control room magazine traffic 3.qxd:control room … info page 7 barco news 3 editorial ... its own...

State of Florida TrafficManagementSharing video signals acrossjurisdictions

Madrid Barajas AirportFlexibility and versatility

RijkswaterstaatPersonal walls

Vienna Traffic AuthorityIntegrated public transit management

ControlZoneControl rooms newsletter . Nr4 . 2006

control_room_magazine_traffic_3.qxd:control_room_magazine_#6282.qxd 10-01-2007 09:56 Pagina 1

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Contents

Cover StoryMadrid Barajas airport, Spain

Madrid Barajas Airport is Spain's busiest airport, handling

more than 40 million passengers a year between Spain's

attractive capital city and hundreds of domestic, European

and international destinations.

Its new facilities, together with an excellent geographical

location and important international air transportation

network, now enable it to secure its leading position

among the principal airports of the world and as a major

economic and decision making center on the continent.

Further more, with this expansion, the airport will become

an increasingly important hub airport, a major center for

connections and activity between Europe and America,

and in fact a vital gateway between America and Europe.

More info page 7

Barco news

3 Editorial

Traffic

4 State of Florida Traffic Management

Sharing video signals across jurisdictions

7 Madrid Barajas Airport [Spain]

Flexibility & versatility

12 Rijkswaterstaat [The Netherlands]

Centralized management

15 Niagara Falls Bridge Commission [USA]

Keeping Niagara Falls Bridge crossings safe and traffic

flowing efficiently

18 Vienna Traffic Authority [Austria]

The big overview for Vienna

20 Brisa [Portugal]

Managing motorways for people

22 Devon County Council [UK]

The Highway Operations Control Center

24 Olympic traffic control

Athens’ traffic control rooms incorporate everything from

large displays to networked visualization


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Robert WuDirector of Market and Business Development Barco Control Rooms

Editorial

hurricane evacuations. With Barco’s

universal decoding solution, they were

able to achieve this objective with less

equipment and more flexibility thus

saving money, space while ensuring

future expansion capabilities.

We shall also discuss airport

management needs for visualization

such Barajas Airport in Madrid. The

owners and operators of Barajas airport

recognized that there is a benefit to

have a common visualization system

that spans multiple functional areas to

improve operational efficiencies. They

wanted to ensure that the visualization

system utilized in every functional area

will be interoperable to enable the

sharing of information for overall

coordination of priorities. By selecting

one unified visualization platform, they

were also able to realize immediate

savings in maintenance and supplier

management costs.

From airports to ports, as global

shipping demands increase, coordinated

central management of regional road

and rail traffic surrounding an

international gateway become crucial to

ensure efficient flow of goods and the

viability of the gateway itself. The port

city of Rotterdam, one of Europe’s

busiest ocean ports, faces such a

challenge today. As it stands today,

traffic management has to coordinate

and prioritize the flow of various modes

of transport in and out of the port and

city to achieve maximum traffic flow

efficiency – e.g. water and road traffic

management such as drawbridge

openings, re-routing road traffic and

other bridge and tunnel management.

Barco’s solutions utilizing networked

based technologies allowed the

Rijkswaterstaat’s South West Directorate

to deploy a very flexible operational

control center to centrally visualize the

overall situation and make the best

trade-offs to maximize traffic flow for

the region.

In addition to ports and airports, many

other systems have all deployed large

overview solutions equipped with

advanced networking capabilities to

help ensure more efficient operations,

and future scalability of their systems.

These include road traffic management

of international crossings such as the

many bridges of Niagara Falls

connecting Canada and the United

States, management of urban rail

systems in Austria (Vienna); efficient

centralized toll roads management of

multiple toll roads in Portugal (Brisa);

regional road and highways

management in Devon County, UK, as

well as special events traffic and

associated agencies management such

as the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

We at Barco strive to provide scalability,

f lexibility, and the best cost of

ownership in our solutions by working

together with our customers to

understand their needs and concerns. It

is our hope that you’ll see from the

cases presented in this issue how

committed we are as an organization to

serve the specific needs of this market

and to provide the best technical

solution with maximum scalability and

flexibility.

We wish you an enjoyable read!

Dear reader,

The demands on our transportation

systems and networks are increasing

every day as the world economy gets

more integrated. In this ControlZone

newsletter, we shall see examples of

airports, ports, international border

crossing management, rail systems, toll

roads, highways, as well as urban and

special events traffic management

centers utilize visualization solutions to

aid in their operations.

In our first article, we will explore the

management of a large scale

transportation network in the State of

Florida in the USA. The State of Florida’s

Department of Traffic chose to deploy a

state wide IP network infrastructure as

the basis of its strategy to allow among

other things the ability for its various

districts to share information across

jurisdictions to have better co-ordination

in state wide events such as potential


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State of Florida Traffic Management [USA] Case Study

The State of Florida USA is one of many

pioneers in util izing digital IP

technologies for its video signal feeds

that it uses for its traffic management

state wide. The reasons for this were

many but one of them was to ensure

easy transmission and eventual ly

interoperability across jurisdictions. This

was envisioned to enable cross

jurisdictional co-ordination in events

such as state wide hurricane

evacuations. To achieve this vision

however, the key was to have a

universal decoding capability for its

control centers. This case study will

explore why that need exists and how

Barco’s solution has helped fulfill that

need. The universal decoding role in

enabling this vision can best be

explained with two scenarios. The first

is when there is a need to share video

signals across different districts and

jurisdictions. The second is for control

center operations who are interested in

protecting their investments.

Sharing video signals acrossjurisdictionsOne of the most efficient ways tocoordinate a state wide event such as ahurricane evacuation is to enablevarious control centers from differentjurisdictions to access each other’svideo feeds that are monitoring thelocal traffic conditions directly – asopposed to having a descriptiondictated over the telephone. In theState of Florida, there are 7 districtsand one turnpike organization whicheach have their own control centers.

