Skip to main content

Danish tunnel gets Afry ITS system

Project is designed to reduce heavy goods vehicle traffic in centre of Copenhagen
By David Arminas September 28, 2022 Read time: 2 mins
Control system will collect, analyse and visualise data to provide tunnel operators with safety info (image courtesy Danish Road Directorate / Vejdirektoratet)

Afry has secured a €9.4 million order for the installation of a Scada system in connection with the construction of the Nordhavn Tunnel in Denmark.

Scada - supervisory control and data acquisition - is a control system which will collect, analyse and visualise data to provide tunnel operators with information about incidents, technical errors and when to implement safety precautions.

Nordhavn Tunnel is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the Danish capital Copenhagen in decades. The project entails the construction of a 1.4km tunnel across Svanemølle Bay and the construction of a replacement harbour. 

Scada architecture comprises computers, networked data communications and graphical user interfaces for high-level supervision of machines and processes. It also covers sensors and other devices, such as programmable logic controllers.

Apart from the Scada system, Afry also provides ITS and internal television for the project that is designed to to reduce the number of heavy goods vehicles in the inner city of Copenhagen.

Expected to be ready for traffic in 2027, the new tunnel will connect the two city areas of Østerbro and Nordhavn, and connect with the existing 600m-long Nordhavnsvej Tunnel that has its own Scada system.

Afry, a Danish engineering design and IT solutions company, has worked with the client Danish Road Directorate on various assignments since the 1990s.

The directorate chose to separate the control system from the actual construction project and find an expert in control systems for tunnels.

”It is important that we learn from the lessons made by Copenhagen Municipality when they constructed Nordhavnsvej Tunnel,” said Silas Nørager, project manager at the Danish Road Directorate and responsible for the control system in Nordhavn Tunnel.

“Our focus is to have a fully-integrated system that works from day one between the two road stretches. It’s a technically challenging task and then there is the added difficulty that it has to connect with the existing Scada system in Nordhavnsvej Tunnel,” said Nørager.


 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Benefits of traffic data sharing with app developers
    November 10, 2015
    Timothy Compston finds out if exchanging traffic and road condition data with private app developers makes sense for both drivers and road authorities. Much has been said about the potential benefits for authorities in sharing data with traffic and navigation app developers, and receiving ‘crowdsourced’ information in return – so how is it working in practice?
  • The cloud - the future of in-car telematics?
    February 28, 2013
    Fiat Chrysler product concept and infotainment director Pierpaolo Tona told the conference that the big car manufacturers need to organise their telematics approach around three key pillars – and the first one of those is people. “OEMs need to understand consumers and their needs better than they understand them themselves,” he commented. The second pillar, suggested Tona, is technology. “Technology is never for the sake of it. Choose the right technology with the right performance to fulfil every consumer’
  • Does ADAS create as many problems as it solves
    September 23, 2014
    Victoria Banks and Neville Stanton [1] of Southampton University’s Transportation Research Group examine the real impact of creeping driver automation. Safety research suggests that 90% of accidents are thought to be a result of driver inattentiveness to unpredictable or incomplete information and the vision is that highly automated vehicles will lead to accident-free driving in the future.
  • I-80 Smart Corridor sets the ITS standard for California's Bay Area
    March 23, 2015
    Colin Sowman looks at California’s ‘smartest’ road which will open this spring to counter congestion and accidents on one of the Bay Area’s busiest interstates. Interstate 80 (I-80) is one of the busiest roads in the San Francisco Bay area with up to 270,000 vehicles using the corridor every day. The section between the Carquinez Bridge in Crockett and the Bay Bridge not only suffers congestion during the working week but also at weekends. Traditional remedies such as building additional lanes (there are al