Establishing a sustainable evaluation indicator system for railway tunnel in China

Abstract The large-scale construction of railway tunnels in China in recent years has resulted in serious resources waste and environmental damage due to the lack of conception of sustainability. This paper establishes a sustainable evaluation indicator system of the railway tunnel and analyzes the weight of each indicator. Firstly, the fuzzy Delphi method was used to screen the initial indicators. The selected 30 final indicators constitute the railway tunnel sustainable evaluation indicator system, which includes three major dimensions (Policy Management, Support Structure and Auxiliary Facilities, and Regional Ecological Environment) and nine subdimensions; Subsequently, using the analytic hierarchy process to calculate the relative weight of each indicator. The differences in relative weight were compared between the academic researchers and railway tunnel builders. The study results show that on the major dimensions, both sides agree that the “Regional Ecological Environment” should be given priority. However, on the subdimensions, “Ecological Restoration” has gained the greatest consensus among academic researchers, and the railway tunnel builders believe that “Daily Maintenance” should be the key direction of sustainable construction. Therefore, the indicators related to the recycling and utilization of construction waste were recognized by academic researchers, while the indicators related to the optimization of construction management were more valued by railway tunnel builders. This divergence may be due to academic researchers focusing on ecological restoration results, while railway tunnel builders are more concerned about additional construction and maintenance costs. The sustainable evaluation of the Jianhuazhen Railway Tunnel by using the indicator system has obtained positive and effective results.