ROM TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING LTD

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ROM TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING LTD

• Company Profile

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ROM Transportation Engineering Ltd

• ROM is a leading international transportation
  consultancy, based in Israel and operating
  worldwide. Our firm specializes in consulting the
  public sector on all aspects of transportation
  planning and policies, and particularly in
  developing integrative urban transport solutions
  for large metropolitan areas.
• In recent years we have led several large-scale
  transportation consulting projects in Asia,
  Africa and Eastern Europe. Many of these projects
  were financed by the World Bank, and required
  professional proficiency and managerial
  capabilities in line with the highest
  international standards. For the last 12 years
  we have also provided our services to the Israeli
  Ministries of Transport, Interior and Finance,
  and to the municipalities of Israels largest
  cities (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa).
• Our excellence is based on the professional and
  managerial abilities of our staff. Our senior
  consultants have occupied some of the highest
  positions in the transportation sector in Israel,
  and are personally involved in every one of our
  projects, from the earliest stages of inception,
  through the various phases of implementation, and
  up to the final presentation of our work. ROM is
  registered in Israel (1997), Georgia (2007) and
  Nigeria (2007).

Capacity building
Green Transport
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Selected Projects in Israel

• Jerusalem Transportation Master Plan
• From 1994 to 2004, Dr. Moshe Hirsh, ROM's general
  manager, also served as director of the Jerusalem
  Transportation Master Plan Team (JTMT). This
  master plan included the preparation and
  promotion of mass transit master plan for
  Jerusalem Metropolitan area. The adopted plan
  includes a combination of LRT and BRT lines.
• Dr. Hirsh managed all relevant activities,
  including preparation of the traffic demand
  model, corridor selection, engineering design,
  legal reform, tender process, selection of the
  concessionaire, granting the concession and
  assisting in the financial closure.
• ROM is currently supervising the development of
  the new Activity-based Model for the city, done
  by the American firm PB.

• Tel Aviv Congestion Pricing
• ROM consulted the Israeli Ministry of Transport
  regarding the best option to reduce congestion
  and pollution in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area.
  We prepared a detailed survey of recent worldwide
  experience, analyzed the transportation, economic
  and environmental effects of various pricing and
  restriction options, measured public support for
  the various options, reviewed the regulatory
  framework and recommended the optimal scheme.

• Cross-Israel Highway Due Diligence
• The Cross-Israel Highway is one of Israels
  biggest PPP projects. ROM was selected by Bank
  Hapoalim, Israels largest bank, to conduct due
  diligence for traffic forecasts and cost
  estimates prepared by one of the bidders.
• ROM developed an alternative Travel Demand Model
  and reviewed cost estimates for this 1.2 billion
  USD project.

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Caucasus and Central Asia

• Traffic Assistance to the Tbilisi Municipality
• In 2007 ROM was selected by the World Bank to
  assist the municipality of Tbilisi in developing
  a transport strategy for the city reorganizing
  the local Traffic Department improving traffic
  management and parking improving road safety
  and preparing a short and long term
  transportation investment plan.
• The project included calibrating a preliminary
  Travel-Demand Model for the city, analyzing
  traffic management capacities, proposing changes
  and measures to improve traffic flow and road
  safety, preparing detailed tender documents for a
  traffic control center and for on- and off-street
  parking concession, and preparing a list of
  projects to be implemented in the short and long
  term according to economic analysis and budget
  restrictions.

• Baku - Restructuring the public transit network
• In 2008-9 ROM led a WB-financed project for
  restructuring the public transport network in the
  Baku, a city of 4 million inhabitants. Our work
  included all aspects of transit restructuring
• Set a public transport policy and strategy
• Propose institutional and regulatory reforms
• Conduct a variety of surveys including on-board
  questionnaires and GPS-aided measurements
• Build a transit modeling tool and use it to
  restructure the bus system
• integrate the bus system with metro
• analyze transit performance and propose BRT
  corridors
• Review and reform taxi system
• Propose new integrated ticketing system
• Recommend on Normative Standard and suggest legal
  amendments to support it
• Review current and suggest improved concession
  contracts for transit operators.

