Digital means to protect urban infrastructure (so that people can live better lives)

Reporter Luo Yangqi

Core Reading

Real-time monitoring of large screens, timely risk warning, real simulation of the platform, and scientific layout of points...... In recent years, Hefei City, Anhui Province, relying on information technology, has implemented the construction of urban lifeline projects, realized the scientific monitoring of major urban safety issues such as bridge safety, urban waterlogging, and pipe network operation, and promoted the experience and practices throughout the province.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the alarm sounded in the safety operation monitoring center of the urban lifeline project in Hefei City, Anhui Province.

The system shows that multiple monitoring devices across the Nanqi River Bridge on Prosperous Avenue in Baohe District issued an early warning. Video surveillance was retrieved and found that heavy vehicles such as concrete mixer trucks had gathered on the bridge, which could cause damage to the bridge. The monitoring center immediately issued an early warning to the Hefei Municipal Engineering Management Office and notified the traffic police department to go to the scene for guidance. After 40 minutes, the bridge deck was restored to normal traffic.

From the discovery of the danger to the completion of the disposal, the whole process does not exceed 1 hour. In recent years, relying on information technology such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and big data, Hefei has implemented the construction of urban lifeline projects to realize scientific monitoring of major urban safety issues such as bridge safety, urban waterlogging, and pipe network operation. The security barriers established by digital means are guarding the "lifeline" of Hefei's urban operation.

Comprehensive monitoring –

The management of potential safety hazards has changed from passive to active

When there is waterlogging in the city, the underpass overpass (hereinafter referred to as the "underpass") is the road section with a high incidence of safety accidents. How to monitor hundreds of underpass bridges in the city in time and carry out emergency response in time?

Walking into the flood control command and dispatch hall of the Hefei Drainage Management Office, a large screen displays the water accumulation of more than 160 underpass bridges in the city. The reporter clicked on the monitoring point of Changfeng Road under Qingxi East Road in Shushan District, not only can you see the real-time water level, but the video surveillance also shows the situation of the west entrance, east entrance and lowest point of the bridge.

At the same time, the system also accesses the monitoring information of rainfall stations of meteorological, hydrological, public security and other departments, and hydrological stations of rivers and reservoirs, so as to realize real-time monitoring of the drainage system in the city.

"In the past, we could only go to the site to check the situation of stagnant water, and the efficiency of dealing with waterlogging was not high. Now, by combining real-time monitoring data from the water accumulation under the bridge, discharge data from nearby pumping stations, and rainfall weather data, we are able to quickly detect dangers. At the same time, through the location of the waterlogging and the satellite positioning of personnel and vehicles, real-time dispatch of personnel and vehicles near the waterlogging point for timely disposal. Guo Yanru, a staff member at the scene, introduced.

Today, Hefei has established a city's lifeline project, including the monitoring of the drainage network. "In the first phase of the project, we only used five bridges and 27 kilometers of pipelines as pilots. After the second phase of construction, our monitoring scope has covered 137 bridges, 5,005 kilometers of gas pipeline network, 1,484 kilometers of water supply pipeline network, 554 kilometers of drainage pipeline network, etc., a total of 25,000 urban high-risk points, and more than 100 kinds and 64,000 sets of front-end sensing equipment. Huang Chunlan, director of the Municipal Public Utilities Department of Hefei Urban and Rural Development Bureau, said.

By the end of March, with the help of the city's lifeline project, Hefei had dealt with more than 780 early warnings of various risks such as water supply network leakage, waterlogging and bridge structure damage, increasing the efficiency of risk investigation by 70% and reducing the accident rate by 60%. In March this year, the project was awarded the "2023 Chinese Habitat Environment Model Award" issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

In Huang Chunlan's view, the urban lifeline project can not only deal with risks and hidden dangers in a timely manner, but also make urban management more active, "In the past, urban management was often 'a headache and a sore foot', and the construction of a risk early warning system allows us to face the problems in urban management and realize the transformation of urban safety hazard management from passive solution to active prevention and control." ”

After the danger of heavy vehicles gathering on the bridge across the Nanqi River on the bustling avenue was resolved, the monitoring equipment showed that the data recovery of the bridge part was slow. This suggests that there was no major damage to the bridge structure in the accident, but it may affect the service life. In response, we have strengthened traffic management on the bridge to prevent such incidents from happening again. Ren Qinglong, deputy director of the Hefei Municipal Engineering Management Office, said.

Innovation support——

High-tech means to protect the urban pipe network

In order to solve the problem of urban safety development, Hefei City and Hefei Institute of Public Safety of Tsinghua University (hereinafter referred to as "Tsinghua Hefei Institute") started the construction of the urban lifeline project. As a scientific and technological innovation platform and achievement transformation base in the field of public safety jointly built by Tsinghua University, Anhui Province and Hefei City, Tsinghua Hefei Institute is providing strong technical support for the construction of Hefei City Lifeline Project.

