St Petersburg Flood Barrier - third sales win in Russian city

Sepura TETRA radios are to be used by the St Petersburg Flood Protection Barrier, a $2.2 billion project to protect the World Heritage city's architectural treasures.

It is Sepura's third major sales win in Russia's second city, after deployments to its ambulance and fire services, and follows other recent contract successes in Eastern Europe.

Technicians, traffic management, security and emergency services will use the radios to manage the shipping channels, road traffic tunnels and the sluice gates that will allow the water to flow freely.

Tetrasvyaz, Sepura's partner in Russia, is supplying Sepura SRH3800 GPS Hand-held and SRG3500 Gateway vehicle radios, operating on the RadioTel network.

The 10 watt RF power of the SRG3500 will enable continuous coverage in areas of weak network reception, such as the short stretch of road tunnel and between any of the large concrete structures. In Gateway mode it will act as a relay point for hand-held radios to effectively extend the trunked network into areas where there is no coverage from base stations.

Alexsander Mavrodiev, Chief of Technical Department, Tetrasvyaz, said: "The Sepura equipment and the TETRA service will provide a communications service which will help to smoothly co-ordinate operations on the Barrier. It will also allow multi-agency communications with the fire and ambulance services and other TETRA users."

Kenneth Hubner, Sepura's Regional Sales Director, added: "This is an exciting and prestigious project where Sepura is able to use its outstanding versatility and technology in providing a communications solution."

The 25 km barrier is the largest construction project in Eastern Europe. As well as protecting the city from the floods, it will also form the base for a new cross-city road highway.