On Wednesday, the Chicago Transit Authority board of directors approved a contract that creates a pool of vendors to provide the agency with information technology (IT) support services as needs are identified.

Having a qualified pool of vendors to draw from for the rapidly changing technology arena will help keep projects moving forward more quickly and efficiently.

“Rather than hiring more full-time employees, we feel it is better use of our financial resources to be able to draw upon specific skill sets when needed by tapping into this pool of vendors,” said CTA President Richard L. Rodriguez. “This strategy has worked successfully in other areas at CTA such as construction — contracting for services that are needed for a defined period of time helps to secure the best suited talent without taking on a long-term expense. This type of IT outsourcing has become a successful trend in the industry.”

The pool of vendors is collectively known as Technology Resource Acquisitions for Programs of Regional Transit — or CTA TRANSPORT. It is designed to offer a broad range of services and solutions that will be readily available to respond to CTA’s IT needs. TRANSPORT is comprised of functional service categories, the first of which includes communications infrastructure, engineering design, development, implementation and integration.

Other TRANSPORT categories are currently being negotiated and will include technology operations and maintenance; independent testing, validation, verification and evaluation; application engineering and software development; and project management office and support services.

TRANSPORT was competitively bid through a Request for Proposals process and is for three years with two one-year-options.

The three-year contract for technology implementation is comprised of 12 vendors. Under the contract, jobs are generated as needed and will be bid on only by the 12 organizations in the vendor pool. Those in the pool were selected through a competitive bid process and screened to ensure they are capable of providing the services needed by CTA in this field.