The dispatching services of Brussels’ public transport utility, STIB, and Brussels Mobility will be grouped together in about one year’s time in an integrated transportation management centre in the heart of the capital. The services will be moved to the new Brussels Mobility Centre in successive waves from April 2020 and this will be done without any break in services, according to STIB CEO Brieuc de Meeùs.
STIB’s six dispatching centres (Bus, Tram, Subway, Energy, Field Support and IT) are currently located in five sites. The Mobiris traffic and infrastructure control centre is located in the CCN, which caused some management concerns during the terror attacks, when it had to be evacuated and all tunnels had to be closed.
The move is also linked to the in-depth makeover to be undergone by the Parc metro station, home to many STIB dispatching centres since 1976.
The aim, in bringing the dispatching services together in the new Brussels Mobility Centre, is to further improve communication and collaboration between services so as to achieve better management of mobility in Brussels.
The address of the new centre has not been disclosed for security reasons and, for the same reasons, its equipment will be duplicated elsewhere in the city.
At the centre, the various services will be installed in separate units – subway, tram, bus, field support, IT - on the same platform, 1,424 m2 in size. The control centre will have 55 desks, including five for training. Mobiris will be housed in a separate 413m2-room on the same floor, with 9 desks, plus 1 for training, while the two regional operators will share 647m2.
According to Brussels Mobility Director-General Christophe Vanoerbeek, the new installations will help the transport services graduate from traffic observation to real traffic management by integrating, for example, the management of traffic lights and future barriers to access to the Bois de la Cambre forest.
The entire operation will require an investment of 30 million euros, including the replacement of the current material with state-of-the-art equipment. A total of about 300 persons will work at the new centre.
The Brussels Times