Add to that the numerous county andcity jurisdictions and there is asignificant amount of coordination andinformation sharing that is required.The il lustration (see next page)provides a graphical view of thepotential challenge.

This need to share however iscomplicated by the fact that the videosystems deployed across differentjurisdictions often did not come fromthe same supplier. Even though mostsuppliers claim to follow standards in


are capable of decoding any signalfrom any encoder – be it signals fromits own system or any from theneighboring jurisdictions. In otherwords, the control center need onlypurchase the same number of universaldecoders as the amount of signals itwants to view simultaneously.

Back to the example, with a universaldecoder, the control center need onlybuy 10 universal decoders versus 25conventional supplier specific decoders.The savings are significant since theunit price of a decoder can range from€1000 up to €4000 per unit – not tomention rack space requirements. (seereducing control center equipment)

Even if there is no pressure for crossjurisdictional access, the universaldecoding function also protects theinvestment of the control center. Aswas stated before, many suppliers ofencoders though they can rightly claimstandards compliance do haveadditional features and capabilities thatmake their solution non-interoperablewith others. As such, without auniversal decoding capability, thecontrol center, as in the past, is oftenbeholden unto a single supplier and aresubject to the risks of having only onesupplier of its solutions.

The universal decoding capabilityal lows the control center to havefreedom in its choice of technologies(e.g. multiple compression schemes)and suppliers.

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their compressed digital outputs, thereare stil l significant deviations andoptions that would make their signalsnon-interoperable with each other. Aclassic example is the decoderacknowledgement message that itsends to the encoder to indicate thatthe decoder is still “alive and listening”.This message was never foreseen norstandardized in the various videocompression standards and hencecaused significant issues forinteroperability. It was howeverfortunate that most of the signals weredigitized over a standard IP network asper the vision of the State of Florida.With digital IP transmission, the signalscan be transmitted to the control centereasily. Traditionally therefore, in orderto view the video signals, the controlcenter had to purchase the specificdecoder of the supplier whose encoderwas used to originally encode thesignal, to ensure a match. This is verycostly especially when the systemincreases in scale.

Universal decoding solutionOne control center would like to beable to view 10 video feedssimultaneously from a possiblecollection of its own 10 cameras, and 5from each of its 3 neighboringjurisdictions. In this case, the controlcenter has to purchase 10 decoders forits own signal plus 15 more for each ofthe 3 neighboring jurisdictions for atotal of 25 decoders to be able to havethe flexibility to view any mix of 10signals. If there is a need to increasethe number of jurisdictions viewed orthe amount of signals viewed perjurisdiction, then more decoders haveto be purchased even though the totalnumber of signals viewed will only beno more than 10.

However, consider if there exists auniversal decoder that is capable ofdecoding any signal from any supplierof encoders. In this case, if the controlcenter only wants to view 10 signals atany one time, then it need onlypurchase 10 universal decoders which


Different sources

Different jurisdiction zoneswith different types ofencoder manufacturers

Remote or back up control room

Personalwall ordesktop

Decision or war room

iMPath NetworksVbrickCornetCoretecBoschAxisOther encoderIP cameraAnalog video/cameraLAN/WAN network

Reducing control center equipmentThe second benefit scenario occurswhen there are significant amounts ofdecoders being used. Consider that the video signals arrivinginto the control centers are alreadydigitized and have a specific picturequality and delay (latency). To decodethis signal into ‘analog’ would furtherreduce this quality and increase thelatency. In addition, these decodersrequire space, power and maintenance.Add to that, the majority of thesesignals are sent to the main controlroom display wall for visualization – i.e.one visualization system. Therefore, byintegrating the decoder directly into thecontrol room visualization controllerwhich already processes the signals indigital format , the control centeroperations can realize significantsavings of equipment and space.

ConclusionsIn summary, the need to coordinateacross jurisdictions and the increasingnumber of digital video camera signalsused for traffic management, althoughachievable without the integrateduniversal decoder technically, wouldhave been costly. As such, Barco wassuccessful in deploying its universaldecoding solutions for control roomvisualization into many control rooms

of the various transport departmentdistricts of the state of Florida, countiesand cities of Florida. As per Mr. RobertJ. DiChristopher, Municipal ServicesDirector of the City of Boca Raton, “Wewanted our investment to be state ofthe art and as open and flexible aspossible. The Barco TransForm Acontroller allowed us to reduce ourequipment count.

State of Florida Traffic Management

Traditional methods of decodingsignals from different jurisdictions byusing different external (non-integrated) decoders of specificmanufacturers

Integrated universal decoding -saving space, money, andproviding maximum flexibility

Shared signals can also be viewedin other locations or applications

Control room of District A

Control room of District B

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MadridBarajas Airport[Spain]

Madrid Barajas Airport is Spain's busiest

airport , handling more than 40 million

passengers a year between Spain's

attractive capital city and hundreds of

domestic , European and international

destinations, and Barco has played a major

part in its amazing development.


The capacity at Madrid InternationalAirport was doubled in early 2006 withthe addition of the new Terminal 4 andtwo extra runways. Madrid BarajasAirport handles the majority of Spain'stransatlantic f l ights, and is theforemost European airport for flights toCentral and South America as well as amajor hub for worldwide connections.The expansion of the airport reinforcesMadrid as Spain’s air traffic capital andas one of the most importantdestinations in Europe and worldwide.

Its new facilities, together with anexcellent geographical location andimportant international airtransportation network, now enable itto secure its leading position amongthe principal airports of the world andas a major economic and decisionmaking center on the continent .Further more, with this expansion, theairport will become an increasinglyimportant hub airport , a majorcenter for connections andactivity between Europe andAmerica, and in fact avital gatewaybetween Americaand Europe.

