Rowlett staff seeks authority to negotiate $4.0 million traffic-signal contract

Deputy City Manager Christophe Bauer told the Rowlett City Council at a March 31 work session that staff plans to negotiate a contract with Consolidated Traffic Controls Inc. through an HGAC cooperative purchasing agreement for traffic-control hardware, software and installation for a total price not to exceed $4,025,329. The item is on the council’s consent agenda for the April 1 meeting; staff is seeking authorization to complete negotiations and execute the contract if terms are agreeable.

Bauer said the project would replace end-of-life signal controllers and improve detection, remote operability and automated alerts. “We have no real-time operational data; when we hear about a problem, we go and try to fix it,” Bauer said, summarizing the current system’s limits and the problems the new package is intended to solve.

Staff said the bond program approved by voters included roughly $4.1 million to cover the initial purchases. The procurement description presented to council names 28 intersections for the initial purchase and a software licensing capacity of 30 intersections to accommodate near-term future growth. The system delivered by the vendor will include video-based object detection (360-degree and point cameras), mobile supervisor apps, pan-tilt-zoom camera viewing, pedestrian ADA features that can be activated from a phone, and automated alerts to on-call staff.

Bauer and staff noted several features and limits: the vendor’s base package does not include adaptive signal control (real-time traffic-flow-based adjustments) out of the box; that capability can be added later and staff estimated an additional cost in the neighborhood of $200,000 (the presentation included a separate figure of about $238,000 in one exchange). Equipment lead time was given as six to eight months and programming and phased deployment as 18 to 22 months. Staff said the purchase is turnkey: the vendor will perform installation, run Ethernet to controllers, and complete programming.

Staff also outlined ongoing costs and operational details. The hosting service in the proposal covers five years; cell or backup connectivity costs were estimated at roughly $1,000 per signal per year (about $30,000 annually for 30 sites). The procurement as presented had inflation/contingency line items; staff said negotiations had reduced an advertised $300,000 tariff/inflation line and that the final contract should not reflect the larger number. The software licensing limit for intersections is 30; the vendor provides up to 65 user licenses for staff to access monitoring tools.

Bauer said the system will not record the PTZ camera video in the base package but will retain detection and short-form video stored on controllers; retention duration is a policy decision that staff must set. “There’s a policy discussion about how long we want to keep that video,” Bauer said, noting public-record requests and data-handling burdens. He said the system uses SMMP v3 provider authentication and encryption for communications.

Council members asked about monitoring and security, regional interoperability, grant possibilities and likely field disruption during installation. Bauer said the system’s alerting capability reduces the need for full-time monitoring; staff would be on-call 24/7 and receive app notifications when an automated alert triggered. He said the system supports future vehicle-to-infrastructure data sharing but that regional interconnect with Garland or Rockwall was not part of the current design. On disruption during installation, staff said the vendor uses phased cutovers to avoid extended traffic interruptions.

No formal vote was recorded in the work session. Bauer told council the item appears on the April 1 consent agenda and staff will proceed if the council authorizes it at that meeting.

Ending: Staff will seek council authorization on the consent agenda; if the council approves the contract the vendor will begin the procurement install schedule outlined above. Council discussion at the work session raised follow-ups staff said they will verify in contract negotiations (final contingency amounts, retention and public-record policy for video, exact per-unit licensing/add-on costs, and phased deployment sequencing).