schemes.

EVOLVING METHODS

The website has evolved over the two decades of the project. "We have gone through several website versions as the Internet technology has progressed," Zgraggen says, recalling that early on downloading video was out of the question for example.

"We would have used media such as Twitter too," he says "but they came along quite late on and it was not worth it, especially as you have to do it well if you use new media." This whole effort has been expensive, costing several million Swiss francs, with staff for the centres and a team based in Lucerne for outputting material, organising visits and keeping media contacts happy too.

"But relative to a multi-billion project it is tiny," suggests Zgraggen.

At the more southerly Ceneri tunnel meanwhile similar arrangements prevail, though on a smaller scale; an information and exhibition room is provided the site office facilities and there is an independent press team, though the Internet information merged into the AlpTransit Gotthard website.

If this work is diminishing it is only just starting on other projects. At Brenner, media manager Simon Lochmann says he has learned a lot from the Swiss projects and particularly Gotthard. "The purpose is to keep people constantly informed through as many channels as possible," he says, reassuring them about the efforts made to minimise the impact as well as to explain what is coming on the project.

Like Gotthard there is a comprehensive website constantly updated and the philosophy of taking people on visits into the projects sites has been established from the beginning. Children and younger people will also be a major focus in two major information centres currently being readied, the first in the historic castle of Fortezza, the location of the southern portal in Italy and the other in a purpose built two storey centre at Steinach am Brenner close to the Wolf access point about halfway along the route. Each has restaurant facilities.

An information centre has also been open at the Innsbruck main station since the beginning of exploratory works "though that is more a ‘hard facts’ centre" says Lochmann. At the Steinbach centre a downstairs exhibition room on the tunnel and equipment is shaped like the tunnel interior. As with Gotthard exhibits and information will be hands on "and we are covering not just the tunnel itself but information about the mountains, the geology, flora and fauna."

Children will be able to use a polishing machine to shine up samples from the TBM excavation among a range of souvenirs to take away.

But a key element of work to date has been with the local communities says Lochmann maintaining direct dialogue with evening meetings, as well as local media.

"And we also have open days with marquees and many of the contractors and client engineers available to talk with people – it is a little like a fair with something for the children to do."

Work on the Lyon-Turin is less advanced currently but a major communication programme is also part of the project. Transparency is a key principle to establish says media manager François Pelletier. All the more perhaps given the fraught and difficult beginning for the project on the Italian side.

"We have to address various communities, those locally, the national constituency and for a project of this significance the European level." The principle message to convey is the advantage of the tunnel economically and environmentally he says as well as continuous information tied to the development of the project, both in financial and political terms as well as construction progress.

Like other project a full range of tools is used from local meetings and monthly newsletters for the communities on the route to digital tools – currently a Twitter account is being examined. "And the sites are an important focus. The Italian Maddalena access tunnel site has an "information walk" including a large screen video presentation," he says "and there are weekly visits to the work. Site visits on the French side begin at a 700m2 visitor and exhibition centre established in Modane in 2005."

For the two "lesser" tunnels in Austria meanwhile there are websites and is a system of information boxes set up by the Austrian Railways client ÖBBInfrastruktur. For the tunnels these are in nearby villages "and for Koralm this is part of information along the route of the complete new line" says the company "with six information boxes including in Graz, and in Klagenfeld." They are open 24 hours a day but unmanned. "They vary in the content depending on where you are, and look at not just the work but the local ecology and so forth."

"We also offer guided tours of the sites." At Koralm visitors can see the tunnels but at Semmering this maybe restricted because the only access will be through deep shafts in difficult mountain terrain.

"We have also done an ‘Infopath’ for bicyclists along the route with the Koralm, with signboards at key locations," says ÖBB.