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Equipment installed:

COSEG- 12 2x2 OVERVIEW mDR50-DLCOMED - OVERVIEW 7x2 cDR67-DLCOSEA - OVERVIEW 6x2 cDR67-DLCYMES - 4 5x2 OVERVIEW cDR67-DL and 2 2x2OVERVIEW mDR50-DLCoordination room - 7x2 OVERVIEW cDR67-DLCrisis Room - 3x2 OVERVIEW cDR67-DLTraining room - 2x1 OVERVIEW cDR67-DL350 analog video sources50 IP video sources80 RGB sources


The Centro de GestionAeroportuario (CGA) is thecoordination and management

center for the new MadridBarajas Airport Terminal. It isapproximately 100 meters longand 40 meters wide. This center

holds seven main control areas asfollows.

• COSEA: Service and incidentmanagement area

• COMED: Groundside managementincluding surface radar, taxiways,weather radar, etc.

• COSEG: Surveillance area

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“Óscar Calvo Martín, Centro de Gestión Aeroportuaria (CGA),Proyecto ASCESIS-ISDEFE, AENA, Madrid Barajas Airport:

Flexibility and versatility were the two mostimportant features in the design.

• CYMES: Systems and equipmentmanagement

• Coordination room: Overallmanagement

• Training room: used for training newoperators and existing operators anynew technology.

• Crisis management room: access toevery camera and every screen

The first five are located within themain control room while the trainingand crisis management areas arelocated in two separate rooms. As isthe norm, the CGA is operational 24/7365 days a year.


the cars in the underground tunnels.Using the flexible visualization system,the operators can integrate informationfrom many disparate systems acrossthe airport from crucial elements suchas the local and worldwide weather,the control of electricity and air-conditioning and even trackingcustomer facilities such as the numberof luggage trolley’s available. With thisintegrated view, the CGA can efficientlyand effectively serve as the overallmanagement center for the entireairport.

To improve collaboration, each area hasa dedicated team of trained operatorswho are capable of not just working ontheir own assigned responsibilities butalso on other areas as well. This isimportant to maintain maximumoperator efficiency and effectiveness.

All of the monitoring is assisted byapproximately 6000 cameras spreadaround the airport. Up to 350 of thecameras are simultaneously monitoredat any one time on Barco’s solution

“When designing the CGA there weremany considerations but the mostimportant attributes were for the roomto be flexible and versatile.” said Mr.Óscar Calvo. Barco was selected for thisprestigious and vast installation basedon a set criteria laid out in a publictender. Within the tender it was statedthat the winning supplier had to beable to be completely versatile andaccommodate a number of differentsources simultaneously including RGB,IP and analogue video. This was easilyaccomplished with Barco’s visualizationsystem. In addition to technicalflexibility, this project required Barco’ssolution as well as team members tobe versatile. As different subsystemswere awarded to different integrators,Barco, as the unified visualizationsolution had to work with multipleintegrators and their different controlsystems and staff at any one time.

The CGA is responsible to monitor andmanage the operations of every areaof the airport from the movement ofthe aircraft, passengers and luggage to

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using no less than 148 rear projectioncubes. The cubes are of differing sizesand are grouped together in differentconfigurations depending on the needsof the seven separate functions.Additionally, the operators have fullcontrol over the cameras and canmove and zoom in or out as necessary.It is believed that this is the first airportin the world to adopt this system ofactive monitoring of the entire airportin one central operation area in realtime.

MaintenanceThe maintenance of the CGA isconducted by the room coordinator.“While the display walls are consideredto be part of the IT infrastructure andtaken care of by the IT department,”Mr. Óscar Calvo Martín, Centro deGestión Aeroportuaria (CGA), ProyectoASCESIS-ISDEFE comments, “the lampsare so easy to change that we don’tneed IT for it as this is done by thelocal team within the CGA.”


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Terminal 4In addition to the main room there areBarco facilities in Terminal 2. The CGRh24room is where all flights are supervised andincidents are reviewed. The visualization ismade up of three separate displaysarranged in a curved configuration: the threedisplays in this area consist of a 5x3, 5x2,and a 4x2 configuration of Barco’s OVERVIEW

mDG50-DL. There are numerous analogvideo input cards (16 inputs) to servicethese displays. There are plans to extendthis facil ity to accommodate futureexpansion.

The Crisis room consists of a 5x3configuration of Barco’s OVERVIEW mDG50-DL,also supplied with a number of analog videocards.

The futureThe system in place now perfectly meetsthe current needs of Madrid Barajas Airport.However, as stated by Mr. Óscar Calvo, thereis still room for advancement, “I am wellaware that the Barco solution is currentlynot used to its full capacity and, movingforward, I am keen to develop this capacityand use more functions in line with themanagement of the room and maximize thebenefits of the full Barco solution”.


Traffic managementIn the South West NetherlandsDirectorate (RWS-ZWN), there is acomplex network of rivers and anequally complex network of tunnelsand bridges to support the port andvarious economic activities of theregion. One of the main concerns ofthe RWS-ZWN is to monitor theshipping traffic and ensure that bridgesare raised in time for the ships to pass.

With some larger ships potentiallytaking up to several minutes to cometo a stop, it is critical that the traffic ismanaged and clear of the bridges intime. It is also important for the RWS-ZWN to route traffic properly aroundthese raised bridges to ensure that theroad and rail networks feeding the port

Rijkswaterstaat [Netherlands]Centralized management

The Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works, and Water Management, also

known as the Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) is responsible for the management of all

matters of transport nationally in the Netherlands. To achieve this, the RWS is

organized into nine regional directorates spanning 12 provinces, 489

municipalities, seven greater city areas, and 48 water board districts.