• Kazakhstans Silk Way Corridor
• ROM provided Design review, demand forecasting
  for freight and passenger, and preliminary cost
  estimate for this 6 billion USD civil works
  project, that is planned to be opened in 2013 and
  connect Western China with Western Europe. We
  proposed an integrative traffic management policy
  for the entire corridor including tolling and
  an advanced traffic control system along the
  corridor, based on innovative ITS technology.

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Eastern Europe

• Poland National Road Safety Campaign
• ROM served as the chief consultant firm in this
  large scale World Bank project in Poland in 2005.
  The projects purposes were to study the Polish
  road safety perceptions using extensive
  qualitative and quantitative studies, and launch
  a campaign to increase public awareness to the
  importance of seat belt use.
• ROM conducted several focus groups, in-depth
  interviews, and a large scale national
  quantitative survey. It prepared a road safety
  strategy, developed a campaign strategy combined
  with parallel effective enforcement, designed an
  effectiveness survey and analyzed its results.
• It was the first time In Poland that a public
  service announcement aimed to change peoples
  behavior on the road in such a concerted way. The
  ads ran in movie theaters, TV, radio and
  internet, and even made their way to 10,000
  parish churches across Poland where priests
  displayed campaign posters and held sermons on
  the protection of human lives and personal
  responsibility.
• As a result of the campaign, seat-belt use went
  up more than 10 in one year.

• Burgas - Restructuring the public transit network
• The objective of this EU-financed project was to
  improve the bus network, introduce a BRT
  corridor, increase transit attractiveness through
  improved accessibility, prioritize
  environmentally-friendly modes of transit such as
  BRT and bicycle, and lower levels of pollution.
• ROMs role in this assignment, as a
  sub-consultant to ARUP, was to develop a a
  multi-modal travel demand model for Burgas to be
  used in the selection of the preferred investment
  option.
• To meet the tight sceduale ROM assigned more than
  5 expert at a time and delivered this multi-modal
  TDM within 3 months from the beginning of the
  project. In this short time ROM collected all
  data, conducted numerous extensive surveys (a
  robust on-board survey with more than 4,200
  interviewees, passenger counts, traffic counts,
  GPS survey, THS, and more), calibrated and
  validated the model, applied it on several
  scenario, and developed a post processor tool to
  analyse the output of the model.

• Pristine (Kosovo) assistance in traffic
  management
• This WB-financed assignment included setting an
  urban transport strategy for the city,
  reorganizing the transport department, reforming
  parking management, designing new traffic
  circulation, preparing detailed 5-years and
  10-years investment action plans.
• In addition ROM selected a list of principal
  interchanges and conducted a geometric design
  plan for implementation.

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Africa

• Lagos Transportation Master Plan
• ROM was selected by the World Bank to prepare the
  Transportation Master Plan for Lagos, Nigeria.
• The assignment included developing a first-ever
  Travel Demand Model for the Lagos Metropolitan
  Area, a mega-city which includes roughly 17
  million inhabitants.
• ROM evaluated the current structure and
  responsibilities of the Lagos Metropolitan
  Transport Authority (LAMATA) conducted extensive
  traffic surveys and counts analyzed development
  alternative and proposed investment plans and
  financing models for various infrastructure
  projects introduced measures to enhance roads
  safety developed integrated and multi-modal
  transport projects and proposed changes to the
  regulatory environment to support the proposed
  Master Plan.
• The project was successfully completed in
  February 2009.

• Maseru Urban and Transportation Planning
• ROM currently develops the first-ever travel
  demand model for Maseru, capital of Lesotho in
  Africa. The surveys conducted include an
  on-board OD for public transport passengers, a
  household travel habit survey with GPS
  verification, traffic counts, focus groups, site
  OD for car users, and pedestrian counts. The
  model is designed to include walking trips as a
  special mode a feature that is highly relevant
  for many cities in Africa.
• The project also includes traffic management
  assistance improvement of the public transit
  network, traffic signalation, sidewalk
  improvement, parking, congestion reduction
  through traffic improvements.

