Maryland DoT part of Friday’s Technical Tour day

First published in ITS America Preview - May 9, 2019

ITS America 2019 Annual Meeting attendees will have an opportunity of visiting key local transportation facilities through the technical tour program. All of these exclusive tours will take place on Friday, 7 June. Check out full details and costs of the tours at www.itsamerica2019.org/technicaltours and book your place today – numbers are limited and are on a first-come, first-served basis.

Likely to be very popular is the visit to the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA), Hal Kassoff Statewide Operations Center (SOC) located in Hanover, MD. The SOC is a 24 hour-a-day, seven day-a-week safety-sensitive, control and communications transportation operation centre. The facility is also the headquarters of the Coordinated Highways Action Response Team (CHART) program.

The technical tour of the McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center (PSTOC) management floor will provide an insight into this partnership between Fairfax County 911, Fairfax County Emergency Management Center, Commonwealth of Virginia State Police Division 7 Dispatch, Virginia Department of Transportation Northern Region Operations Traffic and Signal Centers. Participants will tour this facility and learn how these various organisations work together in one facility to manage incidents in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.

Montgomery County, Maryland operates an Advanced Transportation Management System (ATMS) at the Montgomery County Transportation Management Center. Tour participants will visit the centre where engineers and technicians oversee the functionality of traffic responsive signal control for almost 800 signals, monitor camera video surveillance for 160 signals, broadcast County Cable Channel 6, oversee integrated transit and traffic operations, and manage and implement a sophisticated, fibre-based communication system, to name a few activities.

This facility also houses the County’s Emergency Communications Center, responsible for the effective performance of all emergency communications relating to a fire, rescue, or emergency medical incidents.

Tour participants will get an overview and tour of the facility and a visual presentation of live signal surveillance as well as a full summary of operations taking place at the TMC.

The Transurban North Virginia Express Lanes and Operations Center technical tour will see participants board a bus for Alexandria, Virginia, and the express lanes and traffic control centre. The tour will drive key segments of the 495, 95 and 395 Express Lanes (now under construction) to learn how Transurban’s ITS systems and operations are helping to reduce congestion in the DC region. The bus will also stop at the express lanes’ traffic control centre where Transurban’s innovation team will discuss their role in the transportation revolution.