Ensuring the populations of large urban centers can get around efficiently and safely is a key requirement of modern cities and many are turning to Tait Communications to deliver highly reliable communications across their public-transport networks.
Tait Communications specialises in private communication networks for organisations whose employees are on the move, whether they be drivers carrying passengers or freight, police officers, fire and ambulance crews working to keep people safe and healthy or the teams which ensure airports and ports deliver smooth service to their customers. These kinds of organisations provide critical services and demand very high standards of reliability from their mobile communications networks.
More and more these customers are also contracting Tait Communications to provide around-the-clock monitoring and management of these essential lifeline systems.
On the go, around the clock
Supporting efficient, reliable public transport in large cities is a Tait speciality. Tait open-standard Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) networks enable operators to harness information critical to the safe and efficient running of their transport services with highly reliable and private voice communications between dispatch centers, drivers and maintenance teams. Greater reliability means happier passengers and city officials.
A city-wide solution in Australia links approximately 2200 buses, ferries and other local government field-services vehicles. Another 750 staff members carry portable radios to stay in contact throughout the city. In this case, the Tait DMR Tier 3 infrastructure and devices are provided as a managed service.
Longstanding Tait dealer Philcomm designed, deployed and manages the network. Tait technology partner Omnitronics provided the dispatch console equipment. Tait, Philcomm and Omnitronics are all local businesses in Australia, providing completely local sales, service and support for the city.
The cloud based Omnicore console assists in managing the dispatch, tracking and duress requirements of the city’s staff and resources. The Tait and Omnitronics solution includes DMR-standard Dynamic Regrouping functionality. To help respond in fast-moving incidents, this allows dispatch operators to rapidly and dynamically create talk groups of radio users as needed, rather than requiring fixed talk groups to be pre-programmed into each radio.
Paul Elmes, Managing Director for Tait Asia Pacific says the city had been using TETRA technology with another provider for 10 years and looked at its options to upgrade. “In these situations, the migration from one system to another is delicate, coverage is critical and business improvements need to be delivered, integrating with data and workforce-management applications. The DMR digital radio standard provides terrific answers to these questions,” the Tait manager says. “Around the world, the highest priority for our customers continues to be the safety of their staff and Tait’s combination of great coverage, migration expertise, and reliability with around-the-clock monitoring was a factor in the customer deciding to move to Tait.”
The project team successfully completed the fleet installation to the agreed timeline and the switchover to the new Tait network went as planned. The contract includes a multi-year monitoring and support agreement. The network infrastructure has been engineered for growth, with potential to also provide communications for organisations such as city emergency services and breakdown service providers.
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