The Georgia Department of Transportation (Georgia DOT) has signed a 10-year agreement with Q-Free to continue providing central traffic management software, intersection control software, and all associated intersection traffic controller hardware services statewide.
The deal also provisions for a complete upgrade of the state’s current central traffic signal management system to Kinetic Signals – a technology update and rebrand of Georgia DOT’s current Intelight MaxView ATMS.
“Georgia DOT is an innovative agency, continually raising the bar in terms of open, coordinated, and connected systems to benefit all Georgians,” says Q-Free EVP of urban sales Tom Stiles. “Since we first began working with the agency in 2016, their passion and persistence have directly influenced our product development and – to a degree – served as a building block for our new Kinetic Signals system.”
Kinetic Signals offers center-to-center operations through open data sharing, crucial to the regional integration of traffic management and coordination during events and emergencies. Q-Free hopes as the development of its Kinetic Mobility integrated traffic management platform continues, that Georgia DOT will play a significant role in testing new modules and also help drive expanded functionality.
“Georgia DOT has been a fantastic partner in driving technology through their research and deployment,” says Stiles. “We look forward to continuing that relationship for the benefit of the state’s residents, but also for communities outside the state who stand to benefit from everything we learn with Georgia.”
Open data sharing and communications protocols are top Q-Free priorities and they were a Georgia DOT requirement in the original and current contract. Q-Free was the first traffic management vendor to openly share its Management Information Bases (MIBs), the often-proprietary computer language traffic management devices use to communicate with each other. Q-Free is also a founding member of the #FREEtheMIBs campaign, a coalition of transportation leaders from the private, public and academic sectors whose goal is to reverse the common practice of locking agencies into costly long-term contracts because of product incompatibility.
