Enhancing Driver Safety and Maintenance on Italy's A12 Motorway with Wonderware Software

Italy’s A12 motorway takes drivers from Genoa through Tuscany and then on to Rome. It's a beautiful region, and the road challenges drivers with high speeds, hilly terrain, 24 tunnels, and more than 45 miles of “B-class mountain” roads. Società Autostrada Ligure Toscana p.a., or S.A.L.T., is responsible for managing the A12. With the primary goals of improving safety, reducing energy use and lowering overall maintenance costs, S.A.L.T. uses Wonderware® software for remote monitoring and control.

“Adopting an industry grade automation solution was the first step to the successful implementation of a project characterized by a large number of controls, and mostly, by the need to guarantee uninterrupted operation.”
– Eraldo Benedetto, Automation Manager, Giordano & C. S.p.A.

Lighting & Ventilation – With 24 tunnels, lighting is critical to driver safety. Proper levels of visibility must be assured in relation to current weather conditions and time of day. Critical lighting processes are automated and controlled using Wonderware System Platform. Proper ventilation is also essential, as concentrations of exhaust gas can quickly build up in busy tunnels, reducing visibility and making air unbreathable. With Wonderware software applications, operators can determine the proper air extraction direction according to environmental conditions outside the tunnel, enabling efficient removal of noxious fumes.

Emergencies – In case of emergencies, the control room operator in charge of launching rescue operations is informed about current events through a highly intuitive alarm system. High-resolution graphics provided by Wonderware InTouch® HMI deliver clear visualization on the operator panel of any system failure or issues on the roadway such as a car crash, enabling the operator to immediately summon skilled workers or rescue squads.

Maintenance – All equipment, from lamps to fans, is monitored remotely from the control room in Viareggio, where two redundant servers store data collected via Wonderware Historian. Using a dedicated optical fiber link, information is collected by PLCs that supervise the operation of each system locally. This provides control room staff with critical information on the condition of any piece of equipment in real time.

The ability of the S.A.L.T. team to remotely control the entire system using Wonderware technology has been key to successfully managing this complex motorway system. Wonderware industrial applications have enabled the real-time management of intricate activities, especially under emergency conditions.

For more information, read the success story or visit our Transportation Industry page or Wonderware Software page on software.invensys.com.

Wonderware Software Helps AENA Manage Operations at Barcelona El Prat Airport

The gateway to the beautiful city of Barcelona is the El Prat Airport. In a typical year, over 35 million passengers and 96 thousand tons of cargo pass through the airport. AENA is responsible for the operations of the Barcelona El Prat Airport. AENA is one of the world's top airport operators, in terms of the number of passengers handled. More than 200 million travelers pass through AENA's 46 domestic and 15 international airports.

"Our systems allow us to be aware of what is going on in the airport infrastructures, and we manage the airport as an intelligent environment. The 'smart city' concept is very much in vogue nowadays. We can say without any doubt that the Barcelona airport is a smart airport - intelligent, able to manage its infrastructures and always self-aware."

– José Luis González, Director de Informática  

 

  

 

AENA's smart airport solution boasts a dynamic, intelligent infrastructure. The control environment for the airport management system handles over 1,000,000 signals. It includes the control of all escalators, elevators and passenger moving walkways; power management; air conditioning; and fire safety systems. It also involves monitoring support for the automated luggage transport system. This fully integrated, multi-hardware solution was made possible with the help of Wonderware.

Wonderware System Platform lets AENA manage a large number of processes in an integrated and simultaneous manner under a single platform. It provides an easy-to-use, flexible and scalable solution that allows AENA to create control templates that can easily be deployed by any of its multiple system integrator contractors.

Today, Wonderware is being used in all 46 airports that AENA manages all over Spain.

For more information, watch the new video, read the success story, or visit our Smart Cities Industry page on software.invensys.com.

Invensys Helps Dusseldorf Waterworks in Germany Reduce Costs, Optimize Control and Improve Reporting

Stadtwerke Dusseldorf, the public works department of the city of Dusseldorf, ensures that more than 600,000 people have ready access to water that is safe to drink. The department’s system carries about 55 million cubic meters of fresh water to households and businesses through a pipe system that extends more than 1,700 kilometers. Their water comes from the Rhine River via three plants throughout the region. In the 1990s, the beginning stage of automation was introduced when PLCs were installed in the three plants. However, these systems were not synchronized or coordinated, and no centralized data collection or archive was in place.

The department upgraded and now the three waterworks and the new control systems are interconnected, operating separately and redundantly. Each station runs Wonderware® InTouch® HMI (human machine interface) software in a multi-monitor setup to visually display the operations. With this HMI, engineers view real-time conditions with straightforward graphics, alarms and trending information. Another feature of the HMI is its extensive library of standardized and customizable templates and objects. This enabled Stadtwerke Dusseldorf to keep most of the implementation in house and easily make changes and updates, saving time and operating costs.

