Peek traffic solutions
 

 

Traffic management in Tunnels

Peek already supplied several traffic management systems for tunnels in various countries The systems are primarily designed to increase the safety in the tunnel and secondly to provide the operators with the means needed for the tunnel to work properly.

Traffic ManagementPeek is often closely involved from planning stage with the design of the tunnel and advises the client on the architecture of the system. This is very important, because subsequent changes to a tunnel are often not possible (for example the cables). That is why it is important to give particular attention to the design and to choose an open and flexible architecture.

In some cases the basic functionality of the system is based on the function of the Motorway Traffic Management (MTM) system, often used in the Netherlands. The technical configuration can vary considerably per situation, however, as the implementation is platform independent.

A situation where state of the art architecture is used with the basic functions of the MTM-system embedded, is the Södra Länken at the south side of Stockholm. With a total length of 16 km and about 5 intersections, it looks more like a gigantic underground roundabout than a tunnel.

Tunnel ManagementOne of the major functions in a tunnel is standstill detection. At such moments, the warning devices must give an alert immediately. In order to obtain a good coverage of the road area, more than 200 cameras are used for that purpose alone.

A second vital function is warning the traffic for downstream traffic that is driving too slow To do this in a reliable manner, sensors are used at relatively short intervals, which register quite accurately on each lane each vehicle passing by. Since the road surface may wear severely in some tunnels and needs frequent maintenance, microwave detectors are frequently used.

Peek's road side system is a spider in the web in the entire system. All detection and control goes through this system. It enables combining all available information and drawing useful conclusions An example is the monitoring function passing the classification information from the detectors on to the ventilation system in the tunnel. Extra ventilation is provided in case of excessive truck traffic.


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