Following a series of tunnel fires in the European Alps in 2000, the European safety regulations for tunnels were changed and Transport for London (TfL) announced a £ 70 million refurbishment programme over three years of the northbound Blackwall Tunnel. P. Ducker Systems Ltd (PDS) is undertaking the task of supplying the tunnel systems for the project.

Mike Rose, Business Development Manager at PDS says, “The Blackwall Tunnel is a main traffic artery connecting Blackwall Point in East Greenwich and East India Dock Road in Poplar. Originally it was built to transport horse-drawn carriages under the river, but today more than 50,000 vehicles use the tunnel every day. There are two tunnel bores – each, carrying traffic in two lanes. The Northbound Tunnel, which we’re currently working on, is 1.4 km long. The new tunnel systems cover new fire and incident detection and a new CCTV camera system. The transmission solution will be supplied by AMG Systems. We will be implementing the AMG 5000 series for transmission of video and associated data and alarms over singlemode fibre. The solution covers 64 security cameras mounted throughout the tunnel bore.”

It is always difficult to work in an environment which is so heavily in use as the Blackwall Tunnel. In order to minimize disruption to the road users all the work is conducted at night between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. where the tunnel is closed. Work is currently ahead of schedule and TfL is expecting that the work will be completed before the end of 2011 a year ahead of schedule.