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Fréjus Road Tunnel

1980 establishments in France1980 establishments in ItalyBardonecchiaCross-border roadsFrance–Italy border crossings
International tunnelsRoad tunnels in FranceRoad tunnels in ItalyToll tunnels in EuropeTransport in PiedmontTunnels completed in 1980Tunnels in the Alps
Entrée Tunnel du Fréjus
Entrée Tunnel du Fréjus

The Fréjus Road Tunnel is a tunnel that connects France and Italy. It runs under Col du Fréjus in the Cottian Alps between Modane in France and Bardonecchia in Italy. It is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes between France and Italy being used for 80% of the commercial road traffic. Construction of the 13 km (8.1 mi) long tunnel started in 1974, and it came into service on 12 July 1980, leading to the closure of the motorail shuttle service in the Fréjus rail tunnel. It cost 2 billion francs (equivalent to €700 million at 2005 prices). It is the thirteenth longest road tunnel in the world. The French section is managed by the French company SFTRF, and the Italian section by the Italian company SITAF. (The French politician Pierre Dumas was chairman of SFTRF from 1962 to 1989). The tunnel can be reached from the Italian side by the A32 Torino-Bardonecchia motorway, or by SS335 from Oulx, which joins SS24 (“del Monginevro”), and reaches Bardonecchia after 20 km (12 mi). From the French side, it can be reached by the A43 (“l’Autoroute de la Maurienne”) from Lyon and Chambéry. A toll is charged to all traffic. Over 20 million vehicles passed through the tunnel during the first 20 years.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Fréjus Road Tunnel (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Fréjus Road Tunnel
Fréjus Road Tunnel, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne

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Latitude Longitude
N 45.140833333333 ° E 6.6888888888889 °
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Tunnel du Fréjus

Fréjus Road Tunnel
73500 Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
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Entrée Tunnel du Fréjus
Entrée Tunnel du Fréjus
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Fréjus Rail Tunnel
Fréjus Rail Tunnel

The Fréjus Rail Tunnel (also called Mont Cenis Tunnel) is a rail tunnel of 13.7 km (8.5 mi) length in the European Alps, carrying the Turin–Modane railway through Mont Cenis to an end-on connection with the Culoz–Modane railway and linking Bardonecchia in Italy to Modane in France. Its mean altitude is 1,123 metres (3,684 ft) and it passes beneath the Pointe du Fréjus (2,932 metres (9,619 ft)) and the Col du Fréjus (2,542 metres (8,340 ft)). Headed by the Savoyard civil engineer Germain Sommeiller, construction of the tunnel commenced during August 1857, at a time when both ends of the future tunnel were in the Kingdom of Sardinia. From the onset, the tunnel was an ambitious engineering challenge, its gallery being twice the length of any tunnel previously constructed. Some figures believed that it would take as many as 40 years to complete; the total construction time was 13 years, the work having been greatly accelerated by the introduction of new technologies such as pneumatic drilling machines and dynamite. On 17 September 1871, the Fréjus Tunnel was opened to traffic for the first time, facilitating a new era of interaction between France and Italy. The Fréjus tunnel remains an important link in the connection between Rome and Paris, via Turin and Chambéry. Following the development of car and truck transportation, the Fréjus Road Tunnel was built along the same path from 1974 to 1980. During the 2000s, the Fréjus Rail Tunnel underwent a series of works to modernise and improve it, including the increase of its bore to accommodate wider rail vehicles, such as container trucks on piggy-back wagons, as part of the Autoroute Ferroviaire Alpine. A future high-speed rail tunnel to improve transit capacity between France and Italy, called the Mont d'Ambin Base Tunnel, is being planned as part of the Turin–Lyon high-speed railway project.