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

  • Integrating traffic systems improves management and control
    April 25, 2012
    Following a successful trial in 2007, VicRoads has adopted Streams Motorway Management from Transmax as its primary traffic management and control system Throughout the world, the avoidable social cost of traffic congestion continues to rise each year with increased motorisation, urbanisation and population growth. Traffic congestion is responsible for an increase in travel times, vehicle operating costs and carbon emissions. In 2007, VicRoads commissioned Streams Motorway Management for the M1 Monash Freew
  • The importance of going with the flow
    April 6, 2018
    Ensuring worker safety and up-to-date driver information is crucial to ensure that roadworks are not a source of danger and delay. Andrew Williams looks at a scheme on the A14 in Cambridgeshire, UK. In recent years, portable workzone ITS solutions have emerged as important tools in the management of major roadworks and system upgrade projects - and are viewed as an increasingly vital means of ensuring any ongoing traffic flow disruption is kept to a minimum. The technology forms a central component of an
  • Wireless technology aids workzone communications
    June 7, 2012
    Need for a temporary communication fix during a construction project has led to rapid deployment of a permanent but simplistic wireless broadband network in Chandler, Arizona When a major construction project was expected to disrupt highway communications in the city of Chandler, Arizona, the city’s engineers went looking for a simple solution. They needed a way of maintaining data connections with three consecutive intersections along Arizona Avenue in Chandler while construction necessitated the severin
  • New opportunities in a data-rich future
    March 19, 2014
    Jason Barnes looks at where the detection and monitoring sector is heading. In the future, there will be no such thing as an un-instrumented road. Just a short time ago, that could have been a quote from a high-level policy document but with the first arrivals of vehicles with 802.11p connectivity – the door-opener to Vehicle-to-X (V2X) applications – it’s a statement which has increasing validity. The technology which uses our roads will also provide information on road conditions but V2X isn’t the only