Q-Free has signed the largest non-tolling agreement in the Norwegian traffic technology company’s history, with a new contract for its US division, Q-Free Open Roads (Q-Free OR), to implement and maintain a new statewide advanced transportation management system (ATMS) for the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT).
The order value for the VDOT ATMS contract is approximately NKr200m (US$25m), and it has a duration of four years. In addition, there are three optional two-year extensions. Q-Free OR will deliver its centralized web-based Open TMS software and services, which will bring five Transportation Operations Centers (TOC) on a single statewide platform and provide VDOT with many advantages and advanced features, including:
• Consistent operations throughout the state;
• Technology upgrade from a client/server application to a hosted browser-based application that is accessible through a standard web browser;
• Highly available architecture providing uninterrupted operations for mission-critical TOC functions;
• Ability to provide supplemental operations for TOCs in the event of an emergency, such as TOC infrastructure maintenance, a network or power outage;
• Facilitate consistent and planned responses to incidents through statewide automated Response Plans;
• Reduced maintenance costs due to the elimination of regionally maintained systems and incorporation of the VaTraffic and Lane Closure applications into a single statewide system;
• A fully Integrated Active Traffic Management system.
“We are very pleased to continue our strong and lengthy partnership with the Virginia Department of Transportation and are excited about the opportunity to bring them to the forefront of traffic management technology,” commented HÃ¥kon Volldal, Q-Free’s president and CEO. “This contract further builds our record high order backlog going into 2017.”
The VDOT award is the company’s second major win in the USA recently, following Q-Free OR’s award of a €1.2m (US$1.4m) contract to maintain and enhance the West Virginia Division of Highways’ (WVDOH) Advanced Transportation Management System (ATMS).
In 2008, Open Roads Consulting (ORC) designed and deployed its OpenTMS product as the WVDOH’s statewide ATMS platform. Following the original deployment, ORC upgraded and enhanced the WVDOH’s OpenTMS system, and this work continued following the acquisition of ORC by Q-Free in September 2014, with West Virginia currently using Version 8 of the platform.
OpenTMS is a platform-independent, extensible, ATMS solution built around an open, modular architecture. OpenTMS runs in a web browser and is designed to support the dynamic traffic management marketplace, where configurability and customization is of primary concern, as enterprise architectures, GIS and database technology, and ITS devices are continually evolving.
