ec projects transafe-alp a safe passage€¦ · bone of toll motorway operators for the management...

thinkinghighways.com28 Vol 8 No 3 Europe/Rest of the World

EC PROJECTS TranSAFE-Alp

The TranSAFE-Alp Project was a multi-actor dimension of cooperation for an innovative motorway emergency management scheme, as Paolo Santinello explains

A safe passage

How effective can transnational toll motorway plans and Civil Protection intervention pro-cedures be in a high impact accident that seri-

ously affects Alpine passes like the Frejus Tunnel, the Brenner Pass or the Mont Blanc Tunnel? This is the main issue that the TranSAFE-Alp project sought to address. TranSAFE-Alp is an European initiative financed by the

Alpine Space Programme 2007-2013 and coordinated by the Logistics Unit of Veneto Regional Authority which ended in August.

THE STARTING POINTTranSAFE-Alp was a 24-month project that began in September 2011 involving 12 partners from Austria, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. The ambitious aim of the project was to improve transnational cooperation between toll motorway control centres, civil protection and quick intervention forces (such as fire brigades and police) during emergency scenarios affecting crucial motorways and cross-road sections that connect the Alpine Regions.

As the TEN-STAC project highlighted, the Alps are a

The core application of JITES is the so called “Action Graph,” a graphic representation of emergency and rerouting actions

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thinkinghighways.com 29Europe/Rest of the World Vol 8 No 3

TranSAFE-Alp

very sensitive area: a natural barrier with limitations in re-routeing possibilities and, at the same time, a critical hub for the flow of people and goods served by key trans-European transport corridors which are experiencing a rapid increase in mobility demand.

Beyond this, the Alpine transport network is also very vulnerable in terms of safety: natural hazards like land-slides, floods and avalanches are constant and unpredict-able threats, while the massive presence of tunnels and the complex geometry of road infrastructures make the entire network dangerously exposed to accidents and the afore-mentioned natural hazards. Considering that more than 1.8m tons of goods per year cross the Alps between the Italian and the Austrian border, what will be the long-term consequences of the closure of a key element of the transport infrastructure? In order to avoid the harsh consequences of such an event, the TranSAFE-Alp consortium has performed

a thorough scenario analysis aimed at developing a shared interregional strategy defining innovative solutions for emergency procedures.

CAPITALISATION: THE SHARING OF RISKS, RESPONSIBILITIES AND TOOLS One of the most challenging task of the TranSAFE-Alp project was to set-up a common vulnerability framework on high risk motorways and road sections based on data collec-tion, the current procedures and responsible organizations for traffic management and emergency deployment.

According to the capitalisation value of the project, meta-data sets should be provided by existing databases, archives, implemented projects and case studies. The main result of this task is a joint vulnerability assessment that clustered origin/destination matrices and traffic volumes of the whole Alpine road network (collected by Alpcheck2 project – also

The aim of the project was to improve transnational emergency coordination

“The Alpine transport network is also very vulnerable in terms of safety”




coordinated by Veneto Region) together with natural and technological risk data provided by Italian Civil Protections and the Austrian Ministry of Environment.

One of the major goals of the vulnerability analysis was to achieve a state-of-the-art on web-based applica-tions, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), Traffic Message Channels (TMC) solutions and ICT knowledge provided by the TranSAFE-Alp partners and stakeholders. This was important in order to fully understand how the EU stand-ards are applied in a real world and operational context.

Surveys implemented during the project have shown an optimal use of very advanced technologies and tools also supported by a high level and well-functioning organiza-tional structure ensuring an effective cooperation in case of critical events. In particular, ITS technologies are the back-bone of toll motorway operators for the management of information to travellers concerning hazards, bottlenecks

and deviations. On the other side, Local Authorities, Civil Protection and neighbouring countries prefer to use tradi-tional means of communication like radio, GPS, e-mailing and fax for the coordination of an early warning or a res-cuing operation. This is far more evident according to the interviews realized with 47 organizations belonging to road infrastructures operators, traffic management centres and civil protection units of Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland and other EU member States.

More than 91 per cent of the interviewed stakeholders are using ICT platforms to deal with traffic management pro-cedures, but, in general, these are not connected with traf-fic management centres, civil protection operative centres or other relevant Decision Support Systems tools developed by European initiatives, with the exception of DATEX2 stand-ards for information exchange between Traffic Operative Centres and VMS management.

“The TranSAFE-Alp consortium has sought to define an innovative emergency management plan for the Alpine transport network”

The possibility to share risk and vulnerability data on Alpine crossing highway sections and getting rapid access to complex decisions and tasks is an assert that both motorway operators and public authorities must enhance

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In the light of these crucial findings, the TranSAFE-Alp consortium has sought to define an innovative emergency management plan for the Alpine transport network. The project focused specifically on the identification of a shared Web-GIS tool for the planning and the simulation of an emergency scenario: a new decisional platform able to facili-tate the coordination of transnational actions that should be undertaken when a natural or technical event impacts the flow of vehicular traffic on one of the Alpine transport axes.

SHARING AND SIMULATING A CRITICAL SCENARIOJITES (Joint Integrated ICT-Technology service for Emergency and Security), the main milestone of TranSAFE-Alp project, is a Web-GIS platform based on the INSPIRE Directive of the European Commission for the sharing of environmental spatial information among public organiza-tions. It has been developed to simulate a natural or techni-cal accident on an Alpine transport infrastructure for sharing emergency and rerouting procedures at transnational level.

