Cities are investing heavily in the development of urban public transport services. Nodeon implemented a smart traffic management system for the Jokeri 2 public transport tunnel as part of the public transport development of the City of Helsinki. The tunnel was opened for traffic in 2015.
The development of transverse traffic in Helsinki began in the 1960s, with the building of the ring roads. The development of transverse lines in public transport has nevertheless been slow. The Jokeri 2 public transport tunnel – which runs from Paloheinä, in Helsinki’s Central Park, to Kuninkaantammi – was the single most effective measure in the development of the city’s transverse traffic in the first half of the 2010s.
As in infrastructure projects in general, the life cycle of projects – from the initial planning phases to commissioning – can be very long. The initial steps in the planning of the Jokeri 2 line were taken at the beginning of 2000s and the tunnel opened for bus traffic in 2015. The next step consists of shifting the Jokeri 2 line onto rail.
Nodeon's management system is a tour de force of the combination of automation and ICT
Nodeon implemented a traffic management system and a data communication network, enabling data transfers between the tunnel’s devices for this 1,146 metre-long public transport tunnel.
The traffic management system is kept constantly up to date on the situational picture of the tunnel’s traffic. The system collects information on the vehicles to form a picture of the real-time situation in the tunnel, reacts to changes in the traffic situation, and controls all of the traffic control devices placed in the tunnel, thereby enabling the efficient and safe use of the tunnel.
The tunnel’s management systems are typically implemented with the help of the SCADA/PLC systems, which are familiar from their use in the industrial sector. In the Jokeri 2 tunnel, Nodeon put its diverse know-how into use, implementing the tunnel’s centralised management system (SCADA) based on its own code. The automation experts carried out the control of the field devices with programmable logic controllers (PLC) in cooperation with and in the same implementation team as the software developers.
The design and implementation of a data communication network, which plays an important role in critical infrastructure projects, was also part of our delivery in the Jokeri 2 tunnel project.