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Purpose: Major incidents in tunnel environment will pose several challenges for the emergency service organisations in terms of heat, visibility and lack of experiences from working in confined environments. These aspects, in turn, could pose challenges to establish collaboration. This study aims to contribute to the field of collaborative tunnel responses by exploring how “common knowledge” (Edwards, 2011) is built by the emergency services organisations, that is, what the organisations consider important while working on a potentially common problem, and their motives for the interpretations and actions if a major tunnel incident occurs.

Design/methodology/approach: Participants from the road traffic control centre, emergency dispatch centre, emergency medical service, rescue service and police were included in the study. Data from four focus group sessions was analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings: The study revealed that the tunnel environment presents specific aspects of how common knowledge was produced related to lifesaving and safety. The themes structuring mechanisms to reduce uncertainty, managing information for initial priorities, aligning responsibilities without hampering each other's work and adjusting actions to manage distance, illustrated how common knowledge was produced as crucial aspects to a collaborative response. Organising management sites, grasping and communicating risks, accessing the injury victims, was challenged by the confined environment, physical distances and imbalance in access to information and preparedness activities in tunnel environments.

Originality/value: This study offers new insights of common knowledge, by illustrating a motive perspective on collaborative responses in tunnel incidents. Creating interoperability calls not just for readiness for action and tunnel safety, but also training activities acknowledging different interpretations and motives to further develop tunnel responses.