INVITATION

The Hungarian Tunnelling Association is pleased to welcome you to the wonderful Capital city of Budapest for the ITA-AITES World Tunnel Congress 2009 entitled “Safe Tunnelling For The City and Environment” and the 35^th ITA-AITES General Assembly, which is being held at the Budapest Congress and World Trade Center from 23 to 28 May, 2009.

Budapest – with its special location – has always had an important role in Europe. This beautiful City along the Danube River has long been an attractive tourist center where East and West, and North and South meet.

2000 years ago Romans built roads and amphitheatres here. Throughout the centuries many different styles of building facilities have been created. What wars destroyed, people rebuilt. There are architectural monuments in the city's historical areas, which form part of UNESCO's world heritage sites. Budapest is also rich in culture, natural beauty, and famous for its hospitality.

Budapest and Hungary are part of the International Corridors where highways, motorways, expressways and express railways are being built to bolster European international transport linked to the Trans-European transport and logistic network.

1896 marked the beginning of the Budapest Metro, the first to be built on the European continent. Since then major world cities have constructed many hundreds of kilometers of Metro lines, thus developing the utmost expertise in the field of urban underground transport. In Budapest these international professional engineers will meet and show off their cutting edge technology.

Road tunnel fires have long posed a threat to people’s safety, and events in recent years have served to reinforce this sad truth. The congress is expected to attract a large audience. Now Budapest is constructing its 4^th Metro line and will likely construct an additional line, which will also serve as a regional line. However, it will still be necessary to build new bypass roads with long tunnels in order to spare the city's inhabitants environmental pollution.

We look forward to seeing you. Please come to Budapest in May 2009! 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

It is recommended for engineers who are dealing with underground works as construction companies, planning companies, consultants, designers, scientists, research-engineers, operators, owners, suppliers, different governmental representatives and any other professionals who would like to share their knowledge and experience. Beyond that everyone is invited, who is interested in the underground profession.