North Depot

Background

depnorte01 On the 26th of May 1999 the construction of the North Depot was inaugurated for Rita Barberá Nolla, the Mayoress of Valencia.

With this inauguration, all the guidelines set by the "Plan General de Ordenacion Urbana" (General Urban Development Plan) were covered. This plan had already been used when approving the Project for the construction of the Garages and South Depot at San Isidro and the new North Depot.

The reason for the construction of these depots was the need to spread out the EMT fleet over two different locations for parking and to have an industrial area where actions related to repairing, cleaning and maintenance of the vehicles could take place.

From the date the Project for the Expropriation (of the piece of land where the Depot would be built) begain, in April 1996, the EMT's board of directors reached an agreement for the design of the project and for the management of the construction phase of the North Depoit, which would be handed over to the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia complying with the framework of collaboration between the two institutions (EMT and UPV). A year later the board of directors approved the Project of execution, whose configuration had an identical typology and design to that of the Central Garages and the South Depot of San Isidro.

Location

The North Depot can be found at a piece of land located towards the north of the city of Valencia and has an area of 27.359 m2. The facade that looks to the East is on the "calle del Ingeniero Fausto Elio"; The south facade is next to the tram garages of "Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat Valenciana" (Generalitat Valenciana Rail), where are the west facade is next to the Universidad Politécnica Campus and the North facade looks over a street that is still in the project phase.

On the street towards the north and near the western facade is the main gate through which the busses and personnel enter and exit the depot. The emergency exit is located towards the east on the same street.

North Depot description and features

depnorte02 The North Depot consist of the following buildings: Garages, Auxiliary buildings, Technical buildings and the busses parking area.

Garage:

The Garages that due to their size and features are located on the east wing of the deposit are formed by three sections set out forming a symmetrical L.The main section consist of the warehouse garage, formed by 7 structural hollows along with another 2 lateral hollows. The western side of the warehose is seperated from the rest by a concrete wall that insulates the CDV from noise in the rest of the garage. The metal roof holds the lighting for the garage and also the ventilation system. The facade is formed by sectioned doors above of which there are some cristal friezes forming a whole and being framed by concrete panels.The second section is a a prism that has a length of 52 m, a width of 9.45 m and a height of 9.65 m, and acts as the front part of the warehouse extending it towards the North. It has two floors, the lower floor is used to give support to the garage and the top floor is used to hold changing rooms.The third section, is a covered area that is bordered by one of the warehouse's fronts which is found to the west and another one that is parallel to it and made of concrete and is used as a car wash.When it comes to the features they can be summed up in the following way:

Warehouse Garage: It's main aim is corrective maintenance -small repairs-, and preventive maintenance-small revisions-. It hosts 16 work areas, which are:
- 6 service pits, in front of each other in groups of two that are connected to each other by a central passage way. It is used for quick tasks. The bus enters through one door and goes out the other opposite to it.
- 4 service pits, in front of each other in groups of two, where all the tasks related to the lower part of the vehicle take place.
- 6 work areas on a platform that has an elevating column.
CDV Workshop: It is in charge of the preventive maintenance of the part of the EMT fleet that is assigned to the North Depot and hosts one complete work area that contains a service pit that is soundproof and contains the following equipment:"frenometro" (a device that tests the breaks), power bench, fan, aligning plate, equipment for extraction of centralized gasses and a gap detector.
The CDV service pit, just like the other service pits, has equipment for the extraction of exhaust gas and the extraction of centralized gasses for testing.
Technical area of the Garage: Adjacent to the warehouse of the garage and divided into two floors it hosts the complementary tasks of the garage.
- Ground floor: On this floor, the different complementary tasks and areas of the garage are spread out, such as: the maintenance of auxiliary facilities, battery room, cleaning of parts, oil storage, planning office, general storage, tyre section, cleaning of premises, gas pump and the medicine cabinet.
- First floor: Changing rooms and toilets.

Cleaning the busses

In order to keep the busses clean several premises have been designed depending on the type of task, such as:

Daily interior cleaning: On the spot where the bus is parked.
Periodic interior cleaning: It takes place in a zone where there are 4 work spots destined to this function. it is found adjacent to the technical zone and has an area of 396 m2 exclusively dedicated to vacuuming and cleaning the inside of the bus.
Periodic exterior cleaning: Adjacent to the warehouse garage and next to the CDV, there is a zone reserved for the purpase of washing the exterior part of the bus using two bus washing devices.

Superintendant's office

The new North Depot has a central superintendant's office, built wiith the same look as the one at the South Depot of San Isidro, with the necessary equipment to control the entire premises, vehicle access, workers and visitors. It is located at the main gate.

Service station

It is located in front of the main gate between the technical building and the garages, below a glass prism shaped shelter that is 52 m long, 9.45 m wide and 9.65 m in height forming a frontal part of the garage looking to the North.