A separate server runs the Wonderware Historian database and collects process data. Conversion of the data to Microsoft® Excel® is handled on a workstation loaded with Wonderware Historian Client software. Now operators have the reports they need for hourly and daily evaluation of production data, including water quantities, electrical power and water quality. And reports on cost allocation are quickly generated and sent to city management. Plus they’re documenting their adherence to water rules and regulations, especially those pertaining to drinking water compliance.

"Now we are able to create all required reports analyses and documentation ourselves. We are no longer dependent on outside companies to provide us with that information."
– Matthias Rammler, Electrotechnical and System Support, City of Dusseldorf Public Works

Stadtwerke Dusseldorf has now fully automated their operations, reduced operating costs and enhanced safety. Plant availability is up and maintenance is improved. The system is simple to administer and reporting is flexible, so the right data is readily available for better analysis and decision making. And, since the system is built on an open platform known for flexibility and scalability, the city can look forward to meeting the needs of its customers into the future.

For more information, read the complete success story here and/or access any of our Wonderware Water & Wastewater Industry success stories.

AENA, Barcelona El Prat Airport

Wonderware Software Facilitates a Decade of Integration and Growth for Unprecedented Spanish Airport Expansion

Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (AENA) is a public company in charge of civil air navigation and airports in Spain. Its subsidiary, AENA Aeropuertos SA, manages 47 airports and two heliports in Spain and participates directly in the management of 28 other terminals throughout the world. In passenger count, AENA is the world’s leading airport operator with about 200 million passengers per year. 

The Barcelona El Prat Airport, together with the Port of Barcelona and the city’s Zona Franca area, serves as a vital hub for the region’s economy and is integral to tourism in the region. Recorded airport traffic in 2010 was 29,209,595 passengers, 277,832 operations and 104,280 tons of cargo.

To modernize the airport and prepare for future demands, major improvements to infrastructure and services have been made.

In 2000, 15 to 20 integrators were engaged in supporting the airport control systems. Each vendor implemented a separate solution, resulting in a multiplicity of technologies. The airport’s operators had to learn all of these different tools, which made it practically impossible for the facility to function smoothly.

Management searched the market for a solution. They wanted a control architecture that would provide:

• A single platform, to unite the control systems of the existing facilities and the future expansions
• Reliability, to support efficient and safe airport operations and avoid downtime in airport services
• Scalability, to handle the addition of a second large terminal building and integrate the annex buildings and other systems into one infrastructure
• Economy, to meet the budget restrictions of a public project

When considering their goals and plans for expansion, the choice for AENA was Wonderware software. It met management’s criteria, plus it offered the only non-proprietary solution, providing a better alternative to disparate systems and the high costs and operator challenges the airport had experienced in the past.

Today, the control environment of the airport is almost completely integrated, AENA is achieving operations excellence, and the Barcelona Airport boasts a dynamic, high-functioning infrastructure. According to the AENA team, the most outstanding benefit so far is that the solution enables them to manage a large number of processes in an integrated and simultaneous manner under a single platform – even with so many devices and signals with distinct technological languages.

“The centralization of operations that we get with Wonderware helps manage around 700,000 signals and is essential for a critical infrastructure like this. We can now quickly respond to incidents and also be proactive in optimizing management.”
– Jordi Asensi, Head of Systems and Database Management, AENA Barcelona Airport

Once the full expansion is complete, nearly 1,000,000 signals will be controlled under the unified platform. With Wonderware technology and the vision and teamwork of numerous executives and integrators, the Barcelona Airport is one of the most emblematic projects for AENA to date, and AENA’s commitment to Wonderware software as their standard for handling the 47 airports they operate in Spain is stronger than ever.

For more information, read the complete AENA, Barcelona El Prat Airport success story and/or reference any of our Wonderware Transportation or Facilities Management success stories.

City of Bremen, Germany, Cuts Energy Consumption and Consolidates Building Management

When the City of Bremen needed to modernize the heating systems in several of its buildings, it analyzed the project and realized an opportunity. Besides improving energy efficiency, there was the potential to implement a new building management system (BMS) that would bring greater control and provide far-reaching positive effects across the city’s extensive portfolio of properties – more than 1,200 municipal facilities covering over 1.8 million square meters (nearly 20 million square feet) of floor space. At the time, six control stations across the city were running a variety of proprietary building control systems, making reporting and sharing of information in a consistent format a challenge, and adding new buildings complicated and costly.

Long Beach Water Department Increases Efficiency with Wonderware SCADA Solution

Long Beach Water Department (LBWD) in Long Beach, California, is responsible for keeping the city's 487,000 residents supplied with clean, good-tasting water that meets stringent federal and state regulations for drinking water quality. As the largest groundwater treatment plant in the U.S., the department’s facility is considered one of the most modern plants in the world. LBWD also operates and maintains nearly 765 miles of sewer lines, removing more than 40 million gallons of wastewater per day from throughout the city and delivering it to Los Angeles County sanitation district facilities.