In the South West Netherlands Directorate, around the major port city of

Rotterdam, the integrated management of both roadways and waterways

becomes very significant. Historically, its natural harbour and its strategic

location at the mouth of the Rhine and Maas rivers made it the main land-sea

transfer point for the rich output of the industrial heartlands of Germany, France,

and Belgium. While its natural waterways still provide very cost effective

transport, road and rail transport have also matured over the years and also

provide alternative transport for goods from areas not traditionally served by the

Rhine. As such today, the efficiency of the Rotterdam port are impacted by the

traffic flows of the road and rail networks as well as those of the waterways and

especially by the interaction of the two modes of transport. Therefore, the

integrated management of all modes of traffic is key to ensure the continued

effectiveness. This namely translates into how effectively the RWS can manage

its complex infrastructure of waterways and the bridges and tunnels that span

them in this region.

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FlexibilityBefore the Barco solution was installed,the RWS-ZWN managed each bridgeand tunnel individually at its owncontrol center. At each control center, acollection of traditional CRT monitorswere used to display local traffic sensorinformation as well as applications.These monitors were laid out so thatthe content was in the right order, forexample, the mouth of the tunnel,


(as well as serving other stakeholders)are not adversely affected by suchdelays. To overcome some significantbottlenecks, the RWS-ZWN has over theyears built some tunnels to alleviatedelays. However, the tunnels them-selves also present a safety andmanagement concern. This is becauseit is equally important that the traffic inthe tunnels be closely monitored andincidents cleared quickly, to ensuresmooth running of the road and railtransport infrastructure.

Recently as traffic volume increased,delays and actions on individualbridges and tunnels have started toaffect traffic flows on adjacent bridgesand tunnels, as well as traffic flow onthe waterways. Therefore integratedmanagement and co-ordination of theonce “independent” bridges andtunnels are required to balance theneeds the various modes of transportand maintain maximum efficiency forall users – not only the port.

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middle of the tunnel and then the exitto aid understanding of this situation.While this system worked, it washowever, costly to maintain andmanage, and did not have anyflexibility. In addition, the individualmanagement of each bridge or tunneldid not adequately resolve the overallnetwork efficiency issue. Therefore anew solution was sought. The newsolution mandated that the operations

be centralized to allow better overallcoordination. Thus a new centralcontrol room was built to consolidatethe once independent and distributedoperation centers. In this new controlcenter, the vision was to provide aflexible display system that is based onindividual “control points”. Thesecontrol points can be used to monitorany tunnel or bridge in question. Inaddition, multiple control points could

be configured monitor a single incidentjointly in order to allow more resourcesto work on major problemssimultaneously. Last but not least,these control points are to be equippedwith large displays to al low thesupervisor or other operators in thesame control room “over the shoulder”viewing access of each control point.This is to facilitate better collaborationand decision making.

The vision was to provide a flexible display

system based on individual control points.

“


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The Barco solution In the new control room, RWS-ZWNdeployed 15 control points (12 forbridges and 3 for tunnels). For eachtunnel control point, Barco deliveredtwo modules of 67 inch displays in a2x1 configuration which are visuallyintegrated as one display wall. For thebridges, a 3x1 67 inch Barco displaysolution was utilized. These largedisplays were used for collaborationpurposes as well as to display the largeamount of pixels required tosimultaneously showing applicationdata as well as video all on one screenin a large enough size to be viewedsimultaneously by the user as well asothers within the control center.

With the help of touch panels, theoperators of each control point canadapt the display and change theirviews at the touch. For example, theoperator could switch display to showsources from one bridge to the sourcesfrom another, or remain at the samebridge but display different cameras orapplications, as required. Moreover,due to the set up of the system, eachoperator has their own personalizedlayout (of displayed items) regardlessof control point used. As such,operators are able to move about thecontrol room and, again with the touchpanels, adapt the layout of any controlpoint to their own preferred viewingrequirements.

The benefits are that the operators canuse any control point to control anyremote bridge or tunnel to enable fastand accurate decision making, and inaddition, with such flexibility, anycontrol points can be used as backupunit of the other should a unit fail.

This flexibility to display any signalanywhere is due primarily to thedisplay controller. Barco’s Transform Acontrollers were used to drive eachBarco display. These controllers areable to accept video feeds from theGigabit Ethernet networks used totransmit the different types of signalsfrom the various sites to the centrallocation. The network connects 16remote sites including tunnels, remotecontrolled bridges and special-purposelanes to the new centre. This networkis able to transport up to 600 videostreams simultaneously, includingaudio, various telemetry and controldata, and LAN-services.

To enable effective remote control ofthe system, high quality video imagesand a very high availability of theservices are key. As such theIntegrated Streaming Video Card fromBarco were used within the TransformA controllers, to allow direct connectionto the Gigabit Ethernet network tominimize any image quality loss aswell potential signal delays. With thissolution, the control point displays canpresent any signal with high qualityand minimal delay, as and whenrequired.

This case clearly demonstrates theneed for centralized management toensure multi-modal large networkefficiency. In addition, it also clearlyshows that there exist solutions thatcan support such operational models.


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Niagara Falls Bridge Commission [USA]Security solution keeps Niagara Falls Bridge crossings safeand traffic flowing efficiently

Niagara Falls' reputation as a natural

world wonder beckons visitors from

around the globe. But it is the bridges

that actually bring most of them here.

No other single factor contributes more

to tourism growth - indeed the export

trade economy overal l - than the

NFBC's three monumental linkages of

concrete and steel. Niagara Fal ls

crossings rank second only to Kennedy

International as the busiest port of

entry between Windsor (ON, Canada)

and Detroit (MI, USA).