Considering the EMT's needs and using the South Depot as a reference, it was decided to use two 19 m traffic islands so that 4 busses could fill up at the same time. The gas pumps which have a large throughput (two per traffic island), are automatic and have reinforced antideflagrating motors.

In order to control the supply of fuel there is an automatic real time control facility which uses computers for the recollection of the following parameters: bus number, litres of fuel supplied, date and time of the action, kilometers covered since the last time it was filled. This system automatically does not allow non authorized vehicles to fill up.

This service station has the capacity to store 120.000 litres of fuel in four 30.000 litre underground tanks that have an automatic system to control in real time the supply of fuel and the presence of water in the fuel.

Auxiliary building

Located in front of the building next to the garage, and with the same height and length, it has two floors. The bottom floor has an opening that goes through both sides of the building in order to allow the vehicles to go through.

The driver's hall and recollection centre, service programming office end equipment and toilets are located on the bottom floor.

The canteen is located on the first floor.

Driver's hall and recollection center: The northern part of the auxiliary building, hosts the drivers hall and recollection centre. This zone contains all the necessary office equipment in order to fulfill it's task.
Service programming: The southern part of the auxiliary building contains the hall where the programming of the cleaning tasks and the allocation of the busses to the lines belonging to the deposit takes place.

Moreover, on the first floor are located the dining room and other toilets.

Technical zone

All the technical objects that give service to the North Depot are put aside in this zone, with the aim of avoiding interferences and malfunctions between the facility buildings and the work areas, these are: Cleaning service for the busses and rooms for: decalcified water pumps, fire extinguishing pumps, hot water tanks, electrical installations and high and low voltage centers.

This building that is next to the north fence of the lot , can be found next to the superintendants's office and the main gate. It contains only one floor, but it has a small subterranean room containing canalization and a water tank. There is also an area reserved for the purpose of cleaning the vehicles, containing a small runway that is at a certain height in order to allow for the cleaning of the top of the bus and the maintenance of the air conditioning system.

Bus parking zone

The docks set up in order to park the busses occupy two thirds of the lot. They have been placed in a special order in order to take the best advantage of the available area by parallel parking on a 45º angle. The lot has a capacity of 278 busses.

Safety and security elements

Similar safety and security measures have been used in these facilities to those used in the South Depot of San Isidro, with the aim of avoiding any emergency situations. These measures are:

Fire prevention systems

The safety measures used to protect against fires unite two ways of facing the problem:

Pasive protection: Concerning the building and the evacuation measures that are obtained by sealing the ducts, firestopping doors and emergency lighting.
Active Protection: Consists of using measures that detect and extinguish fires which require installation. They are: Systems that detect smoke, fire, gas and manual and automatic fire extiguishing systems.

Anti break in system

At this deposit 2 basic types of protection are used:

Physical protection: these are physical or material objects such as the fences around the perimeter that contain barriers and doors with controlled access.
PElectronic protection: Consists of installing a closed circuit TV system , with monitors and camaras;installing an alarm system using a network of detectors (volumetric protection) inside buildings and areas that need surveillance.

Automated management of the lot

Certain facilities make use of automation systems in which things can be programmed to start and stop without the need of calendars, timetables, etc. In order to use these systems the correct computer equipment, network ,data, sensors etc must be installed.

Management of this system takes place in the spot for lot control.

Environmental action

The EMT is committed to the conservation of the environment as demonstrated with the construction of the Central Garages and the South Deposit of San Isidro, as well as the vehicles incorporated to the fleet with Euro-2 motors and without forgetting the tests done using alternative energies to fuel the busses (natural gas,biodiesel,etc).

Residue management

At these facilities, using previous experience as a basis and complying with the current regulations, an area has been prepared for the storage of possible residues, whether they are toxic or not, such as used oil, refrigerent liquids, filters, grease, fluorescent tubes, used batteries, tyres, etc. This storage area is used so that these residues may later be managed, treated and eliminated. In order to eliminate noise pollution not only has the garage building been placed towards the west as far away as possible from the neighbouring houses and flats, but the fence that runs along the Ingeniero Fausto Elio street has been reinforced with an acoustic protection panel.

Interior and exterior gardens

Outside on the north footpath of the streets that run along the length of the building, a row of 6 metre tall canary palm trees have been planted; whereas on the inside the trees that have been selected are the ones that are common in the region also taking into consideration their lushness, size and maintenance, the selected trees are: banana trees to the North, acacias at the bus parking area, cypresses in front of the gasoline pumps, white mulberry's and a long pot with ivy on the eastern side.

Important data

Data
Total area	27.359 m2
Area used for bus parking	20.000 m2
Constructed area	4.650 m2
Bus parking capacity	278
Work places related to busses	16
Work places related with bus cleaning	7

Budget

Budget	In millions of pesetas
Urbanization	324
Facilities	272
Buildings	454
TOTAL BUDGET OF THE BID	105

COMPANY