Skip to main content

New control room to ensure road safety

The High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh (HCDA) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has established a control and monitoring room as part of its road project to monitor all systems within the project and provide up to date status. The control room, which joins the extensions of Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Road and Oruba Road across Riyadh airbase, includes advanced traffic management systems to monitor the city’s main roads which are equipped with 22 variable message signs, 161 regulatory speed signs and automati
July 9, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh (HCDA) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has established a control and monitoring room as part of its road project to monitor all systems within the project and provide up to date status.

The control room, which joins the extensions of Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Road and Oruba Road across Riyadh airbase, includes advanced traffic management systems to monitor the city’s main roads which are equipped with 22 variable message signs, 161 regulatory speed signs and automatic traffic monitoring systems that include 260 static cameras and around 34 mobile cameras. The project is also equipped with vehicle count sensors to count vehicles and detect average speed and speed violations.

The control room also monitors three tunnels, including the safety systems and 120 direction and route signs in the tunnels. The tunnel safety systems include light intensity sensors inside the tunnels, traffic counting sensors, variable-message signs at the tunnels’ entrances, ventilation equipment, 58 emergency call centres, surveillance cameras along the tunnel, alarm bells and escape gates with lights across the tunnel’s tracks.

“This room has several vital tasks and it works around the clock to ensure security and safety along the roads and their vicinity and to manage the project’s smart systems and equipment,” HCDA said in a statement.

Related Content

  • Workzone safety can be economically viable
    October 24, 2014
    David Crawford looks how workzone safety can be ‘economically viable’. Highway maintenance is one of the most dangerous construction industry occupations in Europe. Research from The Netherlands on fatal crashes indicates that the risk facing road workzone operatives is ‘significantly higher’ than that for the general construction workforce. A survey carried out by the Highways Agency, which runs the UK’s motorway and trunk road network, has suggested that 20% of road workers have suffered injuries from pa
  • Measuring the effectiveness of winter VMS
    August 5, 2013
    A survey into the effectiveness of weather-related variable message signs on a trans-mountain highway has some interesting results, as Alexis Bacelar told ITS Europe. A study in the Massif Central region of France evaluating the usefulness of winter weather warning signs has highlighted the effect of variable message signs on driver behaviour. During the winter of 2009-2010, road operator Massif Central Direction Interdépartementale des Routes (MC DIR) started installing bad weather-specific variable messag
  • Abu Dhabi implements traffic control
    June 27, 2013
    The Department of Transport (DoT) in Abu Dhabi has begun the installation and deployment of a traffic control system (TCS) in Mohammed Bin Zayed City, at a cost of around US$20 million. The system is now operational at seven of the city’s 34 intersections following a pilot project and includes the deployment of smart and integrated traffic/pedestrian signals as well as a video surveillance system. The system will help enhance traffic in the city by reducing congestion, boosting the safety level for all road
  • Machine vision makes red light enforcement easier
    December 1, 2015
    Teledyne Dalsa’s Manny Romero looks at how the combination of camera manufacturer and software provider can make enforcement easier. Californian video analytics solution provider Eutecus develops real-time images capture and high speeds processing technology for applications including intelligent lighting and advanced driver assistance systems.