The breathtakingly beautiful journeyacross the Niagara River between theUnited States and Canada, now flowsbetter and is more secure with thehelp of a new system that includesvideo surveillance and access control.The Niagara Falls Bridge Commission(NFBC) owns and operates theLewiston-Queenston, Rainbow andWhirlpool Bridges. Each year nearly 12million passages and $32 billion intrade cross the bridges.

Some 160 video cameras and 96access control points have been placedat the bridges as well as at sixU.S./Canadian Customs’ Plazas and theNFBC’s new $5.8 million administrativeheadquarters in Lewiston, New York.Security functions are housed in theheadquarters' Operations Center.

Secure passageThe mission of the NFBC is to makesure the facilities are secure for thesafe and efficient movement of peopleand goods across the border in bothdirections.

Security cameras have been placed atstrategic locations along the bridgesand at the Customs’ plazas at eitherend of each bridge. In addition tosecurity, cameras are also used to helpto clear up any traffic incident orissues. Depending on traffic conditions,the Operations Center is able to changethe direction of the traffic flow in thelanes at the Lewiston-QueenstonBridge. Video cameras in each laneenable the operators to view traffic;electronic signs tell the public whichlanes are open and which are closed.


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As tourists, commuters and peopletransport goods across the threebridges connecting the U.S. andCanadian sides of the Niagara Frontier,a sophisticated array of cameras andaccess control devices will continue toensure they have a safe passage. Byhaving a visual verification of thereported problem, the appropriatespecialist teams and resources may bedeployed more efficiently and quicklyto resolve the issues.

The NFBC began installation of a LenelOnGuard 2005 security managementsystem two years ago, and while thesystem is in a state of continual growthand change, it is now complete andfully functional. The system works inconjunction with a Barco display wallon which camera images aredisplayed. An Axis Communicationnetwork camera system is used forboth Axis digital cameras and toconvert Pelco analog cameras to digitaloutputs.

In-house Operations Center operatorsview the cameras and coordinateresponses to alarms around the clock.Michael O’Reilly, Head of ManagementInformation Systems (MIS), says “Ifthere is an incident, a video pops upshowing the incident point to theoperator. The converged network thentransports data, voice and video. Oncevideo enters our network, it is routedto the servers. From there, it istransported to any client that requestsvideo anywhere on the network ,including and mainly, at the OperationsCenter. The video goes to two security-designated workstations and directly tothe display wall. The wall can beconfigured in many different ways andin the future the operators will be ableto change the views with the click of amouse.”

Brent Gallaugher, Agency Relations andSecurity Manager, says “The images onthe display wall are extremely clearand crisp. We can either project onelarge image or a combination of manydifferent feeds onto the display wall.Images from up to 14 (16 with 4 SVC’s)cameras at this size are readilyviewable at one time. This significantlyreduces response times and helps us tomake better decisions.”

Agency cooperation and integrateddigital solutionsThe NFBC has always been a hallmarkof inter-agency and international co-operation due to its unique nature andmandate. The only way to operatesuccessfully for so many years was tohave a cooperative relationship withboth local police and federal customsofficials. In Canada, they work with local lawenforcement agencies, Ministry ofTransportation (MTO) and CanadaBorder Services Agency.In the United States, they work withlocal law enforcement agencies,Niagara International TransportationTechnology Coalition (N.I.T.T.E.C.), andU.S. Customs and Border Protection.

As such, to share situational awarenessand to help facilitate decision making,the NFBC needed a leading edge fullyintegrated digital solution that wasf lexible enough to share theirinformation across multiple agenciesand systems.

The NFBC, however found out afterresearch that this was a pioneeringmove because no-one else hadattempted it on this scale. The NFBC needed a solution thatoffered a smooth migration pathbecause a fork lift upgrade to theanalog switching equipment and otheranalog support hardware, when thingsfinal ly did go digital, was notacceptable operationally or financially.

After extensive research anddiscussions with many differentvendors, the NFBC found that most ofthe solutions were not fully integratedbetween the hardware and software,and generally were not acceptable. Thedeciding factor in the end was digitalintegration and migration. The NFBCfound that while many vendors metalmost all of the design criteria, theywere not able to provide a directdigital streaming solution nor werethey planning on developing this in theforeseeable future.


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When NFBC approached Barco on adirect digital streaming solution, theexact solution that NFBC wanted forMJPEG streams was not available. Bypartnering with Barco they received apromise to deliver the desired solutionfor MJPEG through a Barco API thatNFBC could use for higher level systemintegration. NFBC also worked closelywith the security vendor Lenel todevelop a Barco-Lenel integration viathe API that could seamlessly controlthe wall. Together, the threecompanies agreed on a timeline anddeliverables resulting in the currentsuccessful site.

The future of integrated securityThe fully integrated solution allowsNFBC to stream both digital streamsdirectly from the Lenel Security system,which includes both live and recordedvideo streams available from theclustered DVR’s directly to the Barcodisplay wall. This integration allows forfuture developments for other agenciesto view and share their signals to

achieve the hallmark interagency co-operation that NFBC is known for.Since the solution is all digital, thesystem can be scaled much easier thanan analog solution.

Michael O’Reilly says “With groundbreaking projects l ike this, it isimportant to team up and alignyourself with people who have aproven track record that can deliverwhat they promise. Barco and Lenelare those kinds of people. It was andstill is a pleasure to work with themthroughout this project. Barco wasopen for development and delivered

what it had promised with honesty,professionalism, and integrity. I foresee a bright future of co-operationbetween our three organizationstogether and would not hesitate torecommend Barco to anyone. If youlook at all of the features of Barco’sproducts and the vast amount ofknowledge and skill they have in theindustry, I do not believe there isanother viable choice for a ‘streamingdigital’ solution today. As it turns outwe may have done more work to getthere but our hard work paid off in thesystem we have and the savings wehave made.”

“

Thomas Garlock, General Manager, NFBC:

The new state-of-the-art 24/7 Operations Center isa critical part of the safe passage of people andcommerce across the three bridges and through thesix plazas.


