Real time control of the sewer system of Boulogne Billancourt

Abstract

Confronted with the problem of overflows from its combined sewer system into the River Seine during rainfall, the Department of the Hauts de Seine (which covers some thirty urban districts on the west side of Paris) has decided to implement the real time control of its sewer system in 1996. To initiate this plan, as the town of Boulogne Billancourt seemed to be a particularly favourable site for the use of such techniques, a project to control its sewer system in real time has been implemented within the scope of the SPRINT 226 programme financed by the European Community. The preliminary studies, based on a MOUSE computer model of the sewer system, showed that the real time control of the sewer network under study had a high potential benefit, since it would allow an 80 % reduction of the volumes of waste water discharged into the Seine annually in the study zone. Following on from these encouraging results, the installation of a complete real time control system was set in hand. The system, at present undergoing testing and evaluation, consists principally of a MOUSE ON LINE real time model and a system for forecasting rainfall by means of radar images.