Skip to main content

Managing Seattle’s congestion with Siemens intelligent software

The City of Seattle, Washington, is to implement Siemens’ Concert, an integrated traffic management platform that connects both Siemens and third-party systems across the city including traffic control centres, intersection controllers and parking guidance systems. The Concert platform will integrate Siemens’ TACTICS traffic control system as well as the city’s existing dynamic message sign management system the local travel time system and the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) freeway sys
May 18, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The City of Seattle, Washington, is to implement 189 Siemens’ Concert, an integrated traffic management platform that connects both Siemens and third-party systems across the city including traffic control centres, intersection controllers and parking guidance systems.

The Concert platform will integrate Siemens’ TACTICS traffic control system as well as the city’s existing dynamic message sign management system the local travel time system and the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) freeway system. It will consolidate data from these traffic platforms and other sources like weather reporting, existing road conditions and traffic data on special events such as concerts or ball games taking place in and around the city into a central management platform.

With the insight provided by the software platform, the city will have a real-time, comprehensive view of the traffic, as well as a powerful tool to better manage the transportation network as a whole.

The resulting data collected by the Concert software will allow Seattle to quickly identify traffic-related incidents, determine the best response and plan its traffic patterns more effectively. The extensive information will also be provided to operators, travellers, traffic control systems and traffic planners via dynamic maps, message signs and posts on the WSDOT website to optimise mobility and safety in Seattle, while decreasing environmental impacts of traffic.

As part of this installation, Siemens has also named Seattle as one of the company’s Centers of Excellence for Intelligent Traffic Technology. Understanding the impact intelligent software can have on significantly improving a city’s transportation system, Siemens will provide Seattle with its latest innovative technology to help expand the city’s smart traffic system infrastructure.

As part of the Center of Excellence partnership, Siemens will work in conjunction with local distributor Western Systems to implement the technology and showcase the system at Seattle Department of Transportation. The partnership will include expansion of the Concert system, providing on-site training for city traffic operators on the system and offering software support to keep Seattle up-to-date with the latest versions of its technologies, enabling Seattle to continue to modernise and enhance its transportation systems.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Cubic wins multi-million transit upgrade contract in Ireland
    December 19, 2014
    Cubic Transportation Systems has won a major multi-million euro modernisation programme for Iarnród Éireann, Irish Rail. Cubic led a team of four providers with specialist transport expertise to deliver the best solution for Irish Rail’s new fully integrated ticketing management and distribution system. The combined capabilities of Cubic and Sqills, along with its other delivery partners, CRMCulture and Rail Solutions, also meet the requirements of Irish Rail’s Customer First Programme, which puts the cu
  • Queensland extends emergency vehcile priority system
    December 18, 2014
    Following encouraging results from an initial small-scale trial of an emergency vehicle priority system in Queensland, Australia, the scheme is now being extended. In an emergency every second counts. Nowhere is this more graphically illustrated than by the survivability statistics for the time to cardiopulmonary resuscitation of pre-hospital cardiac arrest: at four minutes the survival rate is 22% but by 14 minutes the survival has dropped to 5% - as can be seen from the graph below. There is a similar tre
  • Abu Dhabi seeks safe and efficient multi-modal ITS solutions
    December 17, 2014
    Abu Dhabi’s Department of Transport is planning to roll out its second phase ITS Strategy and Action Plan through to 2019 which will deploy a host of innovative multimodal ITS solutions. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is continuing to experience rapid growth in both its economy and population and none more so than its capital, Abu Dhabi. To cope with the current expansion, and in anticipation of future growth, the Abu Dhabi Surface Transport Master Plan has been devised by its Department of Transport and th
  • Caltrans develops remote remedy for ailing VMS
    February 18, 2014
    A remote diagnostic system for variable message signs keeps Caltrans staff safer and makes them more efficient. District 12 of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) maintains roads in Orange County including 292 route miles of freeway lanes and 240 directional miles of full-time high occupancy vehicle or carpool lanes. All of these lanes are controlled from the district’s transportation management centre (TMC) using a network of 58 variable message signs (VMS) positioned alongside or abo