California Department of Transportation District 4 Chooses Barco for State-of-the-art Transportation Management Center

OAKLAND, CA - Barco, the world leader in large screen video and graphics display technology, announced that it has sold 35 projection modules, creating a 12’ x 24’ display, to the State of California’s Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 4 in Oakland, CA. Caltrans is responsible for the design, construction, maintenance, and operation of the California State Highway System and the Interstate Highway System within California. Caltrans District 4 is responsible for the smooth flow of traffic in ten counties in the San Francisco Bay area.

The Barco projection modules were installed for Caltrans District 4 Transportation Management Center. The 35 screens create a 12’ x 24’ wall that shows a massive amount of data, including a map of the Bay area, the entire line of freeways and state highways for the area, road sensor data including traffic speed and density, road way message signs, highway advisory radios, ramp meters, seismic stations, local and national television stations, and closed caption television (CCTV). Special software, created by Barco, is used to link incident responses from computer workstations to the enormous display.

“Caltrans’ mission is to improve mobility across California. By installing the complete Barco control room solution, we can improve the mobility for people, goods and information in District 4,” said Pete Cardenas, Project Manager for Caltrans District 4 TMC. Barco offers a complete package with excellent visual displays, in addition to software, graphical controllers, and training.”

Caltrans District 4 opted to purchase a complete large screen display solution for their Transportation Management Center. The 35 Overview Projection Modules are seamlessly integrated into the center and support universal inputs such as motion video, Internet data streams, VGA, computers, video conferencing and satellite links. All of this information can be fed into any number of screens and moved across the display area.

The OverView projection modules offer proven technology for accurate data and splendid color reproduction. In addition, Caltrans purchased EOS Graphical Controllers, which are designed to operate a multi-screen display as if it were one logical screen. Any data, graphical, and video application can be viewed and positioned anywhere on the display. Moreover, the unit allows the simultaneous display and real-time control of any remote or local application, and supports Windows NT/2000 as well as X Window environments. Caltrans also purchased the OSIRIS management software, so that every operator at Caltrans has an extremely productive and reliable way of managing control room operations at hand. The software allows the operators to define an unlimited number of scenarios according to personal and common requirements within the control room. It even allows multiple operators to simultaneously work the display wall and can be customized along user access priority lines.

Matthew Krstulja, Sales Engineer for BARCO Control Rooms, stated, “Transportation Management Centers are responsible for managing the traffic flow for millions of people and need to have the best products in their facilities. Caltrans District 4 is now one of the most technologically advanced transportation management centers in the world because they have installed Barco’s complete Control Room system. Our products not only benefit the people who work at Caltrans, but the entire Bay area will reap the benefits of the new control room.”

BARCO, with headquarters in Kortrijk, Belgium, has three key activities which are all active in Image Processing. Barco Projection is in various markets of large screen visualization. BarcoView develops and manufactures display systems for life critical applications, while BarcoVision is in systems for visual inspection and quality control. In 2000, the entire BARCO group delivered a turnover of euro 751 million. BARCO has a network of subsidiaries, distributors and agents in 97 countries throughout the world. BARCO has been quoted on the Brussels Bourse since 1986, and is now quoted on Brussels/Euronext. BARCO is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company and is member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes.