Title:	Telecommunications Master Plan
Client:	Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)
Contact:	James E. Rooney, Chief Engineer Mass. Bay Transportation Authority 10 Park Plaza Boston, MA 02116 tel.: 617.722.5454
Status:	Completed, on time and within budget.
Description:	Comprehensive telecommunications analysis and development of a ten year master plan.

The MBTA had been building its telecommunications infrastructure over the course of many years without the benefit of overall coordinated planning. Telecommunications services were considered a necessary utility, with an unavoidable operating cost.

As capital monies were made available, telecommunications projects were designed independently, without knowledge of their interrelationship to other projects or existing systems.

This project was the first attempt on behalf of the MBTA to understand its telecommunications requirements and to develop a master plan that would be applied to meet the stratgeic objectives of the organization. The plan would become a blue print from which all future capital projects would gain direction toward the development of a cost effective, technologically advanced network.

The first phases of the project involved a comprehensive inventory and mapping of all telecommunications systems within the Authority. Traffic and billing magnetic tapes and raw data on the NYNEX Centrex system, the heart of the MBTA's telephone network, were also collected and analyzed.

To understand strategic direction and long term communications requirements, a needs assessment of existing and potential user departments was conducted. Current and future capital programs were also examined to assess network growth and capacity requirements.

An optimization of the existing Centrex based network was performed which, through application of automatic route selection (ARS), foreign exchange networks (FX), and other systems integration yielded substantial cost reductions with minimal capital expense. A one-time installation cost of $14,800 for FXs and ARS reduced Centrex costs by $156,453 annually. This savings was accomplished almost immediately on the existing telephone system and produced no disruption or user changes. Long distance charges were similarly reduced by $60,000 annually by subscribing to lower cost bulk-rate programs.

Savings realized in the first year equated to a 24% reduction in annual operating costs.

Building upon the needs assessment, existing network optimization and network analysis, a detailed master plan was developed and presented which, if fully implemented, will save the MBTA $10 million over a ten year period.

Elements of the master plan are currently undergoing implementation.