Overview at a glanceThe entire display wall consists of 144(48 x 3) modules with a diagonal of 50inches per module. At present 88 modules thereof areequipped with rear-projection units.Further modules will be upgraded asrequired.

The display wall is divided into severalareas for monitoring the differentunderground lines, the electricitynetwork of underground lines as wellas of the tramway.

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After several years of planning with thehighest requirements in terms ofoperating ergonomics, Vienna TrafficAuthority can now boast the largestdisplay wall in Austria in their new trafficcontrol center in Erdberg. Additionallythey have installed an exemplaryconcept to guarantee the operationalreliability of the entire subway andtramway.

With approximately 8,000 employees and nearly 750 million passengers in 2005 the

Vienna Traffic Authority ranks among the largest urban public transportation services

in Europe. It was a particular challenge to create a suitable control center which

incorporates current needs as well as being ready for the future requirements for the

operational safety of the fleet and the corresponding infrastructure.

Vienna Traffic Authority [Austria]The big overview for Vienna

Each one of the 15 logical display wallsis controlled by a Barco TransForm Agraphic controller. The visualization isrealized by control system pictures onthe rear projection modules of theOVERVIEW mDG50-DL type with XGAresolution. The size and configuration ofthe logical video walls are between2x1 modules for situation-specificinformation up to 4x3 modules forconnected energy representations.


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For the visualization of the individualunderground lines there is a separatesurface with 6x1 modules and a totalresolution of 6144 x 768 pixelsavailable in each case enabling theoperators to see all relevant details ofthe linear network in one view. Thanksto the high resolution of therepresentation surface it is possible toillustrate a large amount of detail in acoherent way. This is not possible witha traditional monitor stack.

The operator has a simultaneousoverview of all trains and undergroundroutes and can immediately locate theexact position based on the tracksection allocation and recognizewhether a train is on schedule ordelayed. When an incident occurs, theposition of the emergency-exits andthe intended escape directions can beviewed and local assistance is bettersupported.

The operators in the front row receive theirinformation on the two lower rows of displaycubes in the form of diagrams showing thelines and situation-specific details within theinformation. The ascending rear workplacesuse additional summary presentations on theupper module rows.

Supplementary video signals arepermanently displayed on separatevideo monitors above the display wall.Additional important video pictures canbe shown in scalable windows on thedisplay wall, and can be locked in orderto support the common evaluation ofcertain situations. This comprehensiveoverview ensures the fast and simpleevaluation of the situation and mosteffective monitoring of the entireinfrastructure.

The entire décor of the control center, from the furniture to the control system pictures up to the colorof the lining of the video wall, was also coordinated and specified together with ergonomists accordingto the customer guidelines.

Barco’s state-of-the art technology and its ability tomeet the Traffic Authority of Vienna’s economiccriteria made Barco the obvious choice.

“


Brisa [Portugal]Managing motorways for people

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The Operational Coordination Centerentered into operation gradually in2004. The target was to guarantee newlevels of road safety on the Brisanetwork, better traffic management, aswell as greater network flexibility.

These targets have been achieved andexceeded as the center also providescomprehensive information on trafficconditions on motorways and thereforegenerating greater capabilities for theco-ordination of the roadside assistanceand the management of maintenanceworks.

Brisa Auto-Estradas de Portugal,

founded in 1972, is the largest

Portuguese motorway operator and an

important player in the traffic sector in

Europe. Brisa currently operates on a

concession basis a network of 11

motorways constituting the main

Portuguese road links, connecting the

country from north to south and from

east to west.

The implementation of the CarcavelosOperational Coordination Center (COCC)is a voluntary contribution by Brisa tothe promotion of road safety inPortugal.

The COCC has its own set of objectivesbeing to ensure the integratedoperational management of the Brisamotorway network, to increase theeffectiveness of traffic management, todevelop the relationship with users andto guarantee an even higher level ofsafety.


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decoding the wavelet streams. Thissignificantly reduces the spacerequirements as well as equipmentcosts by removing the need for externaldecoders. With its added capability tohost client software applications, theiTRAFFIC integrated system providesBRISA with a complete visual overviewof its Intelligent Transportation System.iTRAFFIC is designed to provide a controlcenter with a real-time collaborativework experience for monitoring,response dispatching/coordination,access/flow control, recording andoverall systems control for twenty-fourhours a day, seven days a weekoperations. Barco's solution at the OCC'by 'Barco's OVERVIEW display solution isan integral part of the operation. Barco'spatented stitched technology providesoperators with a virtually seamlessimage on a 13.33 m x 3 m (totalresolution of 10420 x 2304) screen,almost invisible to operators. Thedisplay wall consists of a flexible andscalable OVERVIEW cPG67 display systemin a 10x3 configuration controlled by aBarco TRANSFORM A controller enablingthe simultaneous monitoring of 96 livevideo images. The controller is designedwith high bandwidth backplane chassisarchitecture. Therefore, the controllercan serve as a universal decodingplatform, capable of accepting bothanalog and streaming video inputsignals simultaneously. The TRANSFORM Ainterfaces with other third partysystems through the open API.

Increased operational efficiency The Operational Coordination Center isequipped with the state-of-the-artequipment and will direct the activitiesperformed at the 14 regional Brisaoperational centers distributedthroughout the country. This, in turn,increases effectiveness & operationalefficiency and reducing costs. Brisacentralized the activities of the regionalcenters in the enlarged main controlcenter and set up a CCTV system andcommunication network of 12GB to beable to support the regional teams in alltheir activities such as breaking thenetwork, putting fiber, cameras, VNS,counting and classification stations. Inthe future, automatic incident detectionsystems will record images that willallow Brisa to respond immediately toany incident that may occur.

