Canadian developer of cloud-based ecosystems LocoMobi has announced its further entry into the integrated ‘smart city’ marketplace with the award of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge payment and control contract.
Already a leader in cloud-based ecosystems for parking, Toronto-based LocoMobi’s plan is to have a fully integrated transportation system for parking, tolling and transit, creating an infrastructure that allows people and cars to move easily from city to city. Built by the City of Chicago in 1958, the Skyway Toll Bridge is a 7.8-mile long (12.5km) elevated toll road that connects the Indiana Toll Road to the Dan Ryan Expressway on Chicago’s South Side. The main feature of the Skyway is a 2,640ft (804m) long steel truss bridge, known as the ‘High Bridge’, which spans the Calumet River and Calumet Harbor, a major facility for industrial shipping.
The Skyway was operated and maintained by the City of Chicago until January 2005, when Skyway Concession Company LLC assumed its operations under a 99-year operating lease, which was the first privatization of an existing toll road in the USA. In February 2016, Skyway was purchased by three Canadian Pension Funds: Borealis Infrastructure, CPP Investment Board, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge currently serves over 14 million customers per year.
LocoMobi’s world-leading automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) technology will be the backbone of the new payment system, so that each vehicle is processed and easily tracked in real time for revenue control purposes. LocoMobi’s system will allow for a variety of innovative payment options including credit/debit/pin/chip card payment, as well as mobile smartphone and Tap-and-Go payment. LocoMobi’s mobile payment application, Quickpay, which will be used on Skyway, also complements any parking facility as an alternative to the payment station, using the same rate engine and cloud portal.
LocoMobi is acting quickly in the rapidly emerging market for electronic tolling systems and smart city infrastructure. LocoMobi was the first company to offer a cloud-based license plate recognition (LPR) system with a complete revenue engine that also provided a management system for virtual permitting systems, violation and citation management.
The company also designed and implemented the first LPR-based system incorporating payment stations and barrier gates, which was integrated into a single cloud-based system.
The company also plans to introduce its highly tested and proven transit system by end of year and will be the first to have the ability to manage and meet demands of the consumer by moving them seamlessly through the ecosystem of transportation.
“When we were winners of the Smart City Competition in China we knew that we were on the right track,” said Grant Furlane, president, CEO and co-founder of LocoMobi. “Having a more flexible and secure system benefits both owner and users.”
