Thirty-Fifth Annual Meeting – Budapest 2009
The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association held its thirty-fifth meeting in Budapest, Hungary, from 23 to 28 May, in conjunction with the World Tunnel Congress 2009 "Safe Tunnelling for the City and for the Environment" organised by ITA and the Hungarian Tunnelling Association.
1100 persons participated to the Congress.
40 of the 55 Member Nations participated or were represented in the General Assembly, including 1 proxy and 1 vote by correspondence.
MEMBER NATIONS PRESENT OR REPRESENTED
South Africa, Germany, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Republic of Korea, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, United States of America, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Lao, Malaysia, Morocco, Norway, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, United Kingdom, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Thailand, Turkey.
MEMBER NATIONS NOT PRESENT
Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Iceland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Mexico, Peru, Ukraine, Venezuela, Vietnam.
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
Members:
| H. Parker | USA | Past President | Until 2010 |
| P. Grasso | Italy | Vice-President | Until 2010 |
| E. Grov | Norway | Vice-President | Until 2010 |
| Y. Leblais | France | Vice-President | Until 2010 |
| I.-M. Lee | Korea | Vice-President | Until 2010 |
| S. Eskesen | Denmark | Until 2010 | |
| K. Fukumoto | Japan | Until 2010 | |
| I. Hrdina | Czech Republic | Until 2010 | |
| M. Thewes | Germany | Until 2010 | |
| V. Umnov | Russia | Until 2010 | |
| B. Yun | China | Until 2011 | |
| D. Brox | Canada | WTC 2010 | Until 2010 |
| F. Vuilleumier | Switzerland | Treasurer | Until 2010 |
| C. Berenguier | France | Secretary General | Until 2011 |
Experts:
| S. Calinescu | Romania | Internal Auditor | Until 2009 |
| P. Saarka | Finland | WTC 2011 | Until 2011 |
Postal Adresses and e-mail of Council members and experts are available here
MEMBERSHIP
The Association has registered the membership of a new Member Nation, Lao, and 14 new Affiliate Members. (10 Corporate Members and 4 Individual Members); the total results to 55 Member Nations and 273 Affiliate Members (151 Corporate Members and 122 Individual Members) taking into account some resignations.
MAIN DECISIONS
- Creation of the "Muir Wood Lecture" which will take place once a year during ITA WTCs.
- ITA will become a founder of the Foundation on Education and Training for Tunnelling and Underground Space Use.
COMMUNICATION
Tribune:
In 2009, the annual issue with focus on Hungary including the reports of 30 Member Nations, reports of İTA Prime sponsors and supporters has been published in May and sent to members as well as distributed to the participants to the WTC 2009 in Budapest.
ita@news:
In 2008/2009, 4 issues of the ita@news have been sent.
The ita@news contents news from the association, the WGs, the Member Nations, the forthcoming events, the sister associations, The ita@news is sent to 7’700 addresses and to the Member Nations and Affiliate Members.
Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology (TUST): ITA Members have access an electronic version of TUST (including archives). This subscription is paid by ITA.
Website:
The web site contains around 1 000 html pages and 1 000 pdf documents representing around 12 000 printable pages. The number of distinct visitors is around 5 000 per month. The average time of a visit is over 5 minutes.
ITA – Reports:
Reports from ITA Working Groups are now published by ITA under “ITA Reports”. Two reports have been published : “Guidelines for good occupational health & safety practice in tunnel construction” prepared by WG5 and “General report on conventional tunnelling” by WG19.
ITA OPEN SESSION ON PLANNING OF MODERN TUNNEL PROJECTS WITH EMPHASIS ON URBAN AREAS
The Open Session was introduced by Piergiorgio Grasso and coordinated by P. Grasso and E. Grov.
During the Open Session, presentations were made by:
- Amanda Elioff, Animateur of WG 20 on "Modern Tunnel Planning – A U.S. Perspective"
- Gusztav Klados on “The Smart project in Malaysia”
- Pablo Bueno on “Madrid Metro and M30 Project”
- Vähäadho Ilkka / “Underground (UG) – Master Plan of Helsinki”
- Gu Xin / “Master Plan of Shenzhen (China) on Master plan for the utilisation of the Underground”
- Keith Tsang on “Deep Sewage Tunnels in Hong Kong”
- Harvey Parker on “A new tunnel in Seattle to replace the aging and earthquake-damaged viaduct along the waterfront”
The proper planning and stakeholders consensus are playing a key role in the success of underground projects. The underground solution is often the optimum solution for satisfying the demands of human mobility, infrastructures, utility connection and enhanced wellbeing, but it is a limited resource and should be exploited with vision, sustainable cost/effective and adequately supported solutions.
This is the effective message communicated by the different experiences and projects, often incorporating innovative technical solutions, presented and debated in the session.
TRAINING COURSE “RISK DURING CONSTRUCTION OF URBAN TUNNELS IN SOFT GROUND”
Coordinated by M. Thewes, member of ITA Executive Council, A. Assis, President of ITA-CET and D. Peila, Animator of ITA/AITES WG18 “Training”.
About 100 participants attended to the training course.
17 lectures were presented or co-presented by 24 lecturers from 10 countries.
9 lectures were contributed from various ITA Prime Sponsors, other lectures were prepared by distinguished Hungarian engineers, by ITA animateurs or by members of the ITA executive council.
The high class lecturers during two days gave a total of 12 hours of excellent presentations about conventional and mechanized tunnelling for tunnels in soft ground in urban areas.
The lectures covered both the theoretical point of view and practical experience with relevant case histories. Engaged and lively discussions showed the high interest of the participants, to whom certificates of participation were handed out at the end of the course.
NEXT ANNUAL MEETINGS
- Vancouver, Canada, from 15 to 20 May, 2010, during the ITA-AITES WTC 2010 "Tunnel vision towards 2020".
- Helsinki, Finland, from 21 to 26 May, 2011, during the ITA-AITES WTC 2011 "Underground spaces in the service of a sustainable society".
- Bangkok, Thailand, from 18 to 23 May, 2012, during the ITA-AITES WTC 2012 “Tunnelling and Underground Space for a global Society”.