Abstract: In light of the current status of existing highway tunnels in China regarding their enormous scale and difficult management, this paper proposes an concept of smart highway tunnels with new information techniques andthe general architecute with five levels involving sensing, communication, calculation, application and the user. It establishes the five application platforms of intelligent management and control, maintenance management, analytical judgment, disaster prevention and mitigation, and information service based on the core businesses of the tunnel’ soperation and management, with the characteristics of holographic sensing, indepth integration, accurate cognition,optimized decision, cooperative control and efficient management