The Arlberg Road Tunnel (german: Arlberg Straßentunnel), with a length of , is

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

's longest road

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

. When it was inaugurated, it was the longest road tunnel in the world. It carries the S16 Arlberg Schnellstraße (German for "Arlberg Highway") under the

Arlberg Arlberg () is a massif between Vorarlberg and Tyrol in Austria. The highest peak is the Valluga at . The name ''Arlberg'' derives from the tradition of the "Arlenburg", who are said to have once established themselves on the Tyrolean side of the A ...

massif from

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label=Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is ...

. The tunnel is

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

with the road above the tunnel having an elevation of . It was built between July 1974 and December 1978, and its costs amounted to 4 billion

Austrian schilling The schilling (German language, German: ''Schilling'') was the currency of Austria from 1925 to 1938 and from 1945 to 1999, and the circulating currency until 2002. The euro was introduced at a fixed parity of €1 = 13.7603 schilling to repl ...

s (~300 million €). The tunnel is designed for 1800 vehicles per hour and equipped with 4 ventilation centres (one shaft with a height of 736 metres is the deepest in Europe), 12 vents, 43 cameras for traffic monitoring and 16 niches. In 1998 the tunnel was used by 2.6 million vehicles, where 18% are accounting for freight transport. The Arlberg Tunnel is a Toll Road with a one-way fee of €11 (as of October 2019). Tolls for both directions are collected at the eastern end of the tunnel.

References

{{Authority control Road tunnels in Austria Tunnels completed in 1978 Tunnels in the Alps 1978 establishments in Austria

See also

References