Less than a month since the $10.2 billion West Gate Tunnel opened, it’s already had to close due to a system malfunction.
On Wednesday, January 7, as Melbourne temperatures soared well into the 40s, the extreme heat set off the West Gate Tunnel’s deluge sprinkler system – while unsuspecting vehicles were travelling inside.
This resulted in the tunnel – which was finally opened on Sunday, December 14, after numerous delays and cost blow-outs – to close for approximately 5 hours, including during the afternoon peak.
The sprinklers were set off just before 2pm, with the tunnel finally reopening just before 7pm. During that time, road users were advised to use the West Gate Bridge to reach CityLink and the CBD; or take Footscray Road.
Now as Melbourne braces for predicted temperatures of up to 43°C today, only time will tell whether or not we see a repeat occurrence.
Big Rigs contacted Transurban this morning to ask what was being done to ensure we don’t see a repeat of Wednesday’s chaos. “We believe that the issue that led to the closure has been identified and isolated,” a Transurban spokesperson said.
“We’ve set up an additional crew to keep everything monitored. We don’t believe and are very much hopeful it won’t happen again.”
Asked about what led to the system malfunction, the Transurban spokesperson commented, “What happened was that because of the high temperatures, the fire detection systems inside the tunnel thought there was a fire when there wasn’t.”
Transurban also said it plans to reach out to the owners of all vehicles that were inside the tunnel when the sprinklers were set off.