Skip to main content

Dartford Crossing gets enhanced PA system

A new traffic safety system installed on The Dartford Crossing, the busiest estuarial crossing in the UK, is benefitting from a high quality public address (PA) system to communicate with drivers in the event of an incident. To combat the noisy road and traffic conditions, PEL Services installed a Bosch Praesideo digital PA system, with master and slave network-controllers and incorporating ambient noise sensing to automatically adjust sound levels to compensate for substantial variations in the levels o
May 25, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
A new traffic safety system installed on The Dartford Crossing, the busiest estuarial crossing in the UK, is benefitting from a high quality public address (PA) system to communicate with drivers in the event of an incident.

To combat the noisy road and traffic conditions, 8431 PEL Services installed a 311 Bosch Praesideo digital PA system, with master and slave network-controllers and incorporating ambient noise sensing to automatically adjust sound levels to compensate for substantial variations in the levels of background traffic noise.  The system has been set to maintain the sound level at 5dB above ambient levels, in real time, to ensure announcements are audible but not anti-socially loud.

Twelve Bosch LBC 3432-03 unidirectional projection speakers have been used with Praesideo at four locations; three speakers on each pole, at different heights to cater for the varying vehicle heights.  The speakers have been configured in a contingent redundant arrangement, as an additional fail-safe. There are three amplifiers for each location including one on standby and the entire system is connected to an uninterrupted power supply.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Centralised traffic control, managing changing traffic demands
    January 23, 2012
    Paul van Koningsbruggen and Dave Marples of Technolution BV describe, using a national example from the Netherlands, how smart add-ons to traffic control centres combine to increase cross-centre capabilities and cost-efficiency. Increasingly, traffic management is becoming the natural partner of the civil engineer, improving flows over existing infrastructure to deliver an alternative to laying more blacktop. As in any emerging market, the first steps towards mature traffic management have not necessarily r
  • Interoperability facilitates mobility on Santiago’s toll roads
    August 10, 2016
    Drivers crossing Chile’s capital are benefitting from additional investment in ITS. Mauro Nogarin reports. Santiago de Chile is pioneering the development of concession-interoperable, multi-lane, free-flow urban highways. This road network crosses the city from north to south (Autopista Central), from east to west (Costanera Norte) and also includes the north-western (Vespucio Norte) and southern (Vespucio Sur) ring roads surrounding this metropolitan area of seven million people.
  • Keeping a watching brief over traffic flows
    March 11, 2015
    Monitoring traffic flows is set to become an even bigger challengebut a revolution in camera technology can help, as Patrik Anderson explains. By 2025 almost 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas and in those cities there will be an estimated 6.2 billion private motorised trips every day. In order to manage this level of traffic growth, traffic management centres (TMCs) will need to both increase their monitoring capabilities and be able to detect traffic problems quickly, efficiently and r
  • 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