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  • The Transit Community
    By Eric Myers - Friday March 11, 2011
    Last week the Southwest Transit Association (SWTA) held their annual conference and Expo. This year it was held in tandem with the Texas Transit Association’s conference. With exhibit space and sponsorships sold out and great traffic throughout the conference, it was a successful event for both exhibitors and attendees. Drawing attendees from not just one state but an entire region helped to broaden the conference experience. What I mean is while all transit professionals share similar challenges, there are differences county to county, state to state, etc. Add to the mix the backgrounds of all the different exhibitors and you have a wide variety of backgrounds to hear about and learn about. People always asked two questions when they...

  • Now is the Time to Fight
    By Leah Harnack - Friday March 4, 2011
    “The outreach we have to do at the federal level can not be overstated,” Michael Scanlon, American Public Transportation Association (APTA) chair, general manager/CEO of San Mateo County Transit District and executive director of Caltrain, said when speaking at the opening session of APTA’s Marketing & Communications Workshop in San Diego, Calif., this past week. The conference always shares what latest in what marketing and PR professionals are doing but this year it was also stressed throughout the conference that everyone needs to be doing what they can to educate legislators about the benefits of public transit. With authorization looming, industry leaders shared what they were doing and ideas for how we can work together to...

  • Transit Helps Drive the Wireless Agenda
    By Jim Baker - Wednesday March 2, 2011
    My diary is beginning to look pretty full with conference events over the next few months; the 2011 season is getting well underway. As I begin to pack my bags, I thought I’d take a moment to review what’s coming up at the intersection of the mass transit and wireless sectors during March, in an attempt to better understand how public transport is perceived and represented as a market opportunity in the wireless community. IWCE 2011 – March 7-11, Las Vegas, Nev. March kicks off with the annual International Wireless Communications Expo ( IWCE ) in sunny Las Vegas. Originally a two-way radio conference with its roots in public safety, IWCE has grown organically to include a wide range of topics, including WAN infrastructure, M2M, 4G...

  • Are We Going to Move Forward?
    By Leah Harnack - Friday February 18, 2011
    Miami passed Los Angeles as the second busiest international airport. The state of Florida is heading for third in terms of population. It is a growing state that needs to stay competitive. If you’ve seen or read any bit of news in the past 24 hours, then you are aware that Florida Governor Rick Scott announced that he is rejecting the federal funding from the Obama Administration for the state's high-speed rail project. In his prepared remarks he said that it “came down to three main economic realities: “Capital cost overruns from the project could put Florida taxpayers on the hook for an additional $3 billion. “Ridership and revenue projections are historically overly optimistic and would likely result in ongoing subsidies...

  • Hey ERIC, what's wrong with Transit and Public Safety?
    By Jim Baker - Thursday February 17, 2011
    In August 2010, the FCC invited nominations for participation in the Emergency Response Interoperability Center ( ERIC ) Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC). ERIC  was set up last April by the FCC to establish a technical and operational framework for interoperability of public safety networks using the 700MHz band, with input from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice among others. The purpose of PSAC would be to recommend requirements and procedures for nationwide interoperability, security and reliability, as well as suggesting ways to strengthen collaboration between communication service providers and public safety entities for response procedures during emergencies. Given the important role that mass...

  • I'll Take Smarter Transportation for $1,000
    By Gerry Mooney - Tuesday February 15, 2011
    There’s no shortage of data when it comes to transportation. Mountains of it are being generated by buses and trains, cars, roads, sensors, parking meters, signals – you name it. Add in the constraints of the system and the realities of your infrastructure and it can seem like a never-ending race to keep the trains and buses running on time or the traffic running smoothly. Advanced technologies are already making transportation smarter – from algorithms that can help predict when and where traffic will occur before it’s a problem to software that can help determine when to take a train care out of service for maintenance before an issue develops. But what does the future hold? A glimpse can be seen this week in what’s sure...

  • Good Green Jobs
    By Leah Harnack - Thursday February 10, 2011
    February 14 is just days away. It’s the day President Obama introduces the FY12 budget request.  With all of the recent talk about rebuilding America’s infrastructure during the State of the Union - but without the specific plans yet being outlined - we’re all waiting to hear what we can expect for funding. And it also means February 15 is when the House is expected to begin days of debate on the FY11 continuing resolution, which is funding the extension of SAFETEA-LU. With the Republican ‘Pledge to America,’ and a goal of reaching $100 billion in cuts, there is a lot of speculation of where cuts will be and how much really will be cut. Reading a blog by USDOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari, he points out something that those...

  • Taking Mobile Digital Signage to a New Level
    By Denise MacDonell - Thursday February 3, 2011
    Wouldn’t it be great to watch real news, sports and live programming while on your commute to and from work? Never having to miss an episode of your favorite show or footage of the latest sporting, world or local news event happening in your community right now?  Well now it is possible. In the Spring of 2009, Harris Corporation, in partnership with WRAL in Raleigh, N.C.,  and LG Electronics, launched the first over-the-air broadcast of mobile DTV to the general public broadcasting to a fleet of 20 public transit buses in the city. Using Harris Corporation’s MPH system to simulcast WRAL’s live channel,  and mobile DTV receivers and Harris Infocaster Digital Signage systems installed on the buses, the live mobile broadcast...

  • NFC - The Mass Transit Payment Revolution
    By Jim Baker - Thursday February 3, 2011
    The web is humming this week with news that Apple is planning to embed technology in the next generation iPhone that will enable contactless payments. The combination of built-in Near Field Communication ( NFC ) technology and credit card information in iTunes would turn the phone into a ‘virtual wallet’, and possibly herald the decline of plastic payment cards. In addition to cardless payments, NFC could help deliver targeted, location-based advertising to the phone user and provide a whole new revenue stream to the California-based consumer electronics giant, which recently patented NFC functionality within its products. [caption id="attachment_691" align="alignright" width="270" caption="Pay By Phone where you see this...

  • Sharing the Value of Transit
    By Leah Harnack - Thursday February 3, 2011
    A recent conference call led by American Public Transportation Association (APTA) President Bill Millar provided information about the impact on the economy if the government continues to delay a federal transportation authorization bill. During the question and answer session, Millar mentioned that APTA is in the process of meeting with each of the 109 new members of the 112th Congress. Something that was particularly discouraging that he shared, “We’re finding that many of the new members are simply not familiar with the full scope and range of investments that the federal government makes. “We have found some examples where some of the new members don’t even realize that the federal government invests in the nation’s...