Continental Airlines Terminal CNewark Liberty International Airport, Newark, NJ
Since its opening in 1988, Verrex has installed and serviced the public address system for Continental’s busiest hub in the nation’s most demanding air space, Terminal C at Newark Liberty International Airport.
In 1998, the carrier selected Verrex as AV systems integrator for its $605 million expansion and renovation of Terminal C. Named the Global Gateway Project, the expansion included a third concourse covering 7.4 acres with an additional 19 gates, OCC Tower, new baggage and
handling facility and new FIS/INS facility. Expansion also included renovations to the original terminal consisting of two concourses with 39 gates. The project’s goal, to improve communication and allow for greater efficiency in moving travelers safely to and from their destinations, required a complete overhaul and expansion of the terminal’s paging system. Verrex integrated the IED announcement control system throughout the 1.73 million square foot facilityfor both the renovation and expansion stages.
The project began with a hot-swap of the carrier’s 10-year-old IED system in the original terminal. Verrex replaced all existing gateway and jetway microphone paging stations, the main ACS headend, computer, mainframe, input and zone cards, hard drive, UPS and software. Verrex had to seamlessly integrate the new system with the existing system ensuring there would always be a fully functional and operational system at all times in the active terminal. Verrex successfully staged, sequenced and performed the after-hours work to meet with this requirement.
Next, Verrex implemented a new IED DSP-based public address control system throughout the new concourse and expanded facilities. The automated system consisted of an IED 500ACS mainframe capable of prioritizing live announcements, pages and prerecorded messages, in concert with background music, over 2,350 distributed loudspeakers throughout the entire terminal. The mainframe, working in tandem with an IED 590 rack- mounted computer system, monitors all systems components for communication/mode status, audio quality and levels. Each of the 58 gates was equipped with an IED 508 series microphone station, ergonomically angled for LCD display and ease of keypad use. The stations, linked to the mainframe, allow announcements to originate from any zone in the terminal.
CHALLENGES
Noise levels in certain areas of the terminal increased during peak travel hours making announcements difficult to hear. Verrex specified IED’s Ambient Analysis System to meet this challenge. Ambient-sensing microphones, concealed throughout the concourse and baggage areas, detect changes and automatically increase sound levels, in proportion to the ambient noise, in those busy areas. Once the noise level decreases, the announcement level returns to normal.
