ASTC Cabinets and ATC-CBD Controllers Take Prize

January 5, 2009 - At the recent 2008 ITS World Congress in
New York, the U.S. Traffic division of Peek Traffic Corporation was presented with a “Best of ITS Innovation” award as a result of our work on the New York City
traffic management upgrade project. The award was given to the team that is
currently rolling out advanced solid-state traffic controllers and other hardware to
intersections all over the five boroughs of the city. The project team includes
Peek/U.S. Traffic, the NYC DOT, and the Transcore/JHK Engineering Group.

Peek supplied the ASTC cabinets, its new ATC-CBD (Central Business District) advanced traffic controllers, and other support hardware to the project. Over 2,000 intersections in New York are already being controlled by this hardware, with another 5,000 scheduled to be installed in the coming months. In order to meet NYCDOT specifications, the Peek hardware underwent a grueling test program, including temperature, humidity, electric load, power interruption, electrical noise, power surge, ESD, and vibration testing.

The controllers use the NTCIP standards for communications, the NEMA TS2 standard to interact with the serial cabinet, and the NYCDOT 330 cabinet and 179 standards for such elements as the input file, the output file, plug‐in units, and the conflict monitor (2010). This was all combined into a small, urban cabinet constructed of 3/32 inch aluminum with provisions for 6 or 12 configurable load switches, a communications adapter, Ethernet port, and direct communications between the controller and the conflict monitor. The controller/CMU connection allows remote viewing of configuration and device logs, and a connection to UPS backup power systems, which New York is now installing on critical arterials.

Since the ASTC controllers are capable of implementing various traffic patterns for different traffic situations, such as adaptive control and transit signal priority, and because they have superior reliability, the new system has already improved the traffic efficiency of the roadways. There are fewer stops and delays, as well as reduced air pollution, which leads to improved public health for the confined spaces of the city. The NYCDOT expects their maintenance costs for intersection control to come down considerably. The processing power and memory available with these controllers is enabling the City to deploy its wireless network to all of their traffic control signals – eliminating the need for the leased telephone lines which were previously costing them almost $6 million per year. And since the ASTC controllers have two Ethernet ports, the City can use these same controllers for other functions.

The advanced ASTC controllers supplied by Peek/U.S. Traffic have also already demonstrated that they
can support the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) and Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance
(CICAS) programs. In fact, these Peek/U.S. Traffic controllers were an integral part of the VII interactive
demonstration displayed during the 2008 World Congress, and continue to support the ongoing VII test
beds developed and in use in New York City today.