Berlin's new Metro control centre improves safety with Black Box KVM technology

Designed by German subsidiary Thales, this communications provider, infrastructure and digital signage has provided its solutions to transmit and visualize video and image signals in this critical environment, after migrating from analogue to digital technology to improve traffic control and safety in the suburban German capital.

With 146 Km. lines and 173 Stations, Berlin's transport company (Bvg) operates the largest metro network in German-speaking countries. Currently, all underground rail traffic, which has more than 1.200 vehicles and use 1,5 millions of travelers every day, is managed from the new Friedrichsfelde control centre.

The management and safety specialist Thales, through its subsidiary in Germany, has been responsible for the planning and implementation of systems of this new nerve center 400 m2, where KVM technology has been used Black Box to transmit and view video signals and images.

The new facilities have been designed to set new standards in working conditions and digital transformation to meet future needs. A requirement of BVG was the use of fiber optics as, unlike CATx cabling, is immune to interference, especially when it comes to electromagnetic compatibility (Emc) and the problems related to grounding.

This project had to convert analogue systems (like VGA, among others) to digital systems (Dvi), that in addition to improving the quality of the images (and produce less visual fatigue in operators), make it easy for digital image transmission to be easily set up redundantly, eliminating system failures in an environment as critical as controlling local transport systems.

One of the advantages of this new control center over the old facilities is that the twenty-one computers are located forty meters away, in a cooled and safe room. "This spatial separation from workstations using KVM technology offers many advantages," explains Richard Maraschi, Project Manager of Black Box-, as it increases the security and service life of computers and/or servers, in addition to providing greater flexibility, which greatly improves processes".

Specifically,, the new hub has more than thirty DKM KVM extenders that facilitate the transmission of digital video signals with resolutions up to 2,048×1.152Q, including keyboard and mouse information. The content is distributed through 31 video lines to workstations and three huge videowalls, each configured with six screens, so that operators have a view of the entire Berlin Metro network, in order to easily monitor and control traffic

For Maraschi, "the user experience is vital to determining the acceptance of a system and how it is used to work. Latencies times (frustrations) perceptible things seen in analog times are now history". In addition, the deployment of the complete KVM structure was carried out quickly on-site by a single employee.

As Doris Fritz explains, project manager of Thales Germany's transport systems division, "it was important to us that the deployed solution seamlessly interacted with heterogeneous systems from different manufacturers. Thanks to our experience with Black Box we had no problem making a decision when it comes to selecting a modern KVM system".

In critical areas, such as public passenger transport, robustness and reliability of solutions are vital, two requirements that this supplier's solutions have been improving in its extensive experience in control and industrial stations.

"Potential failures are always a key factor in projects like this, where a disruption-free deployment is critical. In the case of BVG there were no service issues during deployment, and the migration took place without any restrictions on traffic", Fritz says.

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