23 Nov 2022 Smart Road series 2/4: the Control Room
As a technology player working in transport infrastructure, Sinelec aims to support road operators in their journey towards safer, smarter and more sustainable mobility.
In four episodes, we will take a closer look at some of the most significant technological initiatives Sinelec has carried out as part of one of the most ambitious and innovative road digitisation projects in Europe: Anas’ Smart Road.
CONTROL ROOM
What is the Control Room?
The Control Room is the Smart Road core, that permits the sophisticated operational management of highways and events that occur by utilizing advanced monitoring of road stretches, communicating information to users, coordinating activities in ordinary and emergency conditions. This is where all data and signals from ITS systems — such as video surveillance cameras — and from V2X cooperative systems installed along the road infrastructure come into play. By gaining an overview of the information, operators will be able to effectively manage each scenario, optimising interventions, response times and, if necessary, coordinating with third parties, such as the police and emergency vehicles, when needed.
In the Control Room created for Anas, there is an area dedicated to the real-time display of the road network and incoming information through video walls and the operators’ stations. Next to it has been built a data room, a dedicated space just for the telecommunications equipment used to manage the 100 Gb fibre-optic wired networks, the servers for software applications, the remote-control system for the field equipment, as well as the essentials to guarantee overall operations, including the air conditioning and fire prevention systems.
SINELEC‘s contribution
The customer involved Sinelec in the design and implementation of all the above components, a challenging project with the aim of interfacing all the subsystems of the Smart Road, creating a scalable environment to host the A91 and A90 ITS infrastructure while ensuring business continuity and disaster recovery.
The design phase was followed by the implementation phase. The servers for each of the Smart Road subsystems were set up in the laboratory concurrently with the civil works, installing and configuring the related software applications. Once completed, the servers were placed in the data room and connected to the field ITS systems. Then they were tested and started up. Finally, Sinelec integrated the Video Management System with RMT — Anas’ proprietary software for managing Control Room operations — allowing all information to be displayed in the operator area.