Praesidio digital public address and emergency sound system installed at Woolwich Arsenal station

(30/01/2009)

Woolwich Arsenal station is an extension of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) to Woolwich town centre and will provide a much needed alternative crossing of the River Thames. The new station has been designed to a very high quality, incorporating modern passenger facilities. The voice alarm system is clearly a very important aspect of these facilities.

PEL Services Ltd. has completed the contract to supply and commission a substantial voice alarm and public address system at the new Woolwich Arsenal station. To provide excellent audibility in such a demanding environment, PEL Services is using a Bosch Praesidio digital public address and emergency sound system. Bosch Praesidio is ideal for this installation as it's unique optical network offers total freedom in system design, interference free audio and a high level of redundancy. Furthermore, all the equipment can be contained in one rack - a very important consideration when space is at a premium.

PEL Services has installed the voice alarm system with Penton column speakers in the concourse and Penton projection speakers on the platforms. There is also a zoned station microphone located within the station operations room (SOR) for general announcements, plus local station microphones located within the passenger emergency points (PEP), for use by station staff at platform level.

A fully programmable system, PEL has interfaced the Bosch Praesidio with the fire alarm system and incorporated ambient noise sensing throughout to adjust the Customer Information Systems announcements to cope with changing noise levels, whilst ensuring that the fire alarms remain at a pre set level for complete safety.

The new voice evacuation system at Woolwich Arsenal station is part of the Long Line Public Address (LLPA) system for DLR, which allows messages to be obtained from a pre-programmed standard suite and be quickly assembled. There is also scratch-pad for the operators to assemble messages for later transmission or be produced directly from a microphone. Announcements can be sent simultaneously to all stations, groups of stations or individual stations. A dedicated workstation in the Network control Room (Poplar) facilitates these.

PEL Services was awarded the contract by Transmitten (Siemens) to supply and commission the voice alarm system at Woolwich Arsenal station as a result of the company's extensive experience in working in Section 12 stations, i.e. sub surface. PEL has already proved itself in Section 12 stations from installations for Mersey Rail and Thames Link and is both experienced and well equipped to meet the demanding set of standards to which all Station 12 installations must comply.

Related topics:  Public Address system   Security guarding 

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