Alarm Queries

Owned by Isabelle Avery (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jun 06, 2023 by Charlotte Dakin-Norris
6 min read

Introduction

The alarm queries provide critical information on alarms that have been generated in ClearWay™, either as a result of an incident on the highway or due a fault within the system.

Contents

Alarm Locations

This query will determine the location of any alarms within the time period and record limitations. The results are depicted as squares upon the carriageway. 

Colour: This determines the colour of the heat map squares that represent alarm locations on the PPI.

Location Alarm Results

Alarm locations are represented with coloured blocks which are overlaid with each other. This provides a heat map of alarm locations, with the more intense colour blocks indicating a greater concentration of alarms.

False Alarms

This query will determine the location of any false alarms within the time period and record limitations. The results are depicted as squares upon the carriageway. 

Colour: this determines the colour of the heat map squares that represent false alarms on the PPI.

False Alarm Results

False alarms are represented with coloured blocks which are overlaid with each other. This provides a heat map of alarm locations, with the more intense colour blocks indicating a greater concentration of false alarms.

Alarm Query

This query will return all incident alarms that match the search criteria. The query can both determine the position of an incident alarm, and which rule(s) were broken and why. Like all queries, it is still subject to time period and record limitation. The results are displayed on the PPI as a red map marker, as a result list and as graphs of alarm activity in the results panel. The filter options available are: 

Carriageway: Filter query to a specific carriageway. Using this filter will provide the option to filter alarms by rules, lanes and sections.

Rules: You may select multiple rules to query at once. 

Lane: Filter query to a specific lane if required.

Select All Sections: Searches through all sections. If this option is cleared

Filter: The range control will visually filter sections to help you find the sections you want to use.

Sections: Select one more sections to filter the query for these specific locations.

Alarm Query Results

Alarm Query

List of all alarms that matched the query criteria. From this results list you can do the following:

Locate: This will locate on the main display where the alarm occurred

History: This will open the alarm history dialog which provides a summary of the alarm and also provides details about the how the alarm’s break count was breached. See the section below on the Alarm Summary.

Status: Shows the current status of the recorded track. The status can be updated for an alarm by clicking this option in the list. See the section below on Analysis Status.

Alarms by Section

This displays the alarm count per section as a graph. It also include a pie chart summary to show the sections with the highest alarm count.

Alarms by Time

This displays the alarm count over time as a graph. This helps identify the distribution of alarms over time so you can identify busy and quiet periods.

Alarms Map Markers

Because ClearWay™ alarms are reported based on the section they occurred in, the alarm results will display an alarm count marker for each section on the main display. These counts are a visual representation of the same results displayed in the other summaries.

  1. Alarm Map Marker: These show the total number of alarms returned by the query for each section. If you Ctrl+Shift+Click on the maker you will open the Alarm Summary dialog.

  2. Alarm Summary: Lists all the alarms for the selected section.

Alarm Summary

The alarm summary dialog provides details of the alarm and also contains very useful information that helps explain how the alarm was raised.

Alarm Details

Includes alarm summary information.

Break History

Shows the break history of the rule that generated the alarm. This shows the tracks involved in breaking the rule and show the break allowance curve for the instance of this alarm. The break history is shown for the selected alarm, so if the summary is showing more than one alarm, then you can change the alarm selection on the Alarm Details page and switch back to the Break History to see the details for each alarm in the list.

As you move your mouse over each of the break counts it will become selected and highlighted in orange. When selected it will show you the track that was responsible in the panel on the right. You can select the Locate button next to the track in order to display the track path on the main display. Alternatively you can use the Breaking Tracks button to display all the track related to this alarm - which covers every track that contributed to exceed the rule break allowance.

If the Alarm Summary contains more than one alarm, for example when you select a section map marker, then selecting Breaking Tracks will show all tracks for all alarms listed.

Analysis Status

The analysis status is a label that can be applied to an alarm post-recording. Its a way of applying status labels so that future analysis can be done on alarms to see how many have been genuine and how many false. Once alarms have been updated with a status, you can run queries that use the status as a filter enabling you to do analysis based status along with location and time.

Analysis Status Types - these are the analysis labels that can be recorded against each alarm:

System: Default status (i.e. not set)

False Alarm: Alarm has been labelled as false.

Confirmed Alarm: Alarm has been labelled as a genuine alarm.

Archive: This labels the alarm for archiving and means it will be kept for system archive period, which is 120 days by default.

When setting any status on an alarm the alarm will be automatically kept for the system archive period. The Archive status option only exists to archive the alarm without explicitly providing a genuine or false label.

Safety is everything.