26 Apr Metro Atlanta’s Cobb County Doubles Use of SCATS Adaptive Signal Control System, Awards TransCore Deployment Contract

ATLANTA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TransCore was selected by Cobb County Department of Transportation to expand its SCATS adaptive traffic signal control technology with an additional 75 intersections, nearly doubling its use of the technology and making it the second largest deployment in the United States. The first phase of 26 intersections in the Town Center area on Cobb Parkway are now in operation with the remaining intersections along Barrett Parkway, Chastain Road, and McCollum Parkway expected to be fully operational by October 2012.

Cobb County, located in the northwest portion of metropolitan Atlanta, first installed adaptive signal control technology in 2006 along Cobb Parkway (US 41) and the Cumberland Galleria area surrounding the I-75/I-285 interchange. Now, in an effort to accelerate mobility in the Northwest Corridor along US 41, I-75 and I-575, Cobb County will expand the system’s use.

The Northwest Corridor is one of the most congested areas in the metropolitan region. US 41 and I-75 experience heavy traffic and delays on a daily basis. The corridor struggles with varying traffic congestion due to commutes to freeway interchanges, travel to regional shopping malls, trips to local businesses and commercial districts, and Kennesaw State University traffic, one of the fastest growing universities in the Georgia University system.

An intelligent transportation system with adaptive capabilities can respond to traffic patterns as they occur and reduce choke points in the county’s roadway network and subsequently reduce vehicle emissions, fuel consumption, and travel times.

Tim Fischer, TransCore’s vice president for the southeast region, added, “What makes the SCATS adaptive system appealing is that each corridor can be configured differently versus using the traditional time-based, or actuated signal controls. Other systems don’t have this level of configurability or flexibility.”

About SCATS Adaptive Signal Control Systems

The adaptive traffic control system known as SCATS (Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System originally developed for Sydney Australia by the Roads and Transport Authority) operates in real-time to adjust signal timing in response to changes in traffic demand and provides immediate and historical traffic information for Cobb County traffic engineers.

SCATS is currently one of the most widely used adaptive traffic control systems around the world controlling more than 30,000 intersections globally and more than 1,000 intersections in the United States.

In the United States, many SCATS projects have provided marked improvement in congestion mitigation:

• Outside San Diego in Chula Vista, Calif., delays were reduced by 45 percent.
• In Menlo Park, Calif., bordering Palo Alto and Stanford University, travel time was reduced up to 25 percent and delays were reduced by an extraordinary 70 percent. In October, San Jose expanded the system to an additional 50 intersections in Silicon Valley.
• The City of Santa Rosa in the heart of Sonoma Valley saw an average reduction in travel time by 32 percent.

About SCATS Capabilities

SCATS has an open architecture for communications, controllers and detection. This allows a city to utilize various manufacturers’ equipment. SCATS specific capabilities include:

• True real-time, cycle-by-cycle 100 percent adaptive control capabilities;
• Capable of being monitored from up to 30 workstations at the same time with eight varying access levels;
• Capable of being easily expanded;
• Has more than 30 years of proven field adaptive operations experience;
• Operates in adaptive mode 24/7, 365 days a year without manual intervention;
• Provides real-time and historical detection monitoring and alarm features;
• Has been field integrated with Ethernet IP communications;
• Easy to monitor and use by operational, engineering and maintenance staff and includes city-wide, corridor, and intersection graphical displays;
• Capable of identifying system malfunctions and abnormalities and generate alarms for operators or maintenance personnel;
• Automatically records timing and detection information for 365 days for historical analysis;
• Provides pre-emption and transit priority features.

About TransCore

TransCore’s 75-year heritage supporting the transportation industry spans the development of RFID transportation applications at Los Alamos National Labs to implementation of the nation’s first electronic toll collection system. The breadth of the company’s expertise includes traffic management systems, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), systems integration, design consulting, operations, maintenance, RFID manufacturing, and extensive Web-based logistics systems. TransCore has installations in 46 countries and a vast portfolio of intellectual property. In 2011, Engineering News-Record (ENR) ranked TransCore No. 154 out of the Top 500 Design Firms.

TransCore is a U.S. owned and operated company with headquarters in Harrisburg, Pa. TransCore operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Roper Industries, a Standard and Poor’s S&P 500 Index company.