High availability, lower costs, decreased complexity. Phoenix Digital communication modules achieved these goals and more for a 1,700-foot tunnel project in Louisville, KY.
The East End tunnel, which allows state highway 841 to run under a sensitive historic site in the city, was part of a larger $2.3 billion project to improve various crossings over the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana.
Challenges
As officials laid out their plans, they realized the project faced several challenges.
For one thing, the project required a new communication network to tie together the tunnel’s traffic control system as well as the system that controlled the air ventilation fans in the tunnel.
Officials knew the communication network had to be operational 24-7 with a high level of security and no chance of failures, because the failure of either system had true life-or-death consequences.
They also knew the original plan needed to be simplified. It called for a resilient Ethernet protocol ring topology incorporating 25 managed Ethernet switches. The design demanded a high level of configuration and required IT certification for the staff maintaining and operating the network.
In addition to reducing the network’s complexity, officials also wanted to cut both the implementation and operational costs involved.
Another concern was the expense and difficulty of meeting the transit authority’s four-hour service level agreement, which required the system to be up and running within four hours of a disruption.
Solutions
As concerns mounted, Indianapolis-based systems integrator Frakes Engineering realized it had a solution that hit all the marks.
The answer was a fiber optic Ethernet network using communication modules from Phoenix Digital. Based on the company’s distributed stacked core technology, a Phoenix Digital communications network of redundant in-chassis modules would operate on a resilient/redundant ring topology that ensured a high level of built-in security and virtually no downtime.
Implementation became easier with just 1 dip switch and no configuration, and the system greatly simplified the project design, requiring just 15 communication modules. Maintenance requirements also were reduced – tunnel operators don’t need IT certification to manage the communication network, which can be maintained with common spare parts.
Plus, the simplicity of the network meant the system would more easily accommodate the four-hour SLA.
The Phoenix Digital communication modules ended up meeting all the project’s needs and saved more than $110,000 in hardware, software documentation and testing. No downtime incidents have been recorded since the tunnel opened in December 2016.