MARTA to spend $117 million on train technology

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

MARTA has signed a five-year $117 million contract to overhaul its train control technology, according to the transit agency. It also includes options for the company, Alstom Signaling, Inc., to maintain the system for up to ten years, bringing the total contract value to $143 million, according to MARTA.

The upgrades follow a 2009 train crash in Washington, D.C. that killed nine, prompting federal recommendations nationwide to check train signal systems. A MARTA spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail that MARTA began planning the overhaul of the aging system three years before the Washington crash, but that the overhaul will help satisfy federal safety recommendations, too.

Alstom, the company winning the MARTA contract, also built the track circuit modules that failed in Washington, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. In that crash, track circuitry did not detect a train that was stopped at a station, which allowed the train coming up behind to plow directly into it.

The NTSB blamed the circuitry, the failure to properly maintain the circuits and the Washington subway agency's lack of a safety culture.

A spokesman for Alstom, Tim Brown, said the equipment being provided to MARTA was central office control equipment, not track circuit equipment such as that involved in the Washington crash. A spokeswoman for MARTA, Cara Hodgson, said the agency was not concerned about choosing Alstom, a global transit technology company.

MARTA officials preparing their budget cuts last year said they knew of the coming work and took it into account.