Case Study

Glasgow, Scotland

The Clyde Tunnel, under the River Clyde, in the heart of Glasgow, Scotland is a vital traffic route connecting the city centre with the M8 motorway. Each of the two tunnel tubes provide dual lane road access which carry 65,000 vehicles per day. Built in 1961, the tunnel is being completely refurbished with new air extraction systems, sump pumps, lighting, and cladding. Glasgow City Council, the local authority responsible for the tunnel, decided as part of the refurbishment program to adopt the new European Tunnel guidelines issued after the Mont Blanc accident. One of the recommendations to improve tunnel safety was the installation of an Automatic Incident Detection (AID) system.

Following a market review of available systems, Glasgow City Council and the Clyde Tunnel Master chose Autoscope® as their preferred system. Techmiracle, Image Sensing Systems exclusive distributor in the U.K. and Ireland, designed an Automatic Incident Detection system around the Autoscope Solo® Pro. The AID system was installed in December 2002. The AID System consists of:

  • Eighteen Solo Pro cameras, nine in each tube.
  • Autoscope Communications Interface Panel (ACIP) and video amplifiers that are housed in steel cases below the road-deck in the air ducts.
  • Twisted pair connectivity was used for data transmission and video using the output from the video amplifiers.

The system is monitored from the Clyde Tunnel Control room. Eighteen high resolution monitors allow the Solo Pro images to be used a as surveillance system. Techmiracle installed an interface unit to convert the twisted pair video transmission back to composite video as well as providing eighteen alarm outputs via three Autoscope Detector Rack Cards and RS422 conversion to RS232 via an additional ACIP.

The video and data is connected to the SCADA system for incident management, as well as a digital video recorder system with seven day storage that records compressed colour video continuously and stores up to 12 frames/second. The video storage option allows digital video to be viewed by control room operations.

When an accident occurs, an alarm is given according to the SCADA protocol. Video of the respective camera is automatically book marked and stored, and an alarm will be given instantaneously. The Clyde Tunnel Control room operators can select the pre– and post-incident time interval, for the automatic incident recording. It is possible to later retrieve compressed video from the digital video recorder and store this on the AID computer.

After four months of the system being in operation, an incident occurred in March 2003 when a motor vehicle accident occurred in the South-bound tube. A motor car collided with a passenger bus. The incident detection system responded correctly and produced “stopped vehicle” alarms as well as recording the incident automatically. Tunnel control personnel were alerted and dispatched emergency personnel into the tunnel. Local police officers were able to view the incident pre– and post- event and were given an archived copy of the complete incident on CD.

Overview

  • Installed in December 2002
  • AID System consists of:
    • 18 Autoscope Solo Pro Cameras
    • 3 Autoscope Detector Rack Cards
    • 19 Autoscope Communications Interface Panels
    • Digital Video Recorder
  • AID System provides:
    • Stopped vehicle alarms
    • Automatic incident recording
    • Surveillance system

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