State-of-the-art video surveillanceover IPTechnology was a major consideration inthe development of Brisa. Video imagesare captured by the approximately 500legacy analogue Pan-Tilt-Zoom camerasand are directly digitized, encoded byGeneral Electric (VisioWave) equipmentand compressed via wavelet technology. The wavelet video streams are thentransported across the IP network andcan be monitored in local operationalcenters or in the central operationalcoordination center. Barco's iTRAFFIC

solution provides an display system thatintegrates a universal streaming videodecoder that is capable of directly

Central operational control centerThe COCC manager is apprised ofeverything that goes on in the regionalcontrol centers. The COCC manager alsomakes sure the appropriate procedureis followed and decides which actionsshould be taken by the assistance teamsuch as calling an ambulance, etc.Each section on the display wallrepresents a region. Each operatorcontrols 2 regional control centers. Inthe center of the display wall theoperator can see indications such asMSS, specific messages, road works,and accidents to name just a few all ona map. The map also indicates the vehiclesthat are patrolling the motorways andassistance cars with GPS systems.Therefore, the main control center iskept up to date as to where exactly theassistance cars are located. Brisa choseto invest in this large display wallbecause together with Barco's wallmanagement software APOLLO, al loperators can have the sameinformation during an incident.

After careful consideration andanalysis, Barco was mainly chosenbecause of its pioneering technologyand reliabil ity. Mr Rui Camolino,Director at Brisa, said “Barco was ableto offer this unique solution needed toaccomplish the goals of Brisa. Thanksto a long-term relationship and trust inBarco, Brisa decided that Barco had allthe ingredients to realize thisimpressive project.”

Rui Camolino, Director, Brisa:

Thanks to a long-termrelationship and trustin Barco, Brisa decidedthat Barco had all theingredients to realizethis impressiveproject.

“


22I

Devon County Council [UK] The Highway Operations Control Center

The Barco display provides us with the ability toadapt to future developments easily.

““


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The Highway Operations Control Center (HOCC) has been established to enable

Devon County Council to provide an effective operational response to the demands

of the Traffic Management Act 2004 and its other legal responsibilities. Forming an

integral part of the Traffic Manager’s Unit (TMU), The HOCC operates 24 hours a day,

seven days a week. Its main purpose is to deal with dangers and obstructions on

the highway and to keep traffic moving which is achieved through monitoring the

network using Intelligent Traffic Systems to supplement information from the police

and public, managing the network to ensure works on the highway are co-ordinated

and safe and disruption due to the weather and other incidents minimized, and

informing the travelling public about the state of the network through the internet

and media.

The HOCC contains an array of state of the art technology which allows informationto be gathered from across the country’s highway network and be presented to thecontrol center staff. It is the Barco display wall brings all the following informationtogether: weather information and satellite images from 35 county council ownedroadside weather stations.

• Closed circuit television from over 40 locations across the county• Webcam images from a further 30 locations• Real-time traffic flow information including speed and volume• Real-time journey times (from automatic number plate recognition cameras) at

over 60 locations• Urban traffic control systems indicating congestion in the conurbations and

monitoring for faults• Telephone reports of incident affecting the network, including

diesel and oil spills, collisions, fallen trees, flooding, landslides,snow, ice traffic signal failures etc.

• Receiving warnings including severe weather andflooding from professional partners

Chris Cranston stated, “one of the mainbenefits of the Barco display was thatit enables us to quickly and easilychange the layout as required. By being so flexible the operator isable to react quickly to emergenciesand make fast and accurate decisionsas they have a good overview of thewhole situation in one place”.

With the ability to visualize the state ofthe complete network , the controlcenter staff are trained to respond in aquick and efficient manner. They areable to contact council staff to dealwith incidents as well as theemergency services, environmentagency and the adjoining councils andhighways agencies.

Full use is made of the IntelligentTraffic Systems to assist in themanagement of traffic. This includeschanging the timing of traffic signalsusing the Urban Traffic Controlcomputer, setting variable messagesigns to warn of delays and changingpriorities as necessary.

Before deciding on the Barco displayChris Cranston, Operations andCommunications Manager for DevonCounty Council, explored al l theoptions including, front and rearprojection, CRT monitors and LCDsolutions. Everything was consideredin the selection process, life costs,ergonomics, f lexibility, and imagequality. It was after a full review ofthese factors that the Barco solutionwas selected as the best of all theoptions available.


24I

With a large enough overview of theiroperations at a glance, managers wereable to make better decisions and alsomake decisions faster for the benefit oftheir users. The size of visualizationdisplays does matter when the systembeing managed is large, has manysensors and where one failure canpropagate very rapidly across theentire system. As such, the overview ofthe entire system on a large enoughscale in real time is crucial for theoperators to understand how asituation is developing.

This is particularly evident when one istrying to manage systems such ashighway networks, subways, roadsystems, electrical power grids, andsecurity. Consider the case wheremultiple events are impacting a largesystem and one has to decide howbest to prioritize and respond to ensureminimal “spill over” effects.

A classic example in traffic is when anincident happens on the highway thatstops traffic flow. In such a scenario, acoordinated response to redirect traffic

During the Olympics 2004, Barco with

its partner in Greece, Telmaco, installed

nine control rooms to assist Athens in

managing their enhanced Olympic

infrastructure – including highways,

subway, tram service, security and

police, telecommunications, water

management and emergency services

(ambulance service).

Traditional ly, large display wallsdeployed in control centers would havebeen primarily used for public relationsand educational purposes. However, inAthens, where the scale of operationswas very large, the need for anoverview to help coordinate responseswere pressing. In Athens’ experience,each of the above service branches ofthe city of Athens enjoyed significantbenefits in using Barco’s visualizationtechnology.

