The Business Challenge

The initial business need of the Customer was the installment of a Telecommunication solution for Emergency Telephony sub-system; so, Exelysis was invited to give the solution. While acquainted with Exelysis’s features, the Customer was convinced that the product gathered a much greater set of characteristics, making it the perfect solution for the whole telecommunication infrastructure.

The initial design was broken down into several Requests for Proposal (RFP), one for each sub system:

• Emergency Telephony System for Open Road
• Emergency Telephony System for Tunnels
• Public Announcement System for Tunnels
• Tolls Intercom communication
• Tolls autonomous PBX Systems
• Tolls Panic Button / Emergency Systems
• Motor Way Management Center (MMS)
• Operations autonomous PBX Systems
• Emergency Short Phone (1025) Management System
• Monitoring and Alarming System

A key requirement was that all the above RFPs had to be combined and installed on a common platform based on IP technology, with high availability, centralized management and easy operation.
Each RFP needed to comply with many requirements, including (but not limited to) legal constraints and regulations. Additionally, due to the critical nature of the project, there were many limitations on the options for communication between subsystems. Some of those challenges were:

• Due to large distances, ERTs should be working as analogue devices converted back to IP at a pillar at open road and needed to operate within extreme temperature ranges. At the same time, monitoring of ERT devices and alarming on problems, was critical.
• Each Tunnel was required to provide an autonomous system, which would be activated in a case of emergency (when communication with Control Center was unavailable) and be able to operate independently, using alternative communication channels locally available (e.g. POTS).
• The Monitoring and Alarming System should oversee all infrastructure, including Public Announcement system, Analogue ERTs, Toll Intercom, PBX, Analogue to IP converters etc.
• Tolls Intercom had to be implemented in such a way that the Control Center operators could talk to specific Toll Station Agent, to All Toll Station Agents of a Toll Station, to All Toll Station Agents of All Toll Stations heading North or South, To All Toll Station Agents of All Toll Stations. The devices used at Toll Stations should auto answer on Speakers only for calls coming from Control Center or Toll Supervisor.
• The emergency short code should be handled in priority on the Control Center and all calls should be recorded and stored for 5 years. If all Control Center Agents were in a non-emergency call, the system should hang up the call and send the emergency call to the agent.
• The Monitoring and Alarming System should be integrated into the MMS platform using APIs and standard SCADA protocols (Modbus) in order to have a uniform Control Management Center at the Control Center.
• The system should be available under any circumstances:

> if the Control Center is down, a DR Control Center should be activated instantly (DR).
> if an IP node is down, all the ERTs should try routing the calls via other nodes.
> if the interconnection fiber is down, the system should use normal Public Telephony lines to redirect the calls to the Control Center.