L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited (HMRL) is a Special Purpose Vehicle incorporated
by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) to implement Hyderabad Metro Project on Design, Build,
Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis. The Company is a subsidiary of L&T
Infrastructure Development Projects Limited (L&T IDPL), an infrastructure development
arm of L&T. It has to its credit, 50 successful projects across many sectors comprising
metros, railways, highways & expressways, bridges, seaports, terminals, airports,
urban infrastructure, rope ways, water supply projects, sanitary engineering projects,
bulk material handling projects, power transmission utilities, gas/oil pipelines,
hydel power and nonconventional energy projects.
The Need
India is experiencing a rapid rate of urbanization, which is expected to grow 40%
by the year 2030. With the growing population in Metro cities, it becomes very important
to provide sustainable infrastructure to withstand the growing demands.
Hyderabad is one such city, which is on the verge of tremendous growth in population
and traffic. Being the capital city of Telangana state, it has emerged as the hub
of IT/ITES, Biotech, and Pharma and Tourism sectors and expanded over
70 kms. Hence its requirement for a quick means of transport that would reduce the
travelling time of passengers.
The government therefore decided to set up a well-planned public transportation
infrastructure through Hyderabad Metro Rail Project to meet Hyderabad's rising public
transport needs and escalating vehicular traffic. From amongst the various public
transport options available, it emerged that high-capacity rail-based metro systems
were ideally suited to meet Hyderabad's emerging need in urban areas. Metro rail
is preferred over other means of transport since it provides faster, cost effective,
convenient, secure and comfortable travelling at lower costs.
L&T was awarded the prestigious task of implementing this project of national importance.
It comprised three high-density Metro corridors covering a total distance of 71.16
km, involving 66 ultra-modern station buildings, state-of-the-art depots and complete
infrastructure.
For assisting the railways in achieving their technological needs, L&T Electrical
& Automation's Control & Automation (C&A) Business Unit joined hands with HMRL to
deliver Integrated Building Management System (IBMS) at all its 66 stations, Admin
Operation Control Centre (OCC) and 2 Depots at Uppal & Miyapur.
The Solution
For the convenience, comfort and better security of travellers, each station/depot
of HMRL has various systems such as HVAC, Power Distribution System, Fire Alarm
and Protection Systems, Lighting, PHE, UPS, Lifts and Escalators, Automatic Fare
Collection System (AFC), CCTV and various other electrical and mechanical systems.
In pursuit of flexibility, interoperability and efficiency, HMRL sought an intelligent
Building Management Solution that would support new and improved operations and
customer services over the life span of the Metro services and thus benefit the
public, operators and the L&T team.
C&A was responsible for the design, engineering, supply, installation, testing,
commissioning & life cycle support of the Integrated Building Management System
(IBMS) at 66 ultra-modern stations and 3 depots, including the setting up of an
OCC and Back up Control Centre (BCC).
C&A has delivered its state of the art i Vision max SCADA
suite along with RTUs configured in redundant architecture at each of the stations
and depots for monitoring and controlling of various parameters of the station building.
At OCC and BCC, i Vision max SCADA suite is implemented
in redundant architecture along with ORACLE RDBMS based Historian, in disaster recovery
configuration.
C&A'si Vision max IBMS solution controls and monitors 63000+
I/Os, 321 control panels and 1600+ instruments spread across all stations. It monitors
and controls lighting as well as equipment such as lifts and escalators, Fire Alarm
System, HVAC, STP/ETP, PHE, UPS, VFD, DG Sets, Energy Meters, Electrical System
so as to provide better comfort for passengers at stations by effective utilization
of ventilation & air conditioning and electrical installations.
System Highlights
- Helps in automatic fault detection and diagnosis strategies for building energy
performance, HVAC sub systems and their control instruments.
- Senses emergency conditions such as fire and executes predefined emergency mode
sequences, which in turn ensure that all related equipment at station premises function
in safe mode of operation
- Protects against hot and cold temperature extremes. This generally involves running
heating or cooling system pumps when external temperature reaches a set level.
- Tracks entire data from all the stations at OCC and BCC in real time, eliminating
any chances of possible human error.
- Provides equipment scheduling (operating equipment as required), Optimum start /
stop (running of HVAC equipment only during occupancy), Operator adjustment (accessing
of set points to tune the system), Monitoring (logging of temperature, trends, equipment
start & run time, operator log on etc.), Alarm reporting (notify failed equipment,
out of limit temperature / pressure) and status of specialised systems like lighting
control, load management, access control, etc.
- Offers high-level dashboards through which operation teams can easily monitor the
efficiency, availability, performance, safety and security of the entire facility.
It also creates a safer, secure and more comfortable facility which facilitates
better building control and lower operating costs.
One of the biggest challenges faced during commissioning, was setting up a high
speed network, extending across 70 km covering all stations & depots and OCC & BCC
buildings for real time communication. The commissioning team had to manage a vast
geographic canvas as the site implementation was carried out simultaneously at multiple
locations. It implemented the city wide OFC Network in ring configuration with Network
Management System to monitor all the network nodes for robust communication between
the various stations and master stations.
For managing the different sub-systems installed at various facilities of the site,
integration was another challenge. The IBMS system at each station had to be interfaced
with 20+ sub-systems from multiple vendors, with different control philosophies.
To address this, C&A used industry preferred standard Modbus protocol to collect
precise and accurate data.
i Vision max IBMS
is also integrated with the Communication system on OPC and Asset management system
using MQ/XML, which provides equipment data for maintenance management, asset tracking
& utilization and spares management.
The first phase of the project has been completed and the system is already in operation
for 7 Stations, Admin OCC and 2 Depots - Uppal & Miyapur. To ensure on-time delivery
of the project, site teams have been parallelly working on the project throughout.
Benefits
The system architecture perfectly suits Hyderabad Metro Rail's Infrastructure and
expansion requirements. This ensures the availability of live data at centralized
location with following benefits.
- Ease of operation and improved reliability
- Total system integration with a single interface
- Enhanced service delivery
- Better utilization of power and human resources
- Effective incident management in case of accidents / emergencies.
- Clear understanding and control over energy consumption, which helps in cost reduction
- Convenience for operators and passengers, thereby leading to customer satisfaction
- Maximum system availability, reliability through automation integration and optimization
of entire subsystems
- Improved operation & maintenance with visualization of all the station parameters
and operation data at a centralized location
- Optimized performance and greater control, creating operational synergies and reducing
complexity over the lifecycle of Metro facility