TransCore helps New York survive hurricane devastation

New York’s Traffic Management Centre faced its toughest test yet when Hurricane Sandy hit the United States at the end of October last year. Power was maintained to the building in Long Island City, Queens, throughout, although backup systems were operational and ready to supply critical transportation systems if power had been lost. Support from TransCore staff included making sure the TMC networks and transportation systems were operational, including the TransSuite Traffic Control System (TCS), which had
February 28, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
TransCore staff assisted in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, helping to get over 1400 intersections back online as New York returned to its feet (Pic: David Shankbone)

New York’s Traffic Management Centre faced its toughest test yet when Hurricane Sandy hit the United States at the end of October last year.

Power was maintained to the building in Long Island City, Queens, throughout, although backup systems were operational and ready to supply critical transportation systems if power had been lost.

Support from 139 Transcore staff included making sure the TMC networks and transportation systems were operational, including the TransSuite Traffic Control System (TCS), which had 8,200 intersections online. TCS made it through the storm without failing but by Monday as the eye of the storm had passed, there were intersections off-line due to flooding, loss of power and physical damage in the field.

On the Tuesday morning, the main optical fibre cable connecting the TCS to the city-wide wireless network was cut. However, TransCore determined that TCS was operational with no problem, and the TMC networks were not compromised.

The following day, Wednesday, the fibre was repaired and TransCore assisted by troubleshooting the intersections, working with the electricians and operators for the rest of the week. Intersections that could not be put back on line numbered about 700 in the flooded lower Manhattan area and the same number in flooded areas in Brooklyn and the outer boroughs.

Since NYCDOT’s headquarters were in the flooded area in lower Manhattan, commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, her deputy Lori Ardato and their management group relocated to offices in the TMC building in Queens. They made periodic visits to the TMC, specifically to Bruce Schaller (deputy assistant commissioner in charge of the TMC), requesting reports on the status of the intersections.

Support continued into the beginning of the following week as the TMC continued its recovery efforts and as TransCore staff returned to work. The NYC TransCore office lost internet connection but never lost electricity. Most staff returned once public transportation resumed.
Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision Networking & Communication Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Iteris wins two contracts to improve road safety in California
    May 7, 2019
    Iteris is to provide design and operations services to traffic management centres (TMCs) in a bid to improve road safety in the greater Los Angeles area. The contracts, in the cities of Inglewood and Glendale, total more than $1 million, and support the cities’ stated goals of ingesting data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices into central traffic operations hubs to better anticipate traffic-related issues. In Inglewood, Iteris will design its new main TMC and related traffic management operations s
    Read More
  • ULEZ: is it the best way to tackle air quality?
    August 31, 2023
    Issues of equity and economics need to considered in London's ultra-clean air zone expansion
    Read More
  • Missouri’s smart solution for rural road monitoring
    July 7, 2017
    David Crawford sees how Missouri is using commercially available information to rapidly improve monitoring and driver information on rural highways. Missouri is a predominantly rural state with the second largest number of farms in the country and agriculture the main occupation in 97 of its 114 counties. US statistics starkly reveal how road accidents in rural areas tend to be more serious than in urban regions and of the 32,000 US motorists killed each year, 54% die on roads in rural areas even though onl
    Read More
  • Transcore traffic management, traffic signal timing solutions on display
    May 15, 2015
    At this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting, TransCore will demonstrate two of its traffic management software solutions, TransSuite and SCATS. To better manage traffic flow in Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, TransCore is deploying its TransSuite software solution at 350 of the city’s busiest intersections. By automatically adjusting traffic signal timing in response to real-time traffic conditions, the traffic signals will be able to handle routine, planned and unexpected traffic conditions. Meanw
    Read More

Highlighted Content