As our population grows and gas prices spiral upward, more emphasis is being placed on mass transit providers to provide safe, reliable, and on-time solutions to the mobility needs of the riding public. Macro Corporation has earned the trust of an extensive list of transit and transportation clients throughout our 40 years of providing consulting services. Transportation agencies, port authorities, and other firms with people mobility needs across the USA and Canada, immediately recognize the “Macro” brand as an industry-leading, consulting and system engineering firm on whom they can consistently depend for technology deployment and for the command, control, and communications systems they operate from their control center facilities.

Our expertise in transportation and transit operations not only covers today’s most sophisticated system management platforms, but also includes a strong understanding and consideration of these systems’ human factors (e.g. ergonomics, approachability, usability, safety, maintainability, etc.) that ultimately serve as the primary measure for transit and transportation agencies when judging how well such systems meet their respective, unique, operational needs over the long run.

Macro has been the “go-to” firm for mass transit agencies – from the largest operators in North America such as MTA New York City Transit, New Jersey Transit, SEPTA, Los Angeles County MTA, Toronto Transit Commission, etc. to the some of the smallest such as Greater Bridgeport, CT and Intercity Transit (Olympia, WA) for their “systems” needs by being able to scale our technology planning and system engineering to each client’s affordability level without sacrificing service quality and performance.

We have one of the most diverse mixes of key consultants available to transportation clients. Drawn from leadership positions from both the user and industry communities, our professional consulting staff collectively possesses a strong practical, “hands-on” understanding of a wide range of systems and technologies for rail and bus/paratransit automation applications, including centralized traffic control; traction power and facility SCADA; computer-aided dispatching; automatic vehicle tracking using GPS technology; "smart bus" technologies; scheduling; trip planning; customer information; management information; and related wireless and wireline communications systems.

Each of our firm’s staff members in this practice area have the skills and experience to step in at any stage of a client’s project and immediately add value. Key services that we routinely provide include the following:

• Technology Strategic Plan
• Business Process Review (of client’s staff assignments)
• User Needs Assessment
• Conceptual System Design
• Mid-Term Assessment
• RFP and Specification Preparation
• Vendor Solicitation and Selection
• Vendor Negotiations
• Vendor Design, Implementation, and Test Oversight
• Project Management
• Training planning
• Cutover planning
• Configuration Management
• Quality Assurance Oversight
• Final Acceptance Audit

Macro has extensive experience performing in all of these roles through the project life cycle to help ensure our clients achieve cost-effective, efficient, and reliable technology solutions for their respective transportation and mass transit operations.

Our planning, engineering, and project management work in the transportation sector routinely falls within the following service areas…

Mass Transit Rail Systems • Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) • Traction Power Control (TPC) • Station and terminal wayside SCADA • Closed-circuit television (CCTV) • Security

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Transit/Traffic Control Centers • Train, bus, and paratransit dispatch • Workstation furniture, lighting, and HVAC • Workstation display configuration • Wall-mounted status/projection systems • Access control / facility hardening • Back-up control centers • Disaster recovery

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Mass Transit Bus / Paratransit Fleet Management Systems • Computer-aided Dispatch (CAD) • GPS-based Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) • Vehicle on-board systems (next-stop annunciators, destination signage, automatic passenger counters, video surveillance, etc.) • Bus scheduling & client manifesting • Trip Planning / Interactive Voice Response (IVR) • Web-based, vehicle-based, and bus stop-based passenger schedule and real-time information

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Student Transportation Management Systems • Dispatch and Vehicle Location • Web-based vehicle status/tracking • On-board video surveillance • Vehicle safety remote monitoring

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Transit Wireless / Wireline Communication Systems • Private land mobile radio (VHF/UHF/700/800/900) • Private mobile data (RF, 2.4 GHz, 5.9 GHz, Mesh, etc.) • Public cellular voice/data (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T) • Agency and wide-area interconnect (microwave, fiber, cable, leased) • Frequency coordination and licensing support (RF & microwave)

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