“Welcome to RTD.”
Fourteen months after the opening of the T-REX project’s southeast light-rail line, the message on electronic signs at rail stations throughout the corridor is still “welcome.”
It wasn’t supposed to be that way.
The $20 million communications contract called for posting electronic messages, beginning with the November 2006 opening, on the signs to give travelers real-time information, such as: “Next train to Lincoln. 5 minutes.”
It’s called a public address-variable message sign system, or PA/VMS, and it was extended to include other select light-rail stations off the southeast line as well.
A public address announcement of the next train arrival is supposed to accompany the message on the electronic sign.
Software glitches, however, have stymied engineers and prevented the verbal and visual information system from working as planned.
Until the problems are fixed and the system is certified as reliable, the Regional Transportation District is holding back $5 million from the General Electric Co. Transportation unit, which has the communications contract on the project, said Rick Clarke, RTD’s senior manager for T-REX.
“They have been struggling with this as much as we have,” Clarke said of GE employees. “We’re losing patience.”
Still, Clarke praises GE for “standing behind” the project and “not walking away.”
“They are working with us,” he said.
The part of the system that allows RTD to post “unscheduled, ad hoc messages and announcements” on the electronic signs is working, said GE Transportation spokesman Stephan Koller.
The other part that is supposed to allow automated messages based on train location and schedule information is “a complex system and currently in its final testing phase,” Koller said. “We expect full functionality in the near future.”
Reliability test
At the Broadway/Interstate 25 rail station Tuesday, Jon Guzman was waiting for a train to get him to his job in the Denver Tech Center.
Guzman said he doesn’t need electronic messaging to announce the next train. “I’m in a routine,” he said. “I know when they come.”
Sean O’Malley, another RTD rail rider at the Broadway station, said he looks forward to getting next-train information.
“I’d love that,” O’Malley said. “I’ve always wondered why the monitors say ‘Welcome to RTD.’ ”
Clarke and Jonnie Thomas, a private engineering consultant hired by RTD to monitor GE Transportation’s work, agree that next-train messaging is a complex element of the communications system.
The operator of a train enters a code before starting a trip, the code is then “read” by trackside receivers along the rail right of way and information on the train’s real-time location is transmitted by fiber-optic cable to RTD’s rail-control center, Thomas said.
In some tests, train-code information wasn’t showing up correctly, but Thomas said these “train tracking” issues are being resolved.
“We know what caused it, and they are working on it,” Clarke said of GE’s task force on the project.
After the company works out bugs, the system must pass a “21-day reliability test” before RTD will certify it, Clarke said. “I believe we’re close. We’ve come too far to turn back.”
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
