High Security in the Tunnels of the A16 Transjurane

The Swiss company COMLAB AG is proud to have received the order of the Bundesamt für Strassen (ASTRA) [Federal Roads Office] for the radio coverage in all tunnels of the A16 Transjurane.

The Transjurane is a 84km long traffic axis which connects the Canton of Jura with the Swiss Plateau and the French motorway network. Completion will be in the spring of 2017.

The tunnel radio system for a total of 30 tunnels (12 thereof with a length of more than 1km) with a total length of about 35km consists of the POLYCOM safety radio system as well as the corresponding FM and DAB+ broadcasting services. With this, both the emergency services and the road users are supplied with mobile telecommunications.

For this system solution, the highest priority is security. As a result of the thick layers of rock, external radio signals cannot be received inside a tunnel. Despite this, rescue teams, the fire brigade and the police are reliant on being able to communicate fully with one another in the tunnel in the event of an emergency on the one hand, and road users must be informed about the incident and further actions on the other hand. For this, FM / DAB+ are interrupted and used for the communication. Instead of the current radio programme, police instructions or others can be transferred to the vehicle.

In order to be able to guarantee continuous coverage, the signals from the appropriate base stations are received at the tunnel portals, processed and routed inside via glass fibre cables, where they are boosted every 900m by special tunnel radio repeaters and emitted in the tunnels.

The system ensures high security through its design with multiple redundancies, whereby other system components automatically take over the operation in the event of a partial failure. Communication can therefore be ensured even in the event of a fire inside the tunnel.

Apart from the advanced technology, also the excellent cooperation with both civil engineering offices of the Cantons of Jura and Bern is responsible for the success of this project.

COMLAB AG has specialised in high frequency technology for more than 40 years. The Swiss company develops and produces radio systems for all application areas and has equipped more than 750km of road tunnels, more than 6000km of railway tunnels, 200 buildings and 4000 rail wagons with repeaters to date.

Image: Tunnel Sous le Mont © A16 Transjurane