CHIAIA funicolar

Implementation of an emergency call system between the passengers and the train staff and between the train and the ground that uses the IP technology and the Peer-to-Peer protocol developed by ERMES

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The Chiaia funicular connects the central area of Vomero, hilly area of the city of Naples, with the neighborhood above the Riviera di Chiaia and includes, in addition to the two head stations, two intermediate stations; It has a length of about 500 meters and a maximum gradient of 29.18%.
It was the first cable railway to be built in Naples and its construction dates back to 1899; initially it used a steam engine, but already in 1900 it was electrified.

Of course, over the years there have numerous interventions to upgrade the infrastructure and the trains in order to adapt them to the changing needs and to the evolving technologies. During the last session of upgrades carried out in 2015 it was decided, among other things, the installation of an emergency communication system inside the trains and between those and the ground stations.

In the fulfillment of this system, the main element of criticality that it has been necessary to take into account has been the reliability of the communication system between the ground station and the train that has to be interference-free and stable over time.
To solve this problem in the best ways, the choice has been immediately oriented in the direction of the Over IP technology and in particular it was selected the integrated system of emergency calls and public address based on the Peer-To-Peer protocol developed by ERMES and by transferring the data with a WiFi connection between the train and the ground station.

The emergency call system includes the installation of:

• four emergency call phones for the passengers installed near the doors of each train
• two intercom stations installed respectively in the upper control cabin and in the lower control cabin of the trains reserved to the driver
• a main operator console installed in the control room in the top station
• a software for diagnostics of the equipment in the field and for the recording of calls between operators and passengers; the software is installed on a PC placed in the control room in the top station
• an IP gateway with an audio power amplifier that drives the speakers of the sound system

In the engineering of the system have been used the audio apparatuses Over IP of the series EASY that, thanks to the numerous functional options present and the simplicity with which they can be programmed, it is excellently suitable to meet all the needs of such a system.
The consoles that have been selected for the operators are the intercoms InterLAN-EO.PP and the intercom InterLAN-EO.PPM, the first with a built-in microphone and the second with a gooseneck microphone, while the IP amplified gateway SoundLAN-E.UP80 has been selected for the public address system; the gateway includes an audio amplifier with 80W output power for 100V lines able to directly drive the speakers installed in the passengers areas on each train.

Only the telephones available to passengers for emergency calls are not a standard product but it has been necessary to study a customized variation of the intercom InterLAN-E.1P to meet the need to install the call group inside the panel of maneuver for opening the doors.

The system allows you to do the following:

• if necessary, the passengers can communicate with the driver on board trains or, if he cannot answer because he is occupied in other operations, they can communicate with the operator of the main control room placed in the upline station
• the driver can answer calls made by the passengers or, if he is busy, he can divert the call to the operator of the main terminal placed in the control room of the upline station
• the operator of the main terminal placed in the control room of the upline station can respond to the calls made by the passengers when the driver on the train is busy as well as he can to make or to receive a call to the driver on the trains
• the driver on the train and the operator in the control room of the upline station will be able to do, by means of their console, the announcements on a single wagon or on the entire train.

In the control room of the upline station, in addition to the console that allows the operator to communicate with the passengers, with the drivers and to do announcements on the trains, it has been installed a software that performs two features: the first is to display the status of the apparatuses installed on field and the second function is to record all the talks that take place between the users of the system.

This software also provides to record a LOG of events in order to document in detail all operations performed on the system; both the recorded audio files and the event log can be exported in standard formats for future evaluations.

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