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Transportation Planning and Modeling

• One of ROMs main fields of expertise is
  integrative transportation planning for
  metropolitan areas. We have developed and
  calibrated advanced Travel Demand Models (TDMs)
  for cities of very different sizes and
  characteristics, from Mega-cities such as Lagos,
  Nigeria (15 million inhabitants), through large
  cities such as Baku, Azerbaijan (4 million
  inhabitants), to medium sized cities such as
  Burgas, Bulgaria and Pristine, Kosovo.
• Our models use the TransCAD and EMME-2/3 modeling
  softwares, and our staff is knowledgeable in a
  variety of advanced planning tools. All models
  are based on extensive surveys and
  state-of-the-art data collection techniques, some
  of them unique to ROM (see opposite). They enable
  policy makers, urban planners, economists and
  environmentalists to develop short and long term
  policies, assess future investments in transport,
  and restructure mass-transit networks to better
  suite demand and future projections.

ROM is currently working together with PB
(Parsons Brinckerhoff), a world leader in
transportation planning, on developing the new
Activity-Based Tour-based Model for Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem project schedule spans four years
and includes intensive data collection effort
(currently under way) followed by model
estimation, implementation, calibration and
validation. The proposed model design includes
several unique innovative features that have not
yet been applied in the practice of regional
travel models, including explicit modeling of
intra-household interactions and joint travel,
enhanced temporal resolution, individual
mobility-related attributes and explicit modeling
of parking location choice. ROMs modeling staff
includes some of the most prominent
transportation modelers in Israel. They were
involved in the design of the current TDMs for
Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, and took part in the
development of the San-Francisco Activity-Based
Model done by PB.
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Surveys and Data Collection

• ROM has vast experience in collecting
  transportation-related data and conducting a
  variety of relevant surveys. We handle the entire
  process, from planning to analysis, including
  management and surveillance of the field work. In
  many projects we have proved our capability to
  organize complex counts and surveys under tight
  time schedules and budget restraints. We are
  fully capable to cope with logistic challenges,
  and use state-of-the-art software tools to
  analyze the collected data quickly and
  efficiently. More specifically, we have
  experience in
• Classified Traffic counts in road segments and
  in intersections. Our count data was used for
  modeling and planning , traffic light design
  (signal phases) and intersection design.
• Travel time measurements of buses and private
  cars, using a GPS-based software the quickest,
  cheapest and most accurate way to perform travel
  time measurements.

Congestion and travel-time measurements using an
innovative and unique method, which is based on
data received from cell-phone operators. We have
used this method to analyze traffic in the
Tel-Aviv metropolitan area in different times of
the day. Travel Habit Surveys. Recently we have
conducted a Household THS in Maseru, Lesotho,
which included 1,000 households 1 of the
total population, selected randomly according to
geographic location. On-board Surveys. On-board
surveys in which passengers were handed
questionnaires regarding the origin and
destination (OD), purpose of travel, stated
preferences etc. On-board passenger counts in
buses, including number of passengers alighting
and descending in each stop. Focus groups to
analyze public perceptions, complaints and
expects regarding different transportation
issues .
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Traffic Management

• ROM is active in all aspects of traffic
  management. In our projects we usually analyze
  existing traffic management capacities, identify
  weak spots, develop a new TM strategy together
  with stakeholders, and prepare short, medium and
  long term plans for investments according to
  necessity, feasibility, economic considerations
  and available budgets. The coming pages will
  provide a more detailed information about our
  capacities in the following fields
• Public Transit Networks design and
  restructuring of bus networks, BRT and LTR
  corridors, and integration with existing transit
  systems
• Public Transport Improvement raising level of
  service, introducing advanced and integrative
  ticketing schemes, designing stops and terminals
  
• Road Safety identifying current capacities and
  problems, creating modern accident databases,
  introducing enforcement measures, capacity
  building for the traffic police, and conducting
  local and national road safety campaigns

ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) and Control
Centers our staff was involved in designing the
Jerusalem Traffic Control Center, and we have
prepared detailed tender documents for TCCs in
Tbilisi and other cities ITS design was a major
part of several ROM projects such as the
Kazakhstan Silk Road corridor Parking schemes
we have developed integrative on-street and
off-street parking schemes for cities such as
Istanbul, Moscow, Lagos, Tbilisi and
more Infrastructure Design traffic light
(simple phases, synchronized phases, sensors),
geometrical design of problematic intersections
and road segments Micro-modeling we use
innovative software such as TransModeler to
analyze traffic in a specific area and appraise
different design options Tolling and pricing
schemes Several of our projects, such as the
Kazakhstan Silk Road and Tel-Aviv Congestion
Management, included the examination of different
pricing schemes using state-of-the-art ITS
technologies.
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Public Transport

• ROM believes in promoting sustainable and
  integrated transportation systems. The
  cornerstones of our approach are
• High Quality of Service designing transit
  systems that people will find more reliable,
  convenient and cheap than driving private cars
• Integration terminals and physical
  integration between all transit systems in a city
  (metro, LRT, BRT, bus, taxi), uniform ticketing,
  interface with non-transit modes such as cycling
  and cars
• Green transit favoring environmentally-friendly
  solutions and promoting a livable enivornment
• Social equality promoting transit schemes that
  can increase mobility options for the less
  fortunate, and leverage their economic and social
  opportunities
• Financial sustainability transit systems should
  be attractive enough while aspiring to be
  financially sustainable.

• ROM was involved in the restructuring of public
  transit in many cities, including Lagos, Baku,
  Jerusalem, Burgas and Pristine. Our work included
  the following aspects
• Setting a public transport policy and strategy
  for the city
• Building a transit modeling tool and using it to
  efficiently restructure the bus network
• Integrate the bus network with the metro
• Proposing corridors that might use a BRT or LRT
  concept
• Reviewing and reforming the taxi system
• Proposing institutional and regulatory reforms
• Suggesting new functional and organizational
  charts for the urban transport department
• Proposing an integrated ticketing system
• Recommend on Normative Standard and suggest legal
  amendments to support it
• Reviewing current concession contracts for
  transit operators and preparing new tenders.

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Road Safety
In all our projects we always give the highest
priority to road safety issues, and work with
prominent road-safety experts and researchers.
Our experience in this fields includes Road
safety campaigns we were selected by the World
Bank to lead a large project of road safety
surveys and campaigns in Poland, with emphasis on
seat-belt use. The project included conducting
surveys and focus groups, developing a road
safety strategy, and enhancing public awareness.
It was considered highly successful, and WB
reports estimate that many lives were saved thank
to it. Accident investigation and databases
in Tbilisi, Lagos and other places, we have
analyzed existing procedures of accident
investigation by the traffic police and the
storage and use of accident data. According to
our findings we have developed modern, uniform
accident investigation forms, and assisted the
traffic police in creating a computerized
accident database in line with international best
practice, to provide decision makers with a clear
picture of the traffic safety situation in any
given location and time.
Traffic improvements Road accidents are often
the result of traffic mismanagement, congestion,
lack of traffic lights, and bad infrastructure.
We identify both general and local weak spots and
propose ways to handle them traffic light
design, geometrical improvements, changes in
traffic arrangements, etc. Design guidelines
together with another Israeli firm, we have
developed new geometric design guidelines for all
rural roads in Georgia (a WB-financed project).
One of the major requirements from the new
guidelines was compatibility with the highest
international standards regarding road safety.
Enforcement of traffic regulations no road
safety policy is complete without effective
enforcement measures. We are working with
prominent Israeli experts, including the previous
chief of the Israeli Traffic Police Force, to
consult governments and municipalities on how to
improve their traffic police, and train local
staff in the use of electronic enforcement
equipment. We also analyze the exiting legal and
regulatory framework and suggest necessary
improvements.
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Infrastructure Design
ROM complements its transportation planning
capacities with knowledge and experience in
traffic engineering. Having identified critical
spots in the urban transportation network, we
design detailed geometric modifications and
traffic light schemes to improve traffic flow and
enhance road safety. For example, following the
outputs of the our project for traffic and
transport assistance to the Tbilisi Municipality,
The Tbilisi Transport Department has identified
11 major intersections which have very
problematic and unsafe traffic flow. ROM was
chosen by tender to redesign those intersections.
As a preliminary step we conducted extensive
traffic counts in the intersections. Our work
included detailed geometrical design, design of
traffic signals including synchronized phases
between adjacent intersections and green waves,
preparation of detailed bills of quantity, and
supervision of construction works.

