Innovative Solutions Award Winner: Increased Efficiency - Fresno Area Express (Calif.)/Intueor Consulting/Vontas

In 2022, the City of Fresno Transportation Department/Fresno Area Express (FAX) had a 20-year-old CAD/AVL system with outdated, unsupported software and vehicle hardware that was well beyond the end of its useful life.

Due to legacy hardware onboard most of the fleet, FAX could not take advantage of the new software features provided by Vontas OnRoute (TransitMaster) without an upgrade to the hardware. This became a catalyst for FAX to work with Vontas on upgrading the CAD/AVL system, which would be centered around 5G cellular data infrastructure. The commitment to upgrade the system was an enormous and challenging undertaking for the agency.

“The project didn’t replace Vontas onRoute, but we upgraded from version 15 to version 21,” explains Sandy Cetti, project manager at FAX. “Although, at its core, this project was technically an upgrade it was much more than that.”

In addition to upgrading its software to take advantage of new features and functions of the system, the agency also had to upgrade many onboard hardware components, including the mobile data terminal (MDT) and vehicle logic unit (VLU).

The Journey Ahead

Cetti explains that FAX began the project by hiring a consultant, Intueor Consulting, to perform a system analysis and recommendation, documentation, and project oversight throughout the project.

“We took this as an opportunity to completely re-design the entire on-board vehicle systems architecture of our fleet,” she says. “Previously, all data communications and transmissions were being sent over our Land Mobile Radio (LMR) system. We now centered our entire vehicle architecture around a 5G cellular mobile gateway router (MGR) to manage data communications and onboard integrations.”

The switch to a 5G mobile gateway router made FAX the first transit agency in the U.S. to test the technology.

The result of the project was a fully integrated on-board system, which include interfaces to all passenger information systems, passenger counters, on-board farebox, camera systems, transit signal priority, vehicle health management, and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems, and business intelligence systems.

“The amount of data we are now able to transmit and receive in real-time has completely changed the way we can now manage our service and communicate with our ridership,” says Cetti. “Additionally, outside of the core upgrade, we also used this as an opportunity to implement new operational support systems like Device management, turn-by-turn navigation, vehicle intelligence, and viewpoint (BI system) that were previously not in place before.”

By utilizing cellular data, FAX now has volumes of real-time information that wasn’t previously available, including:

• Ability to push real-time information to passengers.

• Integration with Automatic Passenger Counters (APCs).

• Communicating real-time information and telematic alerts.

Creating a New Legacy

Cetti adds that FAX didn’t treat the project as any sort of an upgrade, but managed the project as a complete re-implementation of its CAD/AVL system and used the opportunity to re-design its entire hardware and software environments to more properly meet the user demands.

“We re-trained, re-installed, re-configured, and re-implemented everything across the board,” she says.

Making the project even more impressive, the revamp of FAX’s CAD/AVL system was completed in 10 months.

“The key to the project’s success in such a short time was the close cooperation between the FAX and Vontas teams and everybody’s willingness to work the project schedule and be flexible,” says Peter Aczel, GM of Vontas. “Our joint delivery approach was to advance any part of the project that was ready at any given time, rather than a more traditional waterfall delivery approach. FAX’s support in this approach and their willingness to give the Vontas team access when pieces of the project were ready to be deployed allowed us to finish in record time.”

“Andy Wakefield of Intueor was an integral player in this project as his knowledge and expertise was a guiding factor in working together with FAX to ensure we finished on time,” adds Cetti. “We knew going into the project that we were dealing with a combination of budget and schedule constraints. It was imperative that we managed public money appropriately and deliver enhanced features and services to our staff and ridership quickly.”

To achieve that goal, FAX formed a project management organization (PMO) structure to run the project, which Cetti says helped to drive its schedule, properly identify and communicate internal and external roles, establish governance and project sponsor processes and involvement, and properly set expectations for all stakeholders involved.

By establishing that framework early to help govern the project, the agency was able to quickly make business decisions, manage issues, and escalate risks as they occurred rather than allowing them to slow or stop the project.

Reflections on Success

As the project’s manager, Cetti says she was “honored and excited” for FAX and Vontas to be named one of METRO’s 2023 Innovative Solutions Award winners.

“Two immediate emotions came to mind when I heard that our project won. First, there was a deep sense of appreciation as a lot of time, effort, and planning went into delivering this project and it was a nice feeling to know that all that work was worth it and that the agency, and community, was being recognized for their success and innovation within the industry,” she explains. “Secondly, there was an immense emotion of pride. Not for me, but for the staff at FAX.”

This sentiment was echoed by FAX Director Gregory A. Barfield, stating that this project was “absolutely critical in upgrading extremely outdated FAX infrastructure and positioning us as a leader in the field in service of our passengers, many of whom rely solely on us for their daily trips.” Overall, FAX considers this one of its most comprehensive and successful technology projects in the past decade, with untold benefits to come.