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

  • Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council chooses Siemens to provide new light rail vehicles for Southwest expansion
    October 28, 2016
    Siemens has been chosen by the US Twin Cities of Minnesota and St Paul Metropolitan Council to manufacture 27 new light rail vehicles that will operate on the Metro Transit Southwest line expansion. Siemens will begin engineering the new vehicles, which will feature improvements including a redesigned middle section to improve passenger flow including wheelchairs and bicycles, ice cutters to remove sleet from the overhead wires that provide the electrical current to power the vehicles, and preferred seat
    Read More
  • McCain takes on the Swarco name
    August 19, 2022
    It was in 2016 when US-based ITS supplier McCain became a part of the Swarco family.
    Read More
  • Conduent makes contactless connection in Marseille
    November 24, 2023
    Passengers in French city will pay with contactless cards & NFC-enabled digital wallets
    Read More
  • Joining old and new in Canada’s Highway 407
    June 17, 2016
    David Arminas visits Canada’s Highway 407 ETR to see how the concession is working and hear about new arrangements for the roadway’s extension. The Toronto region is North America’s eighth largest metropolitan area and its roads become notoriously congested. In 1997 Highway 407, a 68km concrete toll motorway which skirts the northern edge of Toronto, was opened and initially operated by the province and CHIC - a consortium of four leading Ontario-based companies. Finance came from the Ontario Financing Auth
    Read More

Highlighted Content