CERN research centre Geneva
Securiton, Securitas and CERN
Physicists working on the projects of the CERN research centre outside Geneva are called upon to deliver peak performances and focused teamwork. And in the same way as the researchers approach the challenges they face and pool their energies, so has security on the CERN premises been resolved, namely with services and technical solutions from the Securitas Group.
CERN is special in many ways. Its LHC project for instance calls for unbelievable resources of know-how and materials; it is also set to venture into uncharted waters. It is a project whose success requires researchers from all over the world, specialists who are able to work on a single site where science-friendly rules apply. While CERN is located on both Swiss and French soil, the site itself is considered exterritorial. To gain access to the zone, a person either has to be able to identify himself as a CERN employee or be accredited and receive a badge at Reception. The person must then pass through a type of civilian border control point manned by Securitas staff. On the Swiss side of the CERN site, Securitas is in charge of access control, site surveillance and additional identity checks at particularly exposed locations, in some cases with the added use of video surveillance. Up to 15 Securitas employees are on site daily to ensure that no unauthorised persons gain access to the site.
A major contract for Securiton
The LHC project is as impressive as the array of smoke and fire detectors and evaluation control systems which Securiton has installed throughout the site (including the French side). Thousands of Securiton products are to be found inside the acceleration tunnel, in the detector halls and the many buildings on the surface: over 2,500 SecuriStar scattered light smoke detectors as well as heat detectors and photoelectric smoke detectors. Just under 800 aspiration smoke detector systems, 150 infrared fire detectors and some 100 evaluation and control units complete the Securiton installation. CERN would not be CERN if it had not come up with its own creations. Together with a French company, Simrad Optronics, and Securiton, the research centre has designed a particularly sensitive combined alarm system which samples air from inside the four particle detectors and is capable of detecting gas and smoke. Tellingly, the system has been called "Sniffer". The four Securiton employees whose offices are on site and the four technicians who report to them are of course mightily proud of their contribution to the success of this landmark project.
