Projects

Dubai Metro

The Dubai Metro is a driverless, fully automated metro network which is under construction in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai. When completed it will be the longest fully automated rail system in the world. Taxi stations and park and ride facilities will be included in key stations to further enhance the system. Born of vision and necessity, the impact of the metro on Dubai in terms of travelling habits and mobility in general will help shape the Emirate's future.

The Red and Green lines are currently under construction, with further lines planned. The Red Line is 52.1km long running from Rashdiva to Jebel Ali with 29 stations, 4 of which are underground and opened on the 9th September 2009. The Green Line will be 17.6km long with 14 stations, 6 of which will be underground. Running from Al Ittihad Square to Rashidya bus station via Deira City Centre and Dubai Airport Terminals 1 and 3, the Green Line was opened in March 2010.

Penton are very proud indeed to be involved in this project with Thales Security Solutions and Services S.A. of Portugal supplying both standard and bespoke loudspeakers for the stations as well as the car parks. The project is very prestigious where longevity of the equipment installed is paramount and Penton's track record with many other rail projects meant we were chosen.

One of the challenging aspects of this project was the client's wish to hide Penton's CELL10/TC Sound Projector loudspeaker inside a boom. Acoustic consultants had used our EASE data to model the speaker's performance but in free space only, not enclosed within the boom. However, being enclosed in a boom without any form of baffle the resonance caused along the length of the boom was muffled and would not meet the 0.5 RASTI figure stipulated in the design brief.

Confronted with this acoustic variant it was decided that Penton should mock up a duplicate section of the light boom and test the speaker in various sub-structures to get the sound dispersion as close as possible to the original model. Having constructed a boxed section within the boom to stop the sound from travelling within, AMS Acoustics then did the tests and eventually the results not only matched but exceeded the original concept.

Dubai Metro station