The transmission solution for the refurbished Victorian built Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames in London is from manufacturer AMG Systems Ltd.
After tunnel fires in the European Alps in 2000, the European safety regulations for tunnels were changed and Transport for London (TfL) announced a £70m refurbishment programme over three years of the northbound Blackwall Tunnel. P. Ducker Systems Ltd (PDS) is supplying the tunnel systems for the project.
Mike Rose, Business Development Manager at PDS says: โThe Blackwall Tunnel is a main traffic artery connecting Blackwall Point in East Greenwich and East India Dock Road in Poplar. Originally it was built to transport horse-drawn carriages under the river, but today more than 50,000 vehicles use the tunnel every day. There are two tunnel bores โ each, carrying traffic in two lanes. The Northbound Tunnel, which weโre currently working on, is 1.4 km long. The new tunnel systems cover new fire and incident detection and a new CCTV camera system. The transmission solution will be supplied by AMG Systems. We will be implementing the AMG 5000 series for transmission of Video and associated data and alarms over singlemode fibre. The solution covers 64 cameras mounted throughout the tunnel bore.โ
It is always difficult to work in an area so heavily in use as the Blackwall Tunnel. To minimise disruption to the road users all the work is conducted at night between 9pm. and 5am, when the tunnel is closed. Work is reported ahead of schedule and TfL is expecting that the work will be completed before the end of 2011 a year ahead of schedule.
