The Prague tunnels are run here. The cameras see everything
Operators of the technology control center of the Prague city ring have already seen a lot on their monitors – mothers with prams who wanted to shorten their journey through the Blanka tunnel complex, cars turning in the opposite direction, drunks in the road, dogs, hares, foxes and other animals.
“You would be surprised how many people run out of gas in the tunnel,” says Barbora Lišková, a spokeswoman for the Technical Administration of Roads (TSK), explaining what is happening in the tunnels. “On Blanka’s three-year anniversary, it was 1,500 people, a few hundred more today.”
The dispatching technology of the city ring tunnels in Strahov is one of the two places in charge of the most sensitive part of Prague’s traffic – tunnels. It is operated by the Technical Administration of Roads and is in charge of all technology in the city ring tunnels. That is, the Blanka tunnel complex – the Bubenečský, Brusnický and Dejvický tunnels – the Strahov tunnel, the Mrázovka tunnel, the Zlíchovský, Těšnovský and Letenský tunnels.
Two centers
There is also a second center – the Main Traffic Control Center, the so-called HDŘÚ, which is provided by the Czech Police. In both centers, it is possible to identically use footage from all the 550 cameras that are installed in the Prague tunnels from the tunnels. There is no place in them that is not covered by cameras.
Drivers who think that they can use SOS booths with an emergency telephone as a toilet do not sometimes realize this. The “police” dispatching center (HDŘÚ) is in charge of all matters related to traffic management, including speed control or departures to drunks or parked cars. The Strahov man takes care of the running of all technologies.
And that there are them in the tunnels – main / fire ventilation, technological space ventilation, control system, camera surveillance and video detection, main, accommodation and emergency lighting, telematics and signaling equipment, emission measurement sensors, air flow rate, air quality, fire and security sensors, stable and variable traffic signs, information systems.
“To illustrate – over 200,000 signals from which the system works travel from the Blanka tunnel complex to the control room alone. Blanka has 6,000 switchboards, 2,200 emergency lighting luminaires, 88 jet fans under the ceiling, 32 jet fans providing large fire ventilation, 600 kilometers of cables, ”says Ondřej Kudla from ELTODO, which maintains technologies in all Prague. tunnels with notice, where he is one of two suppliers – the general contractor is SATRA.
The most serious is the fire
The control room of the Prague city tunnels was first built only for the Strahov tunnel in 1997. Later, in the years 2000 to 2004, it was gradually connected to other city ring tunnels and the Těšnov and Letná tunnels. There are always three dispatchers in 12-hour shifts, a total of 15 of them take turns.
There are 4 maintenance workers for each tunnel, twice as much for Blanka. These, unlike the dispatchers, are employees of individual suppliers. Jim is the TSK’s chief technician, who must stop at the workplace within one hour in the event of a problem and decide how to deal with the defect, if it is an emergency, so as not to close the tunnel.
“The control systems are fully automatic; in the event of an event, a warning message is displayed at all dispatching workplaces, on the basis of which a command to close the tunnel is displayed. This is always done only by the Police of the Czech Republic. The role of the dispatcher is to monitor the situation of technologies in operation, evaluate emergency and system reports, verify given situations and reports.
If necessary, they can possibly switch the end elements of the control system to manual mode, “says Štěpán Gróf, head of the TSK tunnel and special facilities management department. “The most serious event is the fire, of course.
In this case, an instruction is issued and the tunnel closes immediately automatically. It happens that the control system detects and signals a fire, but based on camera surveillance, it is found that there are no burns in the tunnel, but “only” cars causing extreme smoke pass through here.
In the case, the event is always assessed individually by the dispatchers with the equipment and the police, whether it is necessary to carry out such a tunnel intensity, or whether the intensity of ventilation of the affected area will be sufficiently increased. The system automatically starts the fans, even if you find a higher CO concentration2 or notX.
It automatically reacts to increased dust or, depending on the intensity of the sunlight outside, it regulates the interior lighting so that the drivers’ eyes get used to it when entering and leaving the tunnel. All processes are supervised by the control room, which monitors and evaluates all events so that no false alarms are announced and the tunnel is not closed.
Secret exercises
At regular two-month intervals, TSK staff meets with representatives of the Integrated Rescue System, at which, among other things, regular exercises are prepared to verify the readiness of all components, if it were not a false alarm, but a serious event. The exercise usually takes place once a year and such an exercise is always secret. “Every such event means causing a tunnel, so it can’t be done more often,” says Štěpán Gróf.
But once a month, every tunnel closes anyway. At that time, scheduled service work, technology control and camera washing take place. Four times a year, each tunnel is then washed very thoroughly with detergents, including the ceiling, with a drainage system, and a number of repairs are carried out, which cannot be carried out during operation.
This is then closed for several days, but always at night from 23:00 to 5:00. This is usually combined with more fundamental road repairs, when it is necessary to adjust its shear properties. This was a recent case where a car was burning in the Blanka tunnel, the road was damaged by a fire and the section was then reduced to 50 km / h for no apparent reason, even though it is otherwise 70 km / h in the entire tunnel.
And it’s not risky to drive all the Prague tunnels from one place, what if the electricity went out? “If there is a failure, there is a backup source that works while the tunnels are closed and cleared,” explains Barbora Lišková. “But we are connected to electricity from three sides: from Strahov, from Zlíchov and from Břevnov.
For example, if a transformer station burns down on one side or a power outage is planned, we will operate on electricity on the other side. It is similar in the tunnels, they are also powered from two branches, for the time of switching the system works on backup battery sources, which last up to 20 minutes. “