High-tech project: the Ceneri Base Tunnel

On September 4, 2020, the 15.4 km long Ceneri Base Tunnel was opened. A continuous flat railroad through the Alps thus becomes reality after 73 years. The tunnel now went into operation with the timetable change on December 13, 2020. Siemens is responsible for safety at several levels. Experts from Siemens Mobility, Smart Infrastructure and Digital Industries were among those involved. The focus was, for example, on the tunnel control system and the rail control technology, as Siemens writes in a statement.

Complex tasks and Big Data

Since then, SBB has been controlling and monitoring all rail traffic from Arth-Goldau to Chiasso via the Siemens control system at the SBB Operations Center South in Pollegio "Polecat N". However, the tasks in the field of tunnel automation are complex.

According to Siemens, overfill prevention, train tracking, spacing and automatic evacuation play an important role in rail operations. The technical infrastructure of the Siemens tunnel control system shows all the statuses of the 20 or so subsystems, for example, if a connecting door in the rescue tunnel does not close properly, the ventilation system is not powerful enough or a ceiling light is defective. In the event of an emergency, the integrated operations control system suggests the best possible decision-making steps to the personnel.

With a digital twin the operating ventilation and drainage control system was previously designed virtually on the computer. In the case of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, Siemens engineers found that analyzing error messages and faults reported to the tunnel control system was a major and time-consuming challenge. Accordingly, a web-based analysis tool was also developed for the Ceneri project, which involves around 100,000 data points.

Source: Siemens