Liverpool City Council has upgraded its analogue network to a new digital Internet Protocol (IP) system, supported by Dynniq.

In 2004, Liverpool City Council extended its Wide Area Traffic Control (WATC) scheme to include an extensive city-wide fibre network upgrade as part of a project to install City Watch CCTV system. However, the roadside traffic assets were dependent on an end-of-life BT Kilo-stream Network which would have led to the loss of functionality and prevented the deployment of new digital technology to over 350 sites.

This project upgraded the analogue communications network and refurbished a number of fibre Satellite Stations over the course of 12 months. In addition, Dynniq redesigned the core fibre network architecture and IP scheme as well as deployed Chameleon Outstation Transmission Units (OTU) across a large number of sites. The use of Chamelon added some additional functionality including Cables Linking Facility (CLF) adding an extra layer of resilience.

The key challenge for the project was ensuring that Dynniq Chameleon was fully compatible with Liverpool’s existing UTC SCOOT system. In order to overcome this, two trial sites were tested and showed successful compatibility prior to the project start.

Liverpool now have a full IP end-to-end network and it allows the potential for new IP-based technologies such as Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) to be deployed in the future. It also mitigated the risks of the end-of-life equipment that operates on the network.

Dynniq concluded the project with a cool-down period to monitor the stability of the network and be on call for any immediate faults. After this, a two-day training workshop was delivered to Liverpool City Council UTC staff which consisted of an IP refresher course and an operational and maintenance session on its new network infrastructure.

Peter Randles, ITS Technical Specialist at Liverpool City Council said: “Working with Dynniq on this project has been fantastic, their technical knowledge, communication and speediness at rectifying faults is second to none. The Dynniq Solution solved an emerging problem with our legacy copper circuits and outstations that could have caused major issues with communication to, and control of, key Traffic controller sites around Liverpool “