Introduction: China has an extensive network of tunnels requiring maintenance. An intelligent management and maintenance of these tunnels based on a digital information system can be useful. To this end, it is necessary to collect relevant digital information regarding the tunnel body and surrounding environment for long-term maintenance. The purpose of the study was to take an existing operational tunnel as the research subject; this study applied various information technology methods to construct a basic digital database for the intelligent management and maintenance of tunnels. The following methods were used: data statistics, drone aerial photography, ground penetrating radar, fullsection laser scanning and theoretical analysis. As a result, the database can be used as a reference for similar projects.