CTA Calls on Private Companies to Improve System

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is taking a new approach to improve bus and train service for riders. On Tuesday, the CTA launched the CTA Innovation Studio, calling on private-sector companies to submit ideas that could solve some of the CTA’s problems.

“The Innovation Studio provides a means of accelerating our efforts to address a variety of challenges affecting our day-to-day operations, ranging from our number one priority of safety to the customer experience and operational efficiencies,” CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. said in a news release.

The CTA is asking developers to focus on three specific challenges:

• Improving rail safety with technology that automatically detects objects or people on the tracks so as to avoid collisions, and either reduce or eliminate service delays.

Infamously, back in November, a Yellow Line train coming from Skokie collided with a snow plow on the tracks near the Howard terminal — sending 19 people to the hospital and shutting down the line for seven weeks.

• Automating the process of managing conditions and more than 10,000 bus stops — rather than having people do it manually

• Expanding real-time arrival and service alert information at both sheltered and unsheltered bus stops throughout the CTA system.

A CTA panel will review any proposals in hopes of testing out new ideas by the end of this year.

CTA seeks private-sector proposals for improving service

The CTA’s move comes as the city faces various challenges, including One dead in teen takeover of downtown Chicago; video shows hundreds fill the streets and Fire spreads to two homes on Chicago’s South Side.

The CTA’s efforts to improve its services are crucial in addressing these challenges and providing a better experience for commuters.

Chicago Transit Authority

By leveraging private-sector innovation, the CTA can accelerate its efforts to address various challenges and improve its services.

This move is a step in the right direction, and it will be interesting to see the proposals that come out of the CTA Innovation Studio.