Walking into the Hefei Institute of Tsinghua University, an unusual laboratory attracted the attention of reporters. In this 35-meter-long, 15-meter-wide, and 3-meter-high space, various pipelines such as water, gas, drainage, and heat are distributed.

"Most of the urban pipe networks are placed underground, which is difficult to monitor and locate leaks, and various pipe networks are often arranged in parallel or cross, which is easy to cause serious secondary disasters. In order to study the disaster law of urban underground pipe network, we built an underground pipe network safety experimental platform with equal proportions to simulate the real urban environment. Hou Longfei, deputy director of the Urban Lifeline Safety Research Center of Tsinghua Hefei Institute, said.

The platform can simulate the evolution process of various disasters such as leakage, damage, and deformation of various buried pipelines. "For example, through simulation experiments, we can grasp the diffusion law of gas, and then combine data such as urban gas pipelines and culverts, rain and sewage pipe networks, cable trenches to find possible gas accumulation areas, and draw a risk heat map of urban gas safety, so that we can scientifically arrange monitoring points in daily monitoring. Hou Longfei said.

A gas detector with a sensitivity of 0.1%, a water pipe network detection smart ball with a leakage positioning accuracy of 1 meter within 25 kilometers, and a water quality multi-characteristic pollution traceability instrument with a traceability time of less than 30 minutes...... Up to now, Tsinghua Hefei Institute has applied for more than 300 patents and soft copyrights, most of which have been applied to the construction of Hefei's urban lifeline project.

According to Yin Songfeng, deputy director of the Sensing and Equipment Research Center of Tsinghua Hefei Institute, Tsinghua Hefei Institute can produce so many scientific research results, on the one hand, it relies on the scientific research resources of Tsinghua University, and on the other hand, it also stems from the close integration of production, education and research. "Our research is industry-oriented, and in the process of construction of Hefei's urban lifeline project, we timely discover the needs of the application side and organize the team to carry out scientific research. Yin Songfeng said.

Provincial promotion——

Establish a "1+16" safety monitoring and operation system

"Relying on the urban lifeline project, we have achieved real-time monitoring of 15 bridges, 817.09 kilometers of gas pipeline network and adjacent underground space, 993.32 kilometers of water supply pipeline network, and 1358.07 kilometers of drainage (rainwater) pipeline network. Qian Yuanyuan, chief of the Municipal Garden Section of Wuhu City Administration, said.

Walking into the Wuhu City Lifeline Project Safety Operation Monitoring Center, on the monitoring screen, today's early warning situation, various pipeline risk assessments, monitoring equipment distribution and other information are clear at a glance.

The construction of Wuhu's urban lifeline is the "Hefei model" born from the urban lifeline project.

In 2021, the General Office of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee and the General Office of the Provincial Government issued the "Opinions on Promoting the "Hefei Model" of Urban Lifeline Safety Project", requiring that by 2022, the main framework of the urban lifeline safety project focusing on gas, bridges and water supply will be basically constructed, covering the built-up areas of 16 cities and some counties (cities). By 2025, the city's lifeline safety project will be fully covered, and the "Anhui model" of urban safety development will be formed. At the same time, relying on the Hefei City Lifeline Project Safety Operation Monitoring Center, the provincial supervision platform covering the whole province will be upgraded and constructed, and the monitoring centers of various cities will be interconnected and data will be shared in real time.

"Anhui has established a '1+16' urban infrastructure lifeline safety monitoring and operation system, that is, 1 provincial supervision platform and 16 infrastructure lifeline project safety monitoring networks. Bao Chunrong, deputy director of the Urban Construction Department of the Anhui Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, introduced.

In the construction of urban lifeline projects in other cities in Anhui, Hefei's "lifeline" technical team also played an important role. "We sent technical teams to each city to help them build an operational team and familiarize themselves with business processes. Wang Zhengxing, executive deputy director of the safety monitoring center of Tsinghua Hefei Institute, said.

At present, the Hefei City Lifeline Project Safety Operation Monitoring Center, located in Tsinghua Hefei Institute, also undertakes the monitoring and operation of the provincial platform. "We have to hold a provincial shift scheduling meeting every afternoon to solve the difficulties encountered by the cities in the operation of the urban lifeline project, and at the same time report the recent danger monitoring situation and key precautions. Zhang Zhuangzhuang, the head of the Hefei Monitoring Center, said.

As of the end of March, Anhui's provincial supervision platform for urban lifelines has collected a total of 144,000 kilometers of basic information data of the urban underground pipe network, covered an area of 945 square kilometers of above-ground building models, completed the deployment of more than 163,000 sets of front-end sensing equipment, and issued and effectively dealt with 1,327 early warnings above level 3 on various platforms in the province.

People's Daily (2024-04-16 Edition 14)