- An OEM Success Story -

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), North America's second largest subway system, has a well-known reputation for excellent rider service and safety. This, as a result of rigourous ongoing maintenance and continuous improvement.

One important area identified for upgrade was the TTC's PA system, which communicates vital information on station arrival, emergency situtions and passenger safety, both on stations and on passenger railcars.

Invariably, PA signals on subway, rail systems and even airports are either too loud, to the point of being painful, or partially or completely unintelligible due to ambient noise. The TTC had already attempted to solve its PA intelligibility problem on its stations but the equipment installed had quickly failed and had been subsequently disconnected.

On hearing of SmartSpeaker Corp's (SSC) breakthrough Audiostat™ technology, TTC included it in a specification for a new sound system for its 750 railcars. The spec. included a requirement for 'an intelligent, adaptive system that would ensure that the PA signal was always intelligible, never too loud'. The only technology that could meet TTC's criteria was Audiostat.

Vale Harmon (VH) of Montreal (as a subcontractor to Trak Com Wireless Inc.) was chosen to produce the equipment and over the next 4 years they worked with SSC to design and build it with Audiostat inside - the Audiostat chip (DSS 1100) embedded in the amplifier. SSC was also asked to develop and manufacture a sealed sense microphone unit for installation - 2 per rail car.

This ground-breaking PA system will be installed in the TTC's railcars commencing this year. It is an important example of the functionality of the Audiostat technology and of SSC's capabilities in OEM design and manufacture.

Also of interest, is the TTC's decision to install Audiostat in their subway stations. This process will occur over a period of several years as stations come up for refurbishment. Stations on the TTC's new Sheppard subway line will all have Audiostat automatic ambient noise compensation included in their PA sound systems.