• Our traffic engineers and traffic signal
  designers have also introduced improvements in
  intersections and road segments as part of our
  Pristine (Kosovo) Traffic Assistance Project, and
  are currently examining problematic intersections
  in Maseru (Lesotho) which are responsible for
  much of the congestion in certain areas of the
  city.
• In Israel, ROM was selected by the Ministry of
  Transport to provide second opinion on all urban
  road projects proposed by local municipalities to
  be financed by the ministry. In this assignment
  we provided
• Review of traffic forecasts
• Second opinion on each project scope (number
  of lanes, design standards and capacity)
• Revised cost and schedule estimates
• Control of actual implementation.

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Micro Modeling
TransModeler can simulate all kinds of road
networks, from freeways to downtown areas, and
can analyze wide area multimodal networks in
great detail and with high fidelity. With
TransModeler we can model and visualize the
behavior of complex traffic systems in a
2-dimensional or 3-dimensional GIS environment,
to illustrate and evaluate traffic flow dynamics,
traffic signal and ITS operations, and overall
network performance. Special features of
TransModeler include adding obstacles to traffic
and analyzing their effect, for example random
pedestrian crossing, parking cars, slowing
vehicles, and more. The final analysis provides
decision makers with traffic data such as average
speed and vehicle stop/delay times, and enables
them to reach a rational decision between several
design options.
In addition to developing transportation models
for large metropolitan areas, ROM also
specializes in innovative techniques of
micro-modeling, to analyze the traffic behavior
in a limited area and produce traffic forecasts
according to different design alternatives.
Some examples for cases in which we use
micro-modeling are how would traffic in the
neighborhood behave if the direction of traffic
in a certain street is changed? If a marketplace
is moved several meters aside? If we add a bus
lane to the road? If we change parking
arrangements? For micro-modeling we use an
innovative software called TransModeler, which
was developed by researchers in the Technion,
Israels Technical Institute. TransModeler is a
powerful and versatile traffic simulation
package, applicable to a wide array of traffic
planning and modeling tasks.
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Our Key Staff
Dr. Moshe Hirsh General Manager Dr. Hirsh has
27 years of professional experience. As National
Transportation Commissioner and Chief
Transportation and Traffic Engineer for the
Ministry of Transport, he has occupied the
highest professional positions in the
transportation sector in Israel. From 1994-2004
he was Head of the Jerusalem Transportation
Master Plan Team. Dr. Hirsh is personally
involved in most of ROMs projects and has vast
experience in managing international transport
consulting assignments. He holds a PhD in
Transportation Engineering.
Ofir Cohen Head of Transport Planning
Section Ofir is ROMs senior transportation
planner. He has extensive experience in various
projects worldwide. He has designed and applied
urban transport models in Burgas, Baku, Pristine,
Lagos, Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and more. Prior to
joining ROM, Ofir worked in Parsons Brinkerhoff,
USA as task manager in complex studies such as
the Travel Demand Model for the San Francisco Bay
Area. Mr. Cohen holds a MA in Urban studies and a
BSc in computer engineering. He is fluent in the
most up-to-date transportation software packages.
Nir Ratzkovsky Project Coordination Nir is
ROM's senior project manager. He has coordinated
several assignments in Tbilisi, Eastern Europe
and Africa, from project inception phases through
implementation and reporting. He has personally
supervised transport surveys and data collection
conducted by ROM in different cities, and trained
local staff in data collection techniques. Nir is
also responsible for QC and verifies the
integrity and the quality of the collected