d.). After six years of construction, this Channel tunnel was finally completed and officially opened for business in a formal dedication involving British Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterand.
Concept Development Phase .
Before the development of this Chunnel, traveling between England and France was very limited where their means of transportation was through the English Channel via boats and ferries which these resulted in time consuming, inconvenient and uncomfortable especially with the long journey and the bumpy ride. However with this Chunnel project having the main purpose to create a permanent link between England and France as proposed earlier, this needs will aid in an easy transportation of people and goods between the two countries. Besides transportation will be at ease, this Chunnel will serve as an incentive to the economic development and as well as improve the trading environment between the two countries. .
Even though with both sides agreeing on the link across the English Channel would benefit both of the countries, the governments realized that they could not fund the project thus they held a contest that invited companies to submit their plans to meet the required demands which is to create the link across the English Channel. Aside from meeting the demand needed, the companies must provide a plan to raise the needed funds to build the project, have the ability to operate the proposed designed, and the design must be able to endure for at least 120 years (Rosenberg, n.d.). .
Amongst the ten proposals that were submitted, the TransManche Link plan was selected as the preferred design in which the Chunnel was designed as three 50 km tunnels: two 7.5 m in diameter tubes running parallel to carry trains and a 4.8 m diameter service tunnel between them as shown in Figure 3. This service tunnel would be used for maintenance, including drainage pipes, communication cables and as well serves as an emergency escape route if passengers need to be evacuated in an incident [2].
