Just one click of the mouse fills the tunnel with smoke

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Just as a pilot practices an emergency landing in a flight simulator, the operators of the Piet Hein tunnel in Amsterdam can perfect how they react to emergencies in a virtual environment created in a digital twin.

For the City of Amsterdam, Witteveen+Bos developed a digital twin of the tunnel in collaboration with Infranea. Thanks to the use of BIM, the metadata and 3D models from Revit can be easily integrated with an enriched model of the environment. The resulting digital twin actively contributes to better communication between the stakeholders and promotes a faster, better and error-free design and realisation process. So this digital twin results in significant time savings and a lower cost overall.

Runaway dog

The digital twin includes not only the Piet Hein tunnel itself, but also a digital copy of the traffic control centre and the TTI. The latter is the Tunnel's Technical Installation, which includes the matrix signs and dynamic signalling devices, the camera system (CCTV), lighting and the ventilation system. These elements come together in the Event Trigger; a variant of the digital twin that can be used to simulate emergency situations in the tunnel and on the entry and exit roads.

A collision in the tunnel, a stalled vehicle, high water levels, a runaway dog, fire or smoke, a bomb threat, etc. At the press of a button, it becomes the digital reality for the operators of the tunnel in Amsterdam-Oost, located on the S114, which connects the centre of Amsterdam with Zeeburgereiland.

Endless practice

Legal regulations dictate that a crisis situation must be physically simulated at least once a year. Thanks to the digital twin, there is no limit to how often responding to an emergency can be practised, and the nature of the emergency can also be varied at the flick of a switch. The additional virtual emergency-response exercises ensure that operators are even better prepared for crisis situations.

The Event Trigger runs on an exact copy of the traffic control centre, including the screens displaying images from the cameras in the tunnel, the control panel and the other devices. For the traffic controllers, the experience perfectly mirrors being in the actual control room. The digital twin has been programmed according to the standards of RWS, the Dutch Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat). This means that all the technical systems and settings are identical to those of the physical tunnel.

When the Piet Hein tunnel was modernised, Witteveen+Bos engineers were also responsible for the camera plan for the CCTV system in the tunnel. This plan was designed and validated using a customised version of the digital twin: the CCTV Camera validator. Based on the standards of RWS, we determined the number of cameras and configured their settings. In the digital twin environment, each camera can be controlled on the X, Y and Z axes and the pan and tilt functions are also available.

Savings in terms of time and cost

With a simple click of the mouse, you can drive a vehicle of your choice (car, motorcycle, bus, truck) through the tunnel to validate whether a vehicle can be tracked at all times, without any blind spots. The digital twin allowed us to identify the most optimal camera settings, making installation in the physical tunnel and subsequent validation significantly faster and saving substantial costs and time.

The modernisation of the Piet Hein Tunnel, completed originally in 1990, is part of Amsterdam's road tunnel improvement programme (Aanpak Wegtunnels Amsterdam), which involves bringing two further tunnels and the traffic control centre up to current standards. This programme was implemented by TEC, Tunnel Engineering Consultants, the permanent collaboration between Royal HaskoningDHV and Witteveen+Bos, and has now been completed.

PTZ digital twins

Similar digital twins have also been developed by our specialists for the seven tunnels included in the scope of South Holland's tunnel renovations programme (Project Tunnelrenovaties Zuid-Holland), which TEC will implement in the coming years together with and on behalf of RWS. A digital twin of the planned new tunnel situation near Julianaplein square in Groningen, where two tunnels intersect each other in an interchange, has also been created.

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