California-based developer of advanced traffic control and management equipment, McCain Inc, has announced that it has now sold 500 of its game-changing USDOT-standardized ATC Cabinets, which are ready for Connected Vehicle program applications.
Now owned by the Austrian transportation equipment giant, the Swarco Group, McCain says its ATC Cabinets are uniquely positioned to help agencies increase safety, performance, and efficiency, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) projects. McCain first introduced its ATC Cabinet series in August 2013 with the debut of the 352i ATC Cabinet. McCain has since introduced five additional models in more than 50 configurations including 48VDC low-voltage versions, the compact Backpack Cabinet, and a large four-door 350i ATC Cabinet, which can manage up to 120 inputs and 32-channel outputs.
Earlier in the year, parent company Swarco helped form the Connected Vehicle to Everything of Tomorrow (ConVeX) consortium along with Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies, and the University of Kaiserslautern, to carry out the first announced Cellular-V2X (C-V2X) trial based upon the 3rd Generation Partnership Project’s (3GPP) Release 14, which includes Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication. Co-funded with the German Federal Ministry of Transportation and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), the ConVeX trial efforts are expected to focus on Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) direct communication, as well as Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) wide area communications.
“As connected and autonomous vehicles become a reality, it is our responsibility to partner with agencies and provide reliable information on intersection signal status and performance,” said Greg McKhann, chief operating officer at McCain. “At Team McCain, we believe the ATC Cabinet is one of the critical components to enable high-performance intersections of the future. We are proud to have participated in connected vehicle test beds and pilot projects across the nation, including an ATC Cabinet installation at the Federal Highway Administration’s Turner-Fairbanks Highway Research Center.”
When asked what makes McCain’s ATC Cabinets so unique, the company’s director of sales, Nathan Welch, talked about their versatility. “We have customers leveraging our ATC technology for central business districts or HAWK (High-Intensity Activated crossWalK beacon) applications where they need functionality with a limited footprint,” Welch explained. “Meanwhile, the City of Fort Worth, Texas is utilizing the same technology to run four intersections through a single, 32-channel ‘monster’ cabinet; one of the largest on record.”
