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

  • Developing a wireless cooperative traffic management system
    March 14, 2012
    The use by MDOT of 90-foot concrete poles on which to mount CCTV equipment reduces the number of poles needed to monitor a given area and incidences of occlusion
  • Semi-autonomous hybrid vehicle trials show fuel, emission savings
    July 16, 2012
    The Transport Research Laboratory has unveiled an innovative semi-autonomous vehicle prototype. It offers improves in environmental performance and safety but also displays some shortcomings. Mike Woof reports. The UK's Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has been working on an innovative project to develop a prototype vehicle intended to reduce fuel consumption. Based on a Ford Escape hybrid model, TRL's Sentience vehicle uses a combination of mobile communications and mapping technologies to reduce fuel c
  • Caltrans develops remote remedy for ailing VMS
    February 18, 2014
    A remote diagnostic system for variable message signs keeps Caltrans staff safer and makes them more efficient. District 12 of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) maintains roads in Orange County including 292 route miles of freeway lanes and 240 directional miles of full-time high occupancy vehicle or carpool lanes. All of these lanes are controlled from the district’s transportation management centre (TMC) using a network of 58 variable message signs (VMS) positioned alongside or abo
  • BlipTrack deployed for travel time measurement in Danish city
    August 10, 2012
    The Danish city of Aarhus, which has the second-largest urban area in Denmark after Copenhagen, has chosen BlipTrack to measure travel time and traffic flow following eight months of thorough testing of the system. The results showed that Blip Systems’ small and non-intrusive Bluetooth solution could offer the same exact information as alternative and more expensive solutions.