Ran - National Accelerometric Network

The Italian National Accelerometric Network - Ran is the monitoring network of the seismic response of Italian territory, based on ground acceleration.

Recorded data allow to describe the shaking in epicentral area in detail and to estimate expected effects on constructions and infrastructures. Moreover, they are useful for seismology and seismic engineering studies, and can help defining seismic actions to be applied in structural calculations for the reconstruction.

The Ran is distributed across the Italian territory, and more densely in high seismicity zones. The network is managed by specialized technicians of the Italian Civil Protection Deptartment.

Configuration. The Ran network consists of over 700 digital stations equipped with an accelerometer, a digitizer, a modem/router with an antenna to transfer digitized data via GPRS, and a GPS receiver to associate UTC universal time with the data and measure the station's latitude and longitude. Some of these are located inside Enel Distribuzione electrical substations, while others are located on public land.

Data reach the central RAN server in the headquarters of the Italian Civil Protection Department, where they are stored and automatically processed  in order to get an estimate of the main parameters describing the seismic event.

Data from other publicly owned accelerometer networks flow into the Ran database in near real time, based on programmatic agreements and conventions. The parameters and waveforms are automatically stored in the central database and then made available on this website: ran.protezionecivile.it.