Santa Clara light rail calls for Econolite TSP detection

Installations in California will detect transit signal priority calls on four corridors
By David Arminas August 9, 2024 Read time: 2 mins
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority's light rail system (image: VTA)

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has contracted Econolite Systems for the installation of equipment to detect transit signal priority (TSP) calls at at-grade light-rail intersections.

The installations are at non-gated intersections along four strategic and heavily travelled corridors - Tasman Drive (north corridor), East San Carlos (south corridor), North Capital Avenue (east corridor) and North 1st Street (west corridor).

Econolite’s field services team are responsible for pole-mounted antennas, cable in existing conduits, lightning suppression units, cable grounding kits, wiring of shelf-mount units and wiring of relay switches.

VTA is a special district responsible for public transit services, congestion management, highway improvement projects and countywide transportation planning for the county in the US state of California.

As the public transit service provider for Santa Clara County, including 15 cities, VTA serves a county with a population of 1.8 million, an annual transit ridership of over 35 million, over 1,200 round trip miles for its bus services and 82 track miles for its light-rail services.

VTA has three light rail lines that use an existing TSP system in active operations and are adding a fourth.

The TSP for the light rail lines is based on embedded detection in the exclusive right-of-way to trigger service calls for TSP. TSP was operational on 97 signalised intersections within the cities of Milpitas, San Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, as well as the County of Santa Clara on light-rail lines with nearly 100 light-rail vehicles.

Econolite is also in coordination with the cities of San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and Milpitas, as well as the County of Santa Clara and Caltrans – California Department of Transportation - for the installation of the intersection equipment along the four corridors.

As part of VTA's TSP detection upgrade project, the new equipment will also provide wireless light-rail vehicle detection that can be used by other local agencies for emergency vehicle preemption.

Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision Classification & Data Collection Networking & Communication Systems Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Icoms offers low-cost intersection detection
    March 20, 2018
    Intertraffic visitors are the first to see a new radar detector from Icoms Detection – the Belgian subsidiary of IRD. The pole-mounted unit, knows as the TMA-13X, has a range of 80 metres, identifies up to 32 vehicles (targets) across three or four lanes of oncoming traffic and can monitor the route vehicles follow through an intersection. According to the company, one TMA-13X unit can replace multiple loops (approach and stop line) without any roadworks and it functions regardless of light conditions
    Read More
  • Boost to infrastructure, autonomous cars in UK budget
    March 17, 2016
    The UK chancellor announced in his spring budget what he called the biggest investment, US$87.5 billion (£61 billion), in transport infrastructure in generations and is increasing capital investment in the transport network by 50 per cent over this Parliament compared to the last. The government plans to establish the UK as a global centre for excellence in connected and autonomous vehicles by establishing a US$24.1 million (£15 million) ‘connected corridor’ from London to Dover to enable vehicles to com
    Read More
  • US DOT announces funding for Ohio BRT project
    June 3, 2016
    The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has awarded US$37.5 million in federal grant funds to the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) for a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service in Columbus. The new line, CMAX, will help relieve passenger crowding and spur economic development along Cleveland Avenue, one of the city’s busiest travel corridors The 15.6-mile BRT service will provide a much-needed option in a corridor with high transit use. CMAX will help reduce passenger
    Read More
  • Pioneering new passenger information systems
    February 3, 2012
    Chicago pioneers new passenger information initiatives. By David Crawford
    Read More

Highlighted Content