One of the USA’s leading suppliers of traffic-sensing and vehicle priority control systems is expanding its business in New England, and will also be extolling the virtues of emergency vehicle preemption technology at the 2016 ITS Arizona Annual Conference.
Formed in 2007 from 3M’s pioneering Intelligent Transportation Systems business, Global Traffic Technologies (GTT) will discuss the benefits of GPS-enabled Emergency Vehicle Preemption systems to improve response times and reduce accidents, during the ITS Arizona Conference, which takes place in Mesa on September 28 and 29.
During the Technology Breakout Session, on the second day of the conference, GTT will address attendees on improving emergency vehicle response times using traffic signal preemption, as exemplified in a project undertaken on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada.
The theme of the ITS Arizona conference is ‘Connecting Mobility and Safety’, and in his presentation, GTT’s vice president of strategic sales, Mike Lemon, will focus on the way that GPS-enabled Emergency Vehicle Preemption (EVP) systems, which work by sending a request to provide emergency vehicles with green lights at intersections and include the company’s Opticom solution, can improve performance for emergency vehicles and reduce crash rates.
“This presentation will illustrate the benefits of this technology by looking at of one of the busiest stretches of road in the country; the Las Vegas Strip, explained Lemon. “Gridlocked traffic along this road led Clark County Fire Department (CCFD) to implement a GPS-enabled EVP system to ensure that emergency vehicles were able to reach their destinations swiftly and safely. The outcome was that CCFD was able to improve response times by more than 30%, while reducing the potential for costly crashes.”
GTT makes three variants of the Opticom system: the Infrared (IR) System, which includes emitters mounted on emergency vehicles, and detectors and phase selectors at the intersection; the Opticom GPS System, which delivers reliable, accurate EVP from greater distances in a wider range of environments, including around corners and at intersections with obstructed views, using satellite technology and highly secure radio communications; and the Multimode System that offers complete interoperability between legacy IR and the latest GPS priority control systems. This latter system allows cities to invest in an advanced, scalable system at a more efficient, affordable pace, and it also enables multiple emergency responders, even those from other communities, to use either activation technology seamlessly to reach emergencies more quickly and safely.
GTT has also announced that it is expanding its service offering in the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, with the opening of GTT New England, the authorized Opticom and Canoga dealer in the region. “This is a key step for us, in that it enables exciting options for improving the way traffic flows in our customers’ communities,” said Chris Chambers, GTT’s general manager for corporate dealerships. “Our brands have a history that goes back more than 45 years, and this is our chance to strengthen the value we’ve always delivered, with the addition of services that complete the solution.”
