New control room ensures road safety

The High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh (HCDA) has established a control and monitoring room as part of its road project.
The control room, which joins the extensions of Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Road and Oruba Road across Riyadh Airbase, serves as the project’s electronic brain.
“This room has several vital tasks and it works around the clock to ensure security and safety along the roads and their vicinity and to manage the project’s smart systems and equipment,” HCDA said in a statement.
The traffic management system project incorporates Advanced Traffic Management Systems to improve safety level. The main roads are equipped with 22 variable message signs, 161 regulatory speed signs, 120 direction and route signs inside the three tunnels and automatic traffic monitoring systems that include 260 static cameras and about 34 moving cameras. The project is also equipped with sensors to count the vehicles and to detect their average speed and speed violations.
The tunnel safety system ensures the tunnels’ efficient function, with many safety and security systems, including light intensity sensors inside the tunnels, traffic counting sensors, variable-message signs at the tunnels’ entrances, ventilation equipment, 58 emergency call centers, surveillance cameras along the tunnel, alarm bells and escape gates with lights across the tunnel’s tracks.
Moreover, the tunnels are equipped with 132 microphones and guiding signs to direct passersby toward locations of emergency exits. The tunnels also have access gates for emergency vehicles and u-turns before and after each tunnel. Additionally, it has become possible to communicate with the drivers via their vehicles’ radio sets using 98 and 100 FM frequencies in case of emergency.
The operating and monitoring system handles everything related to operating and monitoring all systems of the project and gives the status of the two roads and their different elements.
The project is equipped with integrated network of ventilation, lightening, firefighting, irrigation and flood drainage systems.
The project has 7,000 lighting units, 113 ventilation fans to push the air forward along the movement’s direction in each side to accelerate the ventilation process. The direct airflow can be reversed in case of fire to improve the efficiency of firefighting activities.
The ventilation fans operate automatically and their speed and direction are controlled via sensors for measuring the carbon and nitrogen rates in addition to great sensors. All these systems and fittings are controlled and operated remotely from central control centers.