USA: Chicago Transit Authority has launched its Innovation Studio project to partner with the private sector to explore new ideas.
In the first round, CTA is seeking proposals by April 15 which address:
- the automatic detection of people or large objects on railway tracks to avoid collisions and reduce or eliminate service delays;
- automating the process of having personnel manually survey assets at more than 10 000 bus stops;
- providing real-time information at bus stops.
A panel will evaluate proposals for feasibility, scalability and innovation. CTA will then work with selected vendors to run pilots for up to a year. This could lead to a formal procurement for wider deployment.
‘The Innovation Studio provides a means of accelerating our efforts to address a variety of challenges affecting our day-to-day operations, ranging from our number one priority of safety to the customer experience and operational efficiencies’, said CTA President Dorval R Carter Jr. ‘The first operational efficiency we are realising with the launch of this programme is the reduction of time it will take for us to begin real-world testing of cutting-edge technologies, which otherwise would take us months or years to bring to a reality.’
