Transcore joins ITS-Arab

Interest in the Middle East ITS market continues to grow exponentially said Zeina Nazer, Secretary General of ITS-Arab at the recent ITS World Congress in Vienna.

During the event, 139 Transcore announced it had joined 1697 ITS Arab as a Gold level member in support of the region-wide expansion of ITS systems.  As road network operators and authorities strive to reduce congestion, the solutions deployed for the Dubai Salik toll collection system that Transcore serves as the local authority’s contractor provides a roadmap for improvements.
The Salik toll system was the first project in the region to introduce all-electronic, open road tolling as a traffic management solution and has the world’s widest free flow tolling zone at 40.3 meters, spanning 7 lanes in a single direction.  Systems are maintained completely above the road with walkways inside the fully covered gantries. Currently there are more than 1.5million Salik RFID transponders in use making it an ideal tool for other ITS applications such as access control, travel time, parking, commercial vehicles, and congestion pricing. The Salik award-winning Customer Care Service Centre introduced another industry first with the use of short message service (SMS) to contact customers as well as using multi-language capabilities. The Customer Service Centre, maintained by Transcore ITS, won the 2009 986 International Bridge Tunnel and Turnpike Association’s prestigious Toll Excellence Award as well as the 2008 Best New Call Centre in the Middle East Award, Insights’ 2008 Call Centre Award for Best New Call Centre, Insights’ 2011 Best Public Service Call Centre, and Insights’ 2012 Best Medium Call Centre.

ITS-Arab is endorsing 553 Gulf Traffic 2012 in Abu Dhabi on 19-21 November and will be presenting at the conference. Several ITS-Arab members exhibited at ITS WC and will be present at Gulf Traffic.

ITS-Arab is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting a partnership between transport professionals, decision makers, research/academic institutions and the industry with the objective of facilitating the development and deployment of ITS technologies to enhance the transport environment, safety, security, efficiency and sustainability in the Arab region.

ITS-Arab has working groups and standards committee to scientifically analyse the growing transport demands and problems, then describe and promote the appropriate solutions and standards suggested by both academic and industry experts.