STL services the City of Laval, the third largest city in the province of Quebec, with a fleet of 230 buses and an annual ridership of more than 18.8 million passengers. The intelligent transport system will utilize sophisticated convergence technology from Visual Defence to provide STL with the ability to monitor vehicle routes, status and schedule adherence in real-time.
“We believe the Visual Defence solution will provide us with easy-to-use data enabling us not only to meet our current objectives of reduced manual processing time, improved accuracy and timeliness of bus schedule information and improved quality of service for our passengers, but also allow us the flexibility to add new functionality to meet future demands,” says Pierre Giard, General Manager for STL.
The system will combine Automatic Vehicle Locating (AVL), passenger counting, Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and voice communication systems, as well as integrate the city’s existing scheduling software. Data from the integrated system will generate alarms at the central monitoring center according to parameters defined by STL. For example, the central monitoring center will be notified if the number of passengers or vehicle speed exceeds a specified capacity, vehicle fuel drops below a specified threshold, vehicles are idle for an extended period of time or if buses are running behind schedule. The central monitoring center will also be notified of emergencies on the bus through the on-board integrated emergency system.
“Visual Defence is pleased to have been selected to design and implement STL’s intelligent transportation system,” said Dagan Sadeh, CEO for Visual Defence. “This new solution, coupled with the improvements to the voice communication system, will provide STL with the tools it needs to improve overall operational efficiency leading to customer satisfaction and increased ridership.”
System installation will begin in June 2007 and is scheduled for completion by April 2008.
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