A new way of building emergency escape routes involving the use of space below the surface of the road will be introduced to Shanghai’s cross-river tunnel that is under construction.

The traditional way of building escape routes is to allow people access to the parallel opposing lanes during an emergency, said Liu Tao, assistant chief engineer of Shanghai Huangpu Cross-river Facilities Investment Construction Development.

But this limits the distance between escape routes to every 800 meters or so, Liu said.

“The plan we are applying to South Hongmei Road Tunnel allows the possibility of building emergency access in every 100 to 150 meters,” he said.

According to Liu, the new design transfers people to the space beneath the lanes.

“Fire engines also have direct access to the emergency passageway that we built by making full use of the underground space, so that hopefully we can shorten the time needed for fire rescue and improve the chances of survival,” he said, adding it would be the first time such escape routes were applied to a Shanghai tunnel.

The tunnel, which is 14.93 meters in diameter, is expected to be finished by the end of 2014 and put into use in 2015. It will connect the city’s middle ring and Fengxian district.