Downer Group pioneers incident management via fibre cable

Downer Group has formed a partnership with Future Fibre Technologies (FFT) to offer a monitoring tool for the detection of incidents on roads, rail lines, bridges, tunnels and more.
October 11, 2016 Read time: 1 min

7203 Downer Group has formed a partnership with Future Fibre Technologies (FFT) to offer a monitoring tool for the detection of incidents on roads, rail lines, bridges, tunnels and more.

Utilising new or existing fibre deployments along a road or rail line, the system can monitor for incidents, detected by vibrations transmitted via the fibre optic cable. Control centres can be alerted in real time to an incident and location to accuracies within 6-10m, saving valuable time for emergency crews.

Vibration variations are compared with a library of normal background signals to categorise incidents.

Advanced artificial intelligence technology uses behaviour and signature recognition, and signal processing software, to identify the difference between a background event such as rain and an actual incident, reducing the frequency of nuisance alarms.

“No one is using fibre in this way to detect traffic incidents anywhere in the world,” said Jeff Sharp, group manager, technology and innovation, Downer Group.

These otherwise barely detectable vibrations monitored through the fibre cables can also be used to measure traffic speed and track traffic movement.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Dynniq tests virtual tool for air quality evaluation and monitoring
    June 23, 2016
    An air quality evaluation system that utilises existing data has been modelled on the UK’s motorways and tested in Manchester as Peter Kirby and Paul Grayston describe. It has long been known that emissions from road transport are the principal source of NO2 pollution, especially in the urban environment, and that appropriate transport management can play a big role in meeting environment and public health objectives.
    Read More
  • NOCoE delivers data for diligent DOTs
    April 29, 2015
    David Crawford talks to Dennis Motiani about the role of the new National Operations Centre of Excellence. Consolidating the collective experience of the US transportation system’s management and operations (TSM&O) community, streamlining its information gathering, while cutting research times and costs are the key drivers behind the country’s new National Operations Centre of Excellence (NOCoE). Launched in January at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), this sets out to be a sin
    Read More
  • Connected cones make for safer sites
    May 31, 2013
    David Crawford welcomes new lives for old road safety products. Traffic cones and barrels have traditionally been on the bottom shelf of the road construction and maintenance industry, typically forming visible soft safety barriers for temporary works at a lower cost than concrete alternatives. On both sides of the Atlantic, however, they are fast gaining new roles as instrumented components in advanced construction safety arrays. The EC-sponsored €1 million (US$1.31 million) Safelane collaborative innovati
    Read More
  • Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    July 19, 2018
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s
    Read More

Highlighted Content