138 | TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
A shortcut to control room cost-efficiency Figure 2: Caption
Upgrading control-room screen technology is an expensive business, but now you can fit LED illumination to old units at a low cost. As a result, running costs can be saved without having to upgrade entire systems Words | Peter van Dijk, Mitsubishi Electric, Netherlands
Technology will always deliver better ways of doing things – more cheaply, faster and more efficiently. However, systems can only evolve as fast as the infrastructure allows. In an increasing number of cases, this inertia is costing traffic control room operators dearly. But a new innovation from Mitsubishi Electric offers an elegant solution. Enhancing possibilities in one area of a system invariably increases demands in
Intertraffic World | Annual Showcase 2018
other areas. In traffic control rooms, with the long lifespans of installations – 20 years in some cases – the problems of overloading can become acute as aging infrastructure struggles to cope with increasing demand, changing mission goals and management ethos. Typically, these problems manifest themselves most clearly at the focal point of all control room activity – the main video-wall display.
Rapid growth in technologies such as IP cameras and other sensors means that as time marches on, older display systems are being stretched to the limits of their capability. The increased use of technologies such as computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and record management systems, together with policy favoring the economies of scale offered by centralized command and control facilities, only serve to compound