Skip to main content

PB designing fibre network for MDOT

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has awarded a contract to Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) for the design of a new fibre-optic communications network in metropolitan Detroit. The project is a multi-phase effort to build an MDOT-owned fibre-optic network for communications with the Detroit region’s intelligent transportation system deployment, including hundreds of closed-circuit television cameras, dynamic message signs and vehicle detection systems along regional freeways.
April 19, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSSThe 1688 Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has awarded a contract to 4983 Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) for the design of a new fibre-optic communications network in metropolitan Detroit. The project is a multi-phase effort to build an MDOT-owned fibre-optic network for communications with the Detroit region’s intelligent transportation system deployment, including hundreds of closed-circuit television cameras, dynamic message signs and vehicle detection systems along regional freeways. The system will link all of the existing network hubs and nodes, eliminating the need for existing leased communications services, and upgrading the existing wireless radio communications to high-bandwidth fibre-optic links for most of the field devices and remote network nodes. The project encompasses the full extent of the Detroit-area freeway system, including over 160kms of instrumented roadway.

As the prime consultant, PB is responsible for the overall design of the communications network. Its services will entail preparation of a design report and network migration plan, with recommendations for how to best phase roll-out of the system; development of conduit installation plans for dozens of miles of regional freeways; and design of fibre-optic plans, including cable routing, network sizing, splice points, and fibre allocation details.  The design will include a minimum of two phases, with the first phase focusing on elimination of an existing leased fibre-optic service, and the second phase focusing on network redundancy and reduction of wireless linkages.

Construction of Phase 1 will commence in July 2013, with completion slated for late 2014.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Kapsch ‘opens the way’ to interoperability
    July 30, 2013
    Richard Turnock, chief technology officer of Kapsch TrafficCom North America explains what advantages its newly-opened TDM protocol can offer as a US-wide standard for tolling interoperability. The electronic tolling industry across the United States is evolving. Historically it was characterised by clusters of interoperability where a motorist may be able to use the same transponder across a large area, such as the 15-State E-ZPass system, or be confined to a single State system. Now, however, the industry
  • Michigan DOT director joins committee to study the future of interstates
    August 30, 2016
    Sixty years after president Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act 1956 into law, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is to carry out a 30 month study of the future of the country’s interstate highway system. Michigan Department of Transportation director Kirk T. Steudle has been named as a member of the committee that will study the future of the US Interstate Highway System (IGS).
  • Georgia Department of Transportation upgrades intelligent transportation infrastructure
    September 7, 2012
    In response to increased traffic density and demands on its transportation infrastructure, Georgia Department of Transportation’s (GDOT) has upgraded its Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS). New Jersey based Activu has installed state-of-the-art video wall displays and intelligent network-based visualisation software that integrates with 1,645 video detection cameras, 500 full-colour closed-circuit television cameras, its NaviGAtor II and 511 systems, changeable message signs, Navigator website, and s
  • Rhode Island installing wrong-way driver signing
    November 21, 2014
    Rhode Island Department of Transport (RIDOT) is undertaking a US$2 million project to upgrade the signing and striping at 145 locations, more than 200 actual ramps, and install detection systems at 24 high-risk areas. The systems not only alert a driver who travelling in the wrong direction, they notify police and other motorists of a potential wrong-way driver. At the two dozen high-risk areas, most in the Providence metropolitan area, new detection systems will sense if a driver has entered a highway o