As a concept, JITES is something completely new in the field of transport infrastructure management and it has been fully developed as an open source technology and Open Geospatial Consortium standards (OGC).

JITES is a centralized system allowing an easy collection of data and support documents (like plans, maps, communica-tion bulletins, etc.). The database is PostgreSQL used with its spatial component (geodatabase) PostGIS (PostgreSQL library space). Spatial data is published using Geoserver and displayed in the form of maps and statistical tables using a web client independent of the operating system (Windows, Linux, MacOS).

This solution allows access to the application independ-ently from the hardware and operating system used enabling the user to make the best use of different data layers, leav-ing the calculations entirely on the server side. Access to the system will be properly regulated by a profiling system users (login-password) to allow maximum flexibility of access to the various functions and data; to each user is assigned a role that defines and authorizes specific actions possible.

The core application of JITES is the so called “Action Graph,” a graphic representation of emergency and rerouting actions performed by each involved actor in the simulation of a critical event and displayed according to the decisional tree logic. This function is activated when all involved actors of the emergency scenario are uploaded into JITES accord-ing to their specific function and timeframe.

What JITES is now able to generate is a shared dynamic and joint intervention plan that immediately displays roles, actions, duration and vertical organization in a critical sce-nario along an Alpine crossing highway section. The JITES application was also tested on mobile devices like smart-phones and tablets via GPRS and thanks to an internal

communication tool the system is able to support commu-nication bridges in every condition.

In July JITES was successfully used to coordinate the simu-lation of the closure of two infrastructures during two virtual drills organized on the Susa valley (Frejus Tunnel and A32 motorway connecting Italy to France) and Arlberg Tunnel in Austria. For the first time it was possible to share two inter-vention plans with the involvement of 31 organizations and the establishment of four coordinating stations from three Alpine states. With the support of JITES, it is now possible to understand the effectiveness of joint emergency operations to address the impact of a fire in a tunnel along the Brenner corridor and a large flood event in the Frejus Tunnel.

THE FUTURE OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS IN ROAD TRANSPORTJITES showed that a virtual promptness methodology is truly needed in order to create an effective cooperation within a multi-actor and international framework on trans-port security management. The possibility to share risk and vulnerability data on Alpine crossing highway sections and getting rapid access to complex decisions and tasks is an assert that both motorway operators and public authorities must enhance in order to prevent long-lasting negative con-sequences on European transport corridors and to identify multi-modal alternatives in critical situations.

The TranSAFE-Alp project and its JITES platform are just the beginning of the use of innovative ICT solutions to integrate key technologies able to monitor, prevent and test infrastructure safety in all emergency situations: from small accidents to the most hazardous events imaginable.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Paolo Santinello is Project Coordinator of TranSAFE-

Alp Project

[email protected]

TranSAFE-Alp project: http://www.transafe-alp.eu

JITES platform: https://transafealp.fbk.eu/accounts/login/?next=/

JITES Demo Videos: http://217.114.212.30/transafealp/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=category&id=7:videos&Itemid=131&lang=en

The partnership: Veneto Region (Regione del Veneto); AISCAT (Italian National Association of Motorway Operators and Tunnels); FBK (Bruno Kessler Foundation); SITAF (Italian Society for the Frejus Tunnel); Civil protection of Belluno Province; Civil Protection of Turin Province; BLMFUW (Austrian Ministry of Environment); Vorhalberg University of Applied Sciences; AGIS (Geoinformatics working group of Bundeswehr University of Munich); SLN Siensheim innovation center for logistics and sustainability; Insitute of Traffic and Transport of Ljubljana.

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Egis has unrivalled experience in all fields of road operations and all types of tolling: Motorway operations and maintenance Open Road Tolling (All Electronic Tolling/Free-Flow) Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) interoperability Heavy Goods Vehicles tolling Road safety video-based enforcement Customer Service Centre management Road mobility services

Egis manages: 35 operating and service contracts in 15 different

countries in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia with 6500 professional staff members around

the world for 2200 km of global road network and more than 2.2 million registered customers

for ETC services

Established global service provider in road operations, electronic tolling solutions and road mobility services

www.egis-group.com

Egis Projects11 avenue du Centre - CS 3053078286 Guyancourt cedex, FranceEmail: [email protected]



© E

gis

- D

omin

ic C

unni

ffe,

© S

tuar

t M

cCal

Nor

th L

ight

, ©

Eas

ytrip

Irel

and

Egis has unrivalled experience in all fields of road operations and all types of tolling: Motorway operations and maintenance Open Road Tolling (All Electronic Tolling/Free-Flow) Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) interoperability Heavy Goods Vehicles tolling Road safety video-based enforcement Customer Service Centre management Road mobility services

Egis manages: 35 operating and service contracts in 15 different

countries in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia with 6500 professional staff members around

the world for 2200 km of global road network and more than 2.2 million registered customers

for ETC services

Established global service provider in road operations, electronic tolling solutions and road mobility services

www.egis-group.com

Egis Projects11 avenue du Centre - CS 3053078286 Guyancourt cedex, FranceEmail: [email protected]


ec projects transafe-alp a safe passage€¦ · bone of toll motorway operators for the management...

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