As a result of the vital importance of transport infrastructure for both the society and economy high expectations of the availability as well as the reliability of road networks exist. On the other hand owners and operators are faced ever-growing or even new challenges. Due to their direct influence on the capacity of road systems tunnels represent particular critical systems in this context. The outage of just one tunnel often leads to significant detractions of traffic, local as well as regional. Therefore the main objectives are to maintain the functionality and return rapidly to normal conditions after disruptive events – two integral elements of resilience, a holistic approach. A statistical evaluation of tunnels on the German federal road network forms the basis to define representative tunnel types, which ensure the broad applicability of the methodology. Furthermore these model tunnels allow the development of operation modes, from normal operation, over various restricted services like speed restriction or lane drops to a tunnel closure. Furthermore relevant threats following an all-hazard-approach are identified, which can result in a multitude of potential damage scenarios. In order to link the damage scenarios and the operation modes, minimum operating requirements are elaborated, conditional upon the level of personal safety. They come into play while returning to the original functionality after disruptive events, a stage which is not considered in existing approaches. To develop this integral and essential element of a holistic approach in terms of resilience, qualitative and quantitative methods of risk assessments are performed. In addition to safety considerations, the availability of road tunnels, consequently of road networks, has a high priority. This is why effects on traffic, like the loss of capacity due to restricted operation modes, are analysed using microscopical traffic simulations. In a final step resilience measures, which exceed the requirements of existing rules and standards, are determined and categorized, in order to increase the resilience even more. In doing so the possibilities of assessment of their effectivity as well as how to put them into practice in a reasonable way are illustrated.