MARTA P25 Upgrade???

Anyone know when MARTA is planned to switch over to P25?

It's mentioned here:
MARTA - Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority


A 7-Year 4-Phased approach 2011-2017

Planning Phase of the project, which has been completed, involved assessment of the state of the radio communications networks within all Marta operational areas including Police and Rail.

Phase 1 of the project is underway and consists of requirements, system design, and procurement for the P25 IP Core, SmartX Gateway, MGEG and a software upgrade to the Gold Elite dispatch consoles. The goal is that the resulting system will be backward compatible with the previous SmartZone 4.1 system and 800 MHz analog subscriber units.

Phase 2 involves procurement and installation of the repeater sites, replacement of BDA assets in tunnels and stations, and assessment of competitive solutions for portable units.

Phase 3 involves procurement and commissioning of mobile and portable units and build out of additional repeater sites if necessary

Upcoming Milestones:
Cutover to operation of P25 Interoperable Core to full production operations - January 17, 2014
Completion of P25 Interoperable Core activities - March 31, 2014
Initiation of activities to replace bi-directional amplifier for tunnels and stations - January 1, 2014
Initiation of activities to replace site base station element - June 1, 2014

KD4YGG said:

Anyone know when MARTA is planned to switch over to P25?

Click to expand...

MARTA is already using a P25 mixed mode system. Your answers are in the document you just quoted from.

KD4YGG said:

Phase 1 of the project is underway and consists of requirements, system design, and procurement for the P25 IP Core, SmartX Gateway, MGEG and a software upgrade to the Gold Elite dispatch consoles. The goal is that the resulting system will be backward compatible with the previous SmartZone 4.1 system and 800 MHz analog subscriber units.


Upcoming Milestones:
Cutover to operation of P25 Interoperable Core to full production operations - January 17, 2014
Completion of P25 Interoperable Core activities - March 31, 2014
Initiation of activities to replace bi-directional amplifier for tunnels and stations - January 1, 2014
Initiation of activities to replace site base station element - June 1, 2014

Click to expand...

From the document above, they have no plans to move away from the SmartX platform at least for the time being. They bought an MGEG and patches to keep using the Gold Elites, I see nothing that indicates a move toward a newer Astro 25 core like replacing consoles with MCC7550s, getting rid of the Smart-X gateway, or procurement of new subscriber hardware, though I imagine they will start buying APX line products as XTS/XTLs are OOP, and once support ends, they will have no choice.

They have their own radio shop and techs, they do much of their own stuff in house. They stock quite a bit of spares and spare parts too.

My guess is that they want to keep the analog radios, which are used by all non-police such as rail and bus operations, online as long as possible.

I see nothing mentioned about replacing the system core and replacing their analog subscriber radios, did you?

MARTA has for a long time maintained their own radios and kept older equipment in service for years. In the mid 1990s, they were just starting to decommission old legacy Motorola gear...1970s era Motracs I believe with telephone style mic control heads, removed from the bus fleet. Rail operators carried GE MPI portables, even some MASTR 2s at this time while they were still on UHF 450 MHz conventional. MARTA PD had newer stuff...I think Sabers or MPDs, not sure. But all the radio tech stuff was in house and they kept their gear in service so that practice hasn't and most likely won't change.