PUERTO RICO:Parsons Brinck Thrown Off Island, eTrans On

PB’s Faradyne division has been terminated as project consultants and replaced by eTrans, a small group comprising former Hughes people who worked together on 407-ETR in Toronto. The PB team reportedly got offside with the PRHTA because of a failure to disclose potential conflicts of interest some of its members had from close relationships with bidders. In an election year the PRHTA was keen to avoid any suggestion of an inside fix, though no improper action is alleged.

The contrast is striking. PB is America’s largest transp engineering firm with comprehensive capabilities and a presence all around the world. eTrans, which has replaced it, is a tiny group made up however of experienced veterans of ET implementation in several toll systems.

Overall consultants for the ETC implementation in Puerto Rico (PR) are the British based Steer Davies Gleave. They are now working with the eTrans group which includes Tom McDaniel, Daryl Fleming and Bruce LaRue. McDaniel headed up the Hughes team on 407-ETR’s toll system and Fleming and LaRue also worked in senior positions on that project. McDaniel and Fleming also worked for Amtech and Lockheed in other ET startups.

eTrans is based in Atlanta GA.

Bidders for the system integration and equipment in PR include Amtech, TransCore, Lockheed, Parsons Transp Group and CISE-Dragados. They have bid on a North American style 915 MHz system.

The New Jersey Regional Consortium job held by Adesta (MFS) is by far the largest ET implementation currently under way, followed by Kelly Group/Amtech’s SunPass implementation in Florida and Illinois Tollway (TransCore). The PR job however comparable in scale with the California’s Bay Bridges ATCAS project (MFS), and with the Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma turnpike jobs (all TransCore).

The PR project involves installing ETC in about 220 toll lanes in 22 existing and 4 under-construction toll plazas. Three quarters of the island territory’s 300km (180mi) of motorway standard highways are tolled. Another 32km (20mi) of new toll roads in the San Juan metro area are under construction, though one has been delayed by environmental issues.

The island’s three main toll roads (PR22, PR52, PR53) do 750k tolls/day at 21 toll plazas (16 mainline and 5 ramp), two of which cater to over 100k tolls/day each.

An Amtech read-only ET system has been in operation on the Teodoro Moscoso toll bridge linking the central part of the greater San Juan area to the airport. It opened with ETC after it was built by a group led by Dragados, the large Spanish tollster in 1995 under a concession. The remainder of the toll system is run by PRHTA, the state-owned toll business.

PR, an island of 150km x 50km (90mi x 30mi) with a population of 4m, is the economic dynamo of the Caribbean with extensive manufacturing as well as tourism and tropical products. It has over 2m motor vehicles and car usage comparable to many mainland US states. (Contact Doris Rochette PRHTA 787 729 1540, Larry Yermack PB Farradyne 301 998 6629, Daryl Fleming eTrans www.eTrans.org, Robert Bain, Steer Davies Gleave, sdgpr@caribe.net)