Memorandum
City of Lawrence
Public Work Department
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TO: |
Charles F. Soules, P.E., Public Works Director |
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FROM: |
Mark Thiel, Assistant Public Works Director |
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CC: |
David Cronin, Steve Lashley, Nick Voss, Mike Perkins, Megan Gilliland, David Woosley, Todd Lohman |
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DATE: |
August 4, 2015 |
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RE: |
School crossing beacons – Need for upgraded of equipment |
In April of 2015 as part of the 2016 budget issues Public Works identified the need to upgrade the existing equipment and software that control the school crossing beacons. This was not funded as part of the 2016 budget but remains a critical need item.
There are currently 41 school crossing beacons located throughout the City of Lawrence (see map). They are used to notify motorists of an upcoming school crossing area and to reduce the speed limit within the crossing zone. The current communication piece of the system, hardware and software, are no longer current industry technology and not supported. The system is pager based and to our knowledge no companies support that style of technology any longer. In addition, as pager systems go off line throughout the United States fewer and fewer pager signal towers are available to send pager signals and at some point there will be no further pager service available. The current technology is a cell phone style technology that communicates via wireless / cellular data technology.
Over the past several years as our current technology has become unsupported we have noticed an elevation in issues and downtime with the beacons. Intermittently they have not activated, which results in a school crossing not having advance warning of the crossing. Once we become aware of the failure we have staff work to eliminate the issue, however most of the time the issue is simply that the pager style programing simply did not communicate properly to the beacon. This could be a result of limited pager communication towers or internal software issues. Simply put, this equipment is worn out and in need of being replaced.
Over the summer of 2015 there was a need to upgrade the computer that supports this system to a windows version that is network compatible. During that conversion it was discovered that the beacon pager hardware and software would not function with this computer upgrade. Staff has worked with the beacon notification system to determine a workaround to insure that the beacons will be functional for the start of the 2015 / 2016 school year. It is back up and running as of this memo and staff has visually confirmed that all the beacons are working.
That being said this system is in critical need of being upgraded. At any point this system can fail resulting in the inability to communicate to the school crossing beacons thus creating a situation whereby no beacons would be active. It may be possible to diagnose the system and get it back up and running. But the more likely scenario in this situation would result in an emergency need to convert the system over to the current cellular technology. At that point it could take several weeks to acquire the software and hardware and have it installed and configured. In the meantime there will be no active beacons at school crossings.
Staff requests that consideration be given to upgrade the system immediately to avoid this emergency situation. While the old system remains online and functioning we could acquire the new hardware and software and have it install and tested. This would result in a seamless transition with no interruption of service to the beacon signal.
The vendor (Traffic Signal Controls, Inc.) that supports our beacons has supplied a quote (attached) to upgrade the system. The cost to upgrade the communication piece of the beacon system is $65,190. It is an upfront cost for equipment with a 10 year data / service plan. There is no other cost associated with this upgrade and no other annual service fees for the 10 year period. This upgrade does not encompass the entire beacon system; it only deals with the equipment and software necessary as part of the communication between the server and the beacons. To replace the entire system would be significantly more expensive.
The RTC manufacturing hardware and software needed to upgrade this system is only the communication piece of the beacon set up. Therefore it is recommended that this upgrade be through the current manufacture, RTC Manufacturing. Switching manufactures would require the need to change out all the beacon equipment and software. This would equate to a much more significant project at a much higher cost.
It is recommended that funding for this upgrade be accomplished utilizing the equipment reserve fund. Staff has confirmed with the Finance Department that this fund has adequate available funds for this purchase.
Recommendations
Staff recommends that consideration be given to authorize the immediate acquisition and upgrade of the RCT Manufacturing hardware and software for 41 school crossing beacons from Traffic Signal Controls, Inc. in the amount of $65,190.00 from the equipment reserve fund.
Action
Authorize the City Manager to approve a purchase order with Traffic Signal Controls, Inc. in the amount of $65,190 from the Equipment Reserve Fund for school crossing beacon upgrade.
Attachments: Map of Area