Conduent to upgrade buses in Southern California

8612 Conduent Transportation has won two contracts to upgrade the hardware and software for the management system on hundreds of buses in Southern California.

Conduent is to provide its computer-aided dispatch/automatic vehicle location (CAD/AVL) solution to buses belonging to the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and North County Transit District (NCTD), as well as key portions of Orange County Transportation Authority’s (OCTA) system.

John Peracchio, Conduent’s interim CEO, says: “The newer systems will give the agencies more data and options for operations to run smoothly, leading to even more reliable and trusted service for riders.”

In San Diego, the upgrades will be performed on 375 buses operated by MTS and another 155 buses operated by NCTD. Conduent's advanced Integrated Vehicle Unit (IVU)-4000 version of CAD/AVL is expected to reduce the workload for dispatchers.

Additionally, Conduent will upgrade OCTA’s CAD/AVL system and pilot a bus communications capability based upon voice over internet protocol (VOIP) to improve communications between dispatchers and operators. Initially, the VOIP solution will be tested on 12 buses with the aim of migrating the technology to the entire fleet.