The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) has awarded a new contract that will see a complete upgrade of the state’s existing traffic and facilities management system to the latest next-generation technologies.
Kapsch TrafficCom North America, a subsidiary of the Austrian Kapsch Group, has been awarded the four-year, 10.4m (US$11.5m) contract to upgrade and modernize MassDOT’s Integrated Transportation Management System (ITMS) at the agency’s Highway Operations Center (HOC). The new system will manage all of MassDOT’s state-wide roadway network, which includes over 3,000 miles (4,830km) of roadways and 5,000 bridges. The new system will also manage the Boston Metropolitan Highway System tunnel complex and facilities, which is operated by MassDOT, and consists of: the Thomas P O’Neill Jr Tunnel carrying I-93 through downtown Boston; the Prudential Tunnel carrying I-90 under Back Bay; the Ted Williams Tunnel carrying I-90 to Logan International Airport; and the Sumner, Callahan, and CANA tunnels that connect I-93 to major routes in Boston.
The next generation ITMS will be based on Kapsch’s DYNAC software suite, which will efficiently manage all aspects of the HOC operations by converging nearly 50 independent traffic and facility management data systems into a single platform.
HOC operators will manage open highways, tunnel traffic, and critical life safety systems, including fire detection, ventilation, emergency egress, and passenger information dissemination from a fully integrated user environment. The new system will improve operational efficiency and information accuracy, facilitate consistent workflows, enhance environmental monitoring and reporting capabilities, and provide statewide and regional total situational awareness. DYNAC will enable rapid, consistent, and appropriate response to traffic incidents and tunnel life safety events by generating and executing real-time response plans to help HOC operators expertly manage time sensitive, critical situations.
“This important project is scheduled to be completed in four sub-phases, Phase 1A, 1B, 1C and 2, over 1,145 working days from Notice to Proceed,” explained Thomas J Tinlin, MassDOT’s highway division administrator.”
The project has identified 2,786 system requirements in 59 thematic areas of incident management, life safety management, and facility management. The project will upgrade software and peripheral hardware to improve operational efficiency, enable the use of the latest advances in traffic management technology, and allow for the retirement of legacy software and hardware. This new system will also replace and/or integrate with existing systems to support a number of traffic incident management functions performed on statewide roadways and facilities from a single operating platform.”
