MD Transit inks ZoneGuard deal with Miller Ingenuity

Miller Ingenuity, a manufacturer of rail safety products, has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) to install ZoneGuard, Miller’s electronic roadway worker protection system, on the Maryland Transit Administration’s (MTA) Baltimore light rail lines.

The ZoneGuard system provides various options, including a combination of Train Detection Modules (TDM) and Train Alert Modules (TAM). The system’s modules are set up to create a robust communication network that is triggered once a track vehicle is detected approaching an on-track worker or work crew. The train detection and communication network architecture provide highly accurate warning times when detecting track vehicles, eliminating costly false alerts commonly found in similar systems in the industry.

ZoneGuard can also be outfitted with wearable devices – one configured for the watchman/lookout, one for the roadway-worker-in-charge (RWIC), and one for each crew member – that will provide equipped workers with an alert of the impending train approach.

“Our number one mission is to bring these men and women home to their families at the end of the day,” said Steve Blue, President and Chief Executive of Miller Ingenuity. “We have engineered ZoneGuard to coincide with existing safety rules and exceed FRA safety recommendations and regulations. The ZoneGuard design incorporates requirements from literally dozens of customer discussions, many of whom have already implemented legacy solutions and are demanding better performance. We focused our development on eliminating false alerts, superior performance in all rail-related environments, and offer fail-safe features including sensor redundancy.”