Chicago Transit Authority

One of the busiest public transportation systems in the world, Chicago’s Transit Authority has hundreds of millions of passengers each year. The famous ‘L’ trains, started in 1892, now rumble through the city 24 hours a day over 100 miles of track with 600,000 passengers each weekday heading to work, Wrigley Field, O’Hare, or another of the Second City’s many destinations.

When a new communication system was needed, not all of the 144 stations could be shut down at the same time. Only IED could design and implement a system with incremental station upgrades over long-term expansion and revitalization and connect individual stations over such a large distance.

IED has already replaced half of the entire city’s transit system in this ongoing project. The job is done in 4 major phases. As stations are renovated, IED provides 8000/6000 packages as drop-in replacements for the old system. These are compatible with the existing command center and add new features with the new head end. Second, a comprehensive 510ACS command center was installed to work with both the upgraded and the yet-to-be-replaced stations through a custom interface so the entire system operates on the new CTA Wide Area Network with Ethernet control and wide-band audio-over-IP. The third phase installs an advanced GUI in the primary and secondary command centers located in separate facilities. Lastly, the remaining CTA stations will receive the 8000/6000 packages or newer IED transit products as renovations continue.

The new system improves audio quality, response time, and real time customer interaction with professionally recorded automatic messaging and train arrival information. The system integrates with up to 3 different LED and LCD display technologies in each station and has two-way audio from each station to command operators for monitoring actual trackside announcements and delays - giving customers vital, up to the minute information from ticketing to platform.