There are thousands of kilometers of tunnels around the world. For many people living in large cities, spending their daily commute underground seems natural. Yet few are aware of the immense engineering challenges involved in keeping traffic flowing safely underground or through a mountain.
There are thousands of kilometers of tunnels around the world. For many people living in large cities, spending their daily commute underground seems natural. Yet few are aware of the immense engineering challenges involved in keeping traffic flowing safely underground or through a mountain.
Europe stands out as an exceptional case study in regard to tunnel security. Tunnel security in Europe has been greatly promoted through EU regulation, specifically EU directive 2004/54, which required the risk assessment of all tunnels and, depending on the outcome, required them to be refurbished or sometimes also to be extended, for example, with extra rescue tubes.
“The need to retrofit tunnels was one of the major market drivers in the tunnel industry. The lifetime of tunnels is typically several decades. However, as the equipment inside a tunnel becomes more and more based on electronics, the lifetime of typical electronic components is also reduced. The average periods for refurbishing tunnels with electrical equipment have been reduced in recent years from around 20 years to around 15 years,” explained Christoph Seewald, Head of Industry Management Transport Logistics for German sensor manufacturer SICK.
Regulation Promotes New Technology
The new EU legislation concerning tunnel safety and limiting the impact of possible incidents prescribes the mandatory use of video analytics in tunnels over a length of 500 meters to ensure automatic incident detection. “This means that video surveillance cameras with built-in video analytics, like intelligent video analytics, will slowly become commonplace in future tunnel design, since these intelligent techniques are a necessity to potentially prevent or at least limit the impact of tunnel incidents,” explained Szymon Chlebowski, Solution Consultant of Business Development EMEA in
Bosch Security Systems.
A comprehensive solution typically consist of several security and safety domains, like for example, fire detection, public address and evacuation, and video systems. “All monitoring solutions are firstly installed to detect disruptions that may cause accidents as early as possible. Secondly, in case of an incident, solutions for public address and evacuation have to be in place to safely guide people out of a hazardous situation,” he added.
Video Analytics for Tunnels
Larry Bowe, President and CEO of analytics provider PureTech Systems, sees three primary demands from clients using video analytics to monitor tunnels:
- Security – looking for unauthorized intrusions and abnormal activity
- Safety – monitoring for events that could result in dangerous situations such as people leaving vehicles, speeding vehicles, stopped vehicles, accidents, wrong direction, presence of smoke or the detection of animals in the tunnel
- Traffic Management Metrics – understanding the current flow of traffic (number of vehicles and speed), the type of vehicles present and how that changes over time
Future Technology and Tunnel Security
Tunnel security is relatively conservative, as mentioned above, systems are designed for 15 years and tunnels are built for much longer periods of time. The advent of new technologies in the automotive industry like autonomous cars and connected cars will no doubt increase the safety level. Connected cars will be able to transmit their location directly and continuously to the control center and keep an accurate situation picture.
Nevertheless, they will also bring with them new challenges, for example, what should an autonomous car do if a child wanders into the tunnel? Hit the child or crash into the wall? But in any case, regardless of what technology will be used in the future, one thing will stay the same – the wish to safely reach the light on the other side.