Fire and Emergency Radio for an Airport Satellite Terminal in Shanghai

Evertac supplies the fire and emergency radio system for a hub airport in Shanghai, covering the satellite terminal and the people-mover stations that link it to terminals 1 and 2. In September 2024 two typhoons hit Shanghai within four days; the system stayed fully working, and a full inspection afterwards confirmed clear coverage in every area.

The challenge

Fire and emergency teams need radio that works everywhere in the airport, including enclosed concourses, underground stations and equipment areas — and it has to keep working when the weather is at its worst.

• Scale. The covered area is about 486,900 m², across the satellite terminal and two people-mover stations.
• Complex structure. Long concourses, underground tunnels and steel-heavy areas each need their own distribution approach.
• No room for failure. The system supports emergency response, so every antenna, cable and node has to stay in service.

The solution

The system combines distributed antennas inside the terminal buildings with leaky feeder cable along the people-mover tunnels:

• more than a hundred antennas across the satellite terminal and stations;
• over 10,000 metres of leaky coaxial cable and fire-rated RF cable;
• one system architecture across all areas, so emergency teams keep the same channels everywhere.

Tested by two typhoons

On 16 September 2024 Typhoon Bebinca made landfall in Shanghai, followed on 19 September by Tropical Storm Pulasan. Throughout both storms the fire and emergency radio system stayed in normal operation.

From 18 to 25 September, Evertac engineers inspected and tested the system across the whole airport:

• every indoor and outdoor device was checked one by one;
• signal strength was measured in all key areas, with the support team reviewing test data in real time;
• the results showed the whole system working normally, with clear radio coverage in every area.

Results

• Fire and emergency radio stayed available through two major storms.
• Post-storm inspection covered about 486,900 m² and found no faults.
• The airport keeps a single, maintained emergency radio network across its terminals and tunnels.