Olympic traffic controlAthens’ traffic control rooms incorporate everythingfrom large displays to networked visualization

via alternate routes should be executedimmediately, and various intersectionsand on-ramps should be closed off. Thechoice of specific routes andintersections could be decided quicklyby reviewing the large displaysshowing the state of the entire systemand observing how the impact isrippling outward from the “epicenter”.

In such a centralized management, theeffectiveness and availability of scarceresources (such as helicopterambulances) can be enhanced bybringing appropriate resources to bearin a concentrated manner when and asneeded – to borrow a security term:force multiplication.

Therefore, in 2004, the various servicebranches in Athens could provideworld-class service in hosting such amajor event without also having todeal with crippling staffing challenges,like training, for a one-off event. In2004, the level of technologicaldevelopment allowed large networksof cameras to be digitized andremotely monitored. This was the keyenabler for such centralized operationsand force multiplication.

However, most of these centerstypically operated independently ofeach other. While each was efficient inits own right , collaboration across


I25

centers would have provided evenmore beneficial results. If multipleservices were to be able to share thesame situational awareness andknowledge of priorities, then theresponses would be even moreefficient.

Consider the case of the traffic incidentagain. The best method to re-establishnormal traffic flow would be to clearthe incident away as soon as possible.How does one decide what resourcesto send and how soon and fromwhere? In the past, a police officer, afire brigade and an ambulance teamwould have been dispatchedsimultaneously to the location inquestion whether or not all threeservices were warranted.

By knowing the real cause of theincident – perhaps it was just a brokendown car that needs towing, or avagrant trying to cross the highway –the city need only send a subset of thetypical services required increasing itsefficiency and effectiveness.

Therefore, having a commonoperational picture across all servicebranches of the host city will allow themajor stakeholders to develop a sharedsituational awareness to betterenhance the use of scarce resourcesand provide better user services.


26I

traffic management center controlroom to display the location of theincident on the map, the video clip ofthe live event (to determine how bestto respond to the incident), and thestate of all transit routes near theepicenter.

To this end, these service-specificcontrol rooms should have the abilityto share the knowledge they havegenerated on their overviews witheach other. Such knowledge transfermay be done over the regulartelephone connections but, as thesaying goes, “a picture says a thousandwords”. Ideally, the composed imageof maps, cameras, and sensor inputson the control room display should beviewable from other control centers tofacilitate maximum collaboration. It isimportant that these views beprovided in context and verbatim asthe composition of the view containsknowledge. Referring back to the trafficincident example, it is typical for the

Such an image is typically composedfrom three different sources on thedisplay wall – the highway sensorsystem, the CCTV system, and the GIS(Geographical Information Systems)maps. The knowledge generated bycombining the outputs of three suchsystems in a single view provides alldecision makers with the ability toproperly judge what the responseshould be. Sharing this judgment withother heads of services will also allowthem to see what their decision shouldbe and perhaps tel l these otherservices how to redeploy their ownresources.

Continuing with the incident example,traffic management staff having sharedthis “knowledge” with the ambulanceservice, the ambulance service maydecide that the closest resource to

Ekav Ekav

Olympics


I27

serve the incident may not be bestbecause that particular resource is alsocaught in the traffic jam resulting fromthe incident and that perhaps a moredistant resource approaching from theopposite direction may be better used.In addition, since this second resourcewas moved out of place, it may bebest to replace it by adding more on-call staff that have not been deployed.

At the next Olympics in 2008, with theadvancements in networking andcompression technology, variouscontrol center operations may befurther improved with networkedvisualization capabilities. Furthermore,with such capabilities, the public anduser communities may also be updatedthrough the sharing of such contextualinformation (after appropriate filtering)to further improve public relations andeducation.

Media networks (with their owncontrol centers) also represent a keypartner in managing any situation. Bysharing with the media the appropriateawareness, the media can helptransmit such knowledge to the public.This practice has long proven itsbenefits, as evidenced by media reportservices on traffic conditions.

It is most appropriate that therefinement of large-scale visualizationand control should culminate inBeijing’s push for a Digital Olympicswhere potentially a managed, sharedsituational awareness will provide abetter experience for all participants inthe 2008 Olympics – be it the latestnews of a sporting event taking placeor the current state of the highway.

Cos

Tram

EYDAP

Shared situational awareness will providea better experience for all participants inthe 2008 Olympics.

“


Barco’s networked visualization

ControlZone

www.barcocontrolrooms.com

For more info:[email protected]

Publisher:Barco Control RoomsNoordlaan 5, 8520 KuurneBelgiumtel. +32 (0)56 36 89 80

Contributors:Antonio Escudero, Shane O’Reilly,Joanne Grigg, Wilfried Stoehr, SimonTurtle, Kirsten Vanhees, Robert Wu andHartmut Zierold

Art & design:Nathalie Reynaert

Photographs by courtesy of Brisa (Portugal), Devon County Council(UK), FDOT4 (USA), FDOT6 (USA),Madrid Barajas Airport (Spain), Niagara Falls Bridge Commission (USA),Olympic Games (Greece),Rijkswaterstaat (The Netherlands),Traffic Welsh (UK), VCNON (TheNetherlands) and Vienna TrafficAuthority (Austria)

If you'd like to receive further(electronic) issues of this newsletter,please go towww.barcocontrolrooms.com

All rights reserved. No part of thispublication may be reproduced, storedin a retrieval system or transmitted inany form or by any means without theprior written permission of thepublisher.

© December 2006 by BarcoRef. no. R599134

Operational excellence and increasedflexibility for 24/7 operations

• Share and collaborate effectively

• Improved ergonomics - view multiple applications

simultaneously

• Safe investment - mix analogue & digital, deliver to multiple

displays and upgrade as you go

• Ease of use - API for control integration

• Faster decisions via automation

• Reduced cost of ownership


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