Orbital awarded contracts with SEPTA, Nashville MTA

Orbital Sciences Corporation's Transportation Management Systems (TMS) division has been awarded a $17.8 million contract by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) to provide a fleet management system for Philadelphia area's paratransit system, known as Customized Community Transportation (CCT). Orbital's CCT system includes a wide-area, six-site data communication system to provide reliable communications between SEPTA's central operations and its fleet of vehicles operating over an area of almost 2,000 square miles. The central site includes the addition of an advanced scheduling and dispatch system that optimizes service planning for SEPTA customers, provides online access to service registration and trip booking, implements an interactive voice response system to provide improved access to service users, and includes provisions to accept customer comments that can be used to improve service. Orbital's TMS division has also been awarded a $7.3 million letter contract by the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (Nashville MTA) to supply operations management tools for its 199-vehicle fleet of buses, as well as its 25 supervisory and support vehicles. Upon contract finalization, Nashville MTA will receive Orbital's latest Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system, known as OrbCAD XP, along with new features to help the transit authority improve the effectiveness of its fixed-route bus service and its AccessRide paratransit service. Orbital's OrbStar mobile data terminal will be installed on vehicles for both Philadelphia and Nashville to provide drivers with constant two-way communication to central operations, turn-by-turn navigational directions on a color screen and real-time manifest updates.