US firm Optelecom-NKF will provide its video surveillance system, Siqura, for acquiring, transmitting and recording video in 23 tunnels in Paris, France.

The system is part of the government’s plan to enhance safety in the tunnel area following investigations into the 1999 Mont Blanc Tunnel fire that killed 39 people.

The project will fully utilise automatic incident detection applications and is the largest traffic monitoring project of its type ever implemented in Europe, according to the company.

The overall project includes installing 1800 cameras that will stream MPEG-4 encoded video through H.264 ready Siqura video servers for real-time viewing and recording on Siqura intelligent-network video recorders.

The multi-year contract has been awarded by the French road operator DIRIF (Direction Interdépartementale des Routes d’Ile-de-France).