New Federal Signal ITS division will be a game changer

Federal Signal Corporation, a leader in environmental, safety and transportation solutions, today announced it will look to form a new division within the group, arising out of its recent acquisitions of Idris, Sirit and VESystems, combined with PIPS Technology and Federal Advanced Parking Division (FAPD). The new entity is being presented as a game changer for the global ITS industry.

Federal's ITS Division will offer an 'open architecture' to the ITS industry, where modular, customer choice and interoperability will be at the core of its market drive and a focus of project delivery.

According to William Osborne, Federal Signal's president and CEO, “The division will bring to the ITS industry a revolutionary way of doing business and an openness and partnership between provider and client. Importantly, it will be a creator of open industry standards where the demands of the client and ultimate road user are not compromised. In other words, situations where deployed ITS elements become technology islands which cannot interact with new elements, will be a thing of the past,' Osborne said.

This new division will develop advanced customised solutions from the synergy of technologies offered by VESystems, SIRIT, Idris, PIPS and FAPD while continuing to meet current ITS market demands. By combining these technologies into one, Federal Signal says it is creating a superior technology platform and service offering, while providing users a choice of custom, more complete, and fully integrated solutions.

The combination of VESytems industry experience in complete system operations, Sirit's RFID applications linked with Idris' detection and classification capabilities, and the PIPS ALPR technology, immediately establishes Federal Signal as a leader in the ITS market.

William Osborne commented, 'VESystems, Sirit, Idris, PIPS and FAPD have a proven record of success in jointly delivering superior technology-based client solutions. We are committed to investment in research and development to maintain these reputations for technical excellence and with the creation of an ITS division we look forward to further differentiating Federal Signal within the ITS sector.

'Global market trends for ITS are robust and we believe the addition of an ITS focused group will enhance long-term earnings and increase revenue generation through product synergies. We are confident Federal Signal will be better positioned to help customers capitalise on ITS and deliver enhanced value to our stockholders,' Osborne said.

The capabilities & strengths of the five companies making up Federal's ITS division are:

VESystems, with broad toll industry experience in systems support, customer service, violations processing, video billing, toll operations, and programme management. It is a full-service company dedicated to providing best-value systems and exceptional services to the electronic toll and ITS industry.

Sirit is a leading designer, developer and manufacturer of RFID technology for applications such as tolling, electronic vehicle registration, parking and access control, cashless payments and supply chain systems. The company's products are built on more than 16 years of RF domain expertise addressing multiple frequencies, multiple protocols and are compliant with global standards. Sirit brings to the group a powerful RFID technology and an extensive portfolio of products suitable for customisation to address new and traditional RFID market applications.

DCS' market-leading automatic vehicle detection and classification technology uses advanced proprietary software in a variety of safety, tolling and data collection applications and is recognised worldwide by the Idris brand. Idris classifies vehicles to the highest available accuracy and is the de-facto standard in the US for axle-based Electronic Toll Collection. Together with PIPS, it is also at the heart of the latest generation of tolling – All Electronic Toll Collection (AETC). Idris is the software 'enabler' of the combined group, opening doors to new products, application developments and ITS market sectors.

PIPS Technology is a globally recognised industry leader in the development and manufacture of License Plate Recognition Systems (ALPR). Their broad range of ALPR products provide the next generation of information technology for travel time measurement, law enforcement, tolling, congestion charging, access control, traffic monitoring and automated site security solutions. With over 8,000 cameras deployed around the globe and a wide range of patents covering the technology and its application, PIPS Technology is recognised as a leading provider of traffic related video imaging and license plate capture technology.

Federal Advanced Parking Division (FAPD) is the largest US manufacturer of parking, access and revenue control systems. At FAPD, the first completely integrated facility management system software was introduced to the parking industry. Thirty years ago they pioneered the system that made the variable-rate 'self-park' facility possible. This created an industry, and led to innovations ranging from the first intelligent barrier gates all the way to today's sophisticated facility management software. Today, FAPD continues to supply the imaginative technology and comprehensive service that enables parking facilities to meet all their business objectives.