Tunnel protection from D-Tec
Published: 01 January, 2006
Concern over tunnel fire safety worldwide has led to the increasingly widespread adoption of VSD or Video Smoke Detection. Recently D-Tec’s system has been installed, for example, in the new 2.5 km Alassio Tunnel in Italy and in the 13-year-old, 2.3km, four-lane Sydney Harbour Tunnel in Australia, reports Ian Moore is Managing Director of D-Tec, the world’s leading authority on camera-based fire detection.
As with many D-Tec installations, the VSD equipment is integrated into the Sydney Harbour Tunnel’s existing CCTV camera installation, which dramatically reduces the cost and the installation and commissioning timescale. Ten eight-camera VSD units are now located in the Tunnel’s control room and, if fire is detected by any of the 80 cameras, an audio and visual alarm is immediately activated in the control room.
This provides the control room staff with vital visual identification of the location and severity of the fire, enabling them to implement appropriate emergency response procedures from the Tunnel’s fire safety plan and to more effectively monitor and coordinate firefighting and evacuation procedures.
Briefly, VSD works by computer analysis of video images provided by the CCTV cameras. It uses advanced image processing technology and extensive detection and known false-alarm phenomena algorithms to automatically identify the particular motion pattern of smoke and alert the system operator to its presence in the shortest possible time.
The system rapidly detects smoke by seeking small areas of change within an image. These are then passed through a series of filters that seek the particular characteristics that are known to be associated with smoke behaviour.
So, while conventional fire detection technology gives a potentially slow, possibly mistaken and relatively uninformative alert, VSD provides fast, reliable visual identification of the precise location, size and type of emergency. If such a system had been in place in the Mont Blanc Tunnel, it is reasonable to claim that the fire on the moving truck would have been spotted much sooner, and that the Italian and French firefighters at either end of the Tunnel would not have been so tragically hampered by poor communications.
Indeed, it is to ensure that VSD provides system users with the most sophisticated possible communication that D-Tec has further developed its technology, taking VSD from being a system that is limited to being monitored on local site-based computers, to one where the alarm, including the video images, can be distributed to an unlimited number of remote control centres.
Called FireVu, the new system utilises the latest secure communications technology and applies it to the proven VSD platform. This means that there is virtually no limitation on the distribution of alarm information so, in the case of a road tunnel, the information could be available simultaneously at both ends of the tunnel and at the local emergency services’ headquarters. FireVu can use any number of operating systems, and can be monitored on any PC.
FireVu can be seamlessly integrated with the tunnel’s other safety and security systems, enabling greater use of existing security equipment by including smoke and flame detection. Additionally, all of the alarm events are recorded on the system’s DVR [Digital Video Recorder], so pre and post-event analysis can be carried out to assist the tunnel operator to identify any changes that need to be made to the tunnel’s fire safety plan. FireVu is a NetVu Connected product that can provide seamless connectivity to other NetVu Connected products, such as those supplied by Dedicated Micros, D-Tec’s parent company. More info? Visit: www.dtec-fire.com
