Helsinki Metro installs Bosch Security voice evacuation and public address systems

Helsinki's rapid transit network adds large-scale expansion with eight new stations and Bosch's Praesideo technology to improve passenger safety.

Metro de Helsinki is the largest transit hub in finland's largest region, that connects the center of this city with the suburbs and neighboring cities. An essential railway traffic artery for citizens and workers who use 63 millions of passengers a year.

The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority rail network (HSL) has been extended further since November 2017 with a massive expansion project – the Länsimeter ('Western Metro' -, that you added 14 kilometers of track and eight new stops to reach the city of Espoo.

For this project it was necessary to add public address and large-scale voice evacuation, and the digital system Praesideo de Bosch Security for its scalability, high level of redundancy, interference-free audio and operational versatility, that is currently installed on more than 20.000 applications from all over the world, including the existing Helsinki Metro network.

With its unique optical network, Praesideo has been the ideal solution to extend the system and integrate the 5.580 new Länsimeter speakers, which are installed in twelve colors and an equal number of different speaker designs to suit the avant-garde interior aesthetics of the metro.

Precisely because each of the new eight metro stations feature a unique architectural design and different building materials., extra measures had to be carried out to ensure uniform audio quality. Using Bosch speakers, sound experts performed 3D acoustic tests at all stations, which provided the basis for pinpointing audio controls, station by station, through twenty-four amplifiers in six hundred channels with 91kW of total amplification power.

Ensuring interference-free audio on these new stations, regardless of acoustic variations, Praesideo now provides safety to passengers according to the highest specifications: Länsimetro has obtained certification according to the SFS-EN sound standard 50849, as well as the standards in fire protection SFS-EN 54-16 and SFE-EN 54-24.

In response to a key requirement set by HSL, Bosch's Praesideo is installed as a distributed system to allow controlled transmissions to the eight new metro stops individually. In addition, the system also interacts with other Helsinki Metro security systems to provide passengers with maximum safety.

A direct interaction with the fire detection system allows the Bosch Praesideo system to activate automated evacuation messages, in case of fire alarm, to guide passengers to the nearest exit or tunnel. Interacting with the video surveillance system, this system reproduces automatic warning messages and alerts operators when passengers wander dangerously close to the tracks.

The construction of the Phase 2 of the Länsimetro is already underway to add seven kilometers of new track, with the comprehensive passenger safety of Bosch Praesideo, for the year 2020.

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