Santa Ana Hires Rockwell to Design Traffic Data System

Rockwell International Corp. has been awarded a $70,000 contract by the city of Santa Ana to design a traffic information system, the company’s third major traffic management project in Orange County.

The design by Rockwell’s Anaheim-based Autonetics Electronic Systems division, which should be finished by the end of the year, would result in a proposal to be put up for bid. Although no final design decisions have been made, the system will probably allow drivers to telephone a data center to learn about traffic conditions throughout Santa Ana, said company and city officials.

Designers will also probably place information kiosks at sites such as the new Ronald Reagan federal courthouse and at Santa Ana City Hall, company officials said. They are also considering ways to allow home computer users to access the system, said a spokeswoman.

T.C. Sutaria, Santa Ana’s traffic engineer, said that the city expects the system to cost $400,000 to $500,000, and that it could be in operation by the end of 1995.

The announcement comes about a month before the Orange County Transportation Authority is expected to award a similar contract for the design of a countywide public information system. That contract’s value is estimated at about $500,000; the total project will probably cost $3 million to $4 million, said Dean Delgado, a senior transportation analyst with OCTA.

The county has secured funds from the Federal Highway Administration to pay for the design phase of its system; it does not yet have funds for the construction phase, Delgado said.

OCTA board member Sarah Catz said that in addition to Rockwell, she expects bids from rivals Lockheed Corp. and Hughes Traffic Management Systems, a division of the electronics company based in Fullerton.

All three companies see computerized traffic management systems as a good way to shift their aerospace expertise to the civilian sector, she said.

OCTA is also working with Caltrans to fund a test of devices on 10 to 15 buses that would allow orbiting satellites to pinpoint their position. That technology would eventually allow people waiting for buses to learn the current location of the bus and area traffic conditions, Delgado said.

The county has $1.8 million in state and federal grant money for the joint project with the state transportation agency, Delgado said.

Rockwell’s Anaheim division also has a $75,000 contract with UC Irvine’s Institute for Transportation Studies to install wireless communications equipment along a five-mile stretch of the Riverside Freeway in order to provide researchers with more accurate data on traffic behavior.