Navigating the Norwegian road network with Christie

MOSJØEN, Norway – The Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) plans, builds, operates and maintains national and county roads across Norway’s 96,000 kilometers of public roads with five regional units and traffic control centers distributed across the country. So when they needed an upgrade in its Traffic Control Center North in Mosjøen that operates 24/7, they entrusted the project to GCCD, which, in turn, selected Christie Phoenix as the backbone of this powerful upgrade. The result is a much more flexible and scalable system with a superior display.

“We chose to upgrade to a video wall solution after other traffic control centers in Norway began using them,” says Jo-Andre Karlberg, advisor, The Norwegian Public Roads Administration. “Previously we were using two 75-inch LCD screens on the wall, which were able to show a maximum of eight cameras at one time. We travelled around Norway to look at other centers and were given tips on the technologies available, as well as important aspects to be considered such as heat, brightness and reliability.”

The NPRA needed a video wall that showed a broad range of camera feeds from the roads and tunnels since the Mosjøen location manages traffic cameras for one third of Norway. “Most of it is north of the arctic circle, which has a lot of snow storms in winter, so it’s incredibly important to be able to monitor this continually and to have a good understanding of conditions,” adds Karlberg. “We needed a visual display that was bright, clear and simple to use.”

In order to display scalable video content from several sources simultaneously, GCCD chose the Christie Phoenix open content management system, with 37 Christie Phoenix nodes installed. “We chose Phoenix because of its CCTV inputs, and variety and number of physical connections,” says Rolf Erik Leistad, managing director, GCCD. “It’s also modular, which allows us to expand it easily as time goes by.”

There are 25 operators working in the control center, and the new video wall means that they can easily view the information they need on the screen at one time.

“If they have a map they need to analyse, they can send it up on the big screen, and if they want to see video from a particular area, they can combine multiple feeds to get an accurate overview of what is going on within a certain region,” says Karlberg. “Previously, we could display eight cameras at once, and now they can have 72 on one screen at any time, which is a massive difference for them.”

GCCD installed 18 Christie 70-inch 1080p HD display cubes in a 6x3 video wall array. The Christie wall cubes provide 24/7, interactive and collaborative monitoring in control room environments. “The Christie LED video wall cubes were chosen due to their high quality and brightness,” said Leistad. “The installation process was smooth, and the system has been running for several years with no problems whatsoever.”

“We were very impressed with the brightness of the cubes. We had seen another traffic control center use a different video wall cube, and we didn’t feel it was on the same level,” Karlberg concludes. “The video wall is operating 24/7, and we have found it to be very reliable overall. We’ve extended the warranty for five years, which shows how confident we are in the system.”

Delivering accurate information, The Christie Phoenix system provides a flexible video wall and desktop integration solution, enabling access from virtually anywhere in the control room. It allows the operators to simultaneously view, listen to and interact with the traffic surveillance data, on desktops and video walls simultaneously.