Unique Maritime Group, one of the world’s leading integrated turnkey subsea and offshore solution providers, announced today that it has completed the upgrade of Dubai Municipality’s forecasting and early warning system. The original system was also established by UMG in January 2010, and has been providing Dubai Municipality and Dubai Police with visibility forecasting, includes of mix of terrestrial, coastal and offshore monitoring nodes with centralized data collection, post processing and model implemented.
The upgrade of DM’s visibility forecasting and early warning system was commissioned to UMG to improve the existing shore tide, and met monitoring network consisting of five Aanderaa AWS-2700 weather stations.
Umm Suqeim, Jebel Ali, Jadaf, Hamriah (Mamzar) and Dhow Wharfage Stations were all upgraded with equipment consisting of IP-camera, housing with electronics and solar panel assembled on a new stainless steel mast which is permanently fixed on concrete foundation. Meteorological data and camera images are successfully integrated into the new Visibility Forecasting Network and updated on the associated website accordingly. The coastal tide-met stations were upgraded with the latest GPRS communication, additional web servers were installed allowing public web access to the system, and the visibility system were extended to incorporate satellite data.
Eman Ahmed Al khatibi Al falasi, Head of Section, Geodesy & Hydrographic Survey Section, Survey Department, Dubai Municipality said, Our main goal is the safety of our community, and with the new upgraded visibility forecasting and early warning system, motorists in Dubai can now be alerted of foggy conditions six hours in advance to prevent road accidents due to poor visibility. These stations give live updates of air temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, sea water level, wind direction and wind speed in different areas, thus helping surface traffic safety on the roads and marine navigation.
Commenting on the announcement, Ian Huggins, General Manager, Unique System FZE said, This is the first weather forecasting system dedicated for traffic safety to be established in the Middle East and has been in continuous operation since its commissioning in early 2010.This project demonstrates the unique ability of UMG to take the latest technologies and combine with the in-house expertise to create a turnkey innovative solution for our valued customer We believe our commitment to exceed the customers’ expectations made us the right choice for Dubai Municipality and we are very proud of the confidence put in our company. The UMG team is fully committed to maintain the success of the Visibility Forecasting and Early Warning System, and to assist our customer in enhancing the safety of our community.
Training was also conducted at Dubai Municipality premises by UMG staff, in order to help DM personnel enhance their knowledge and capabilities to better operate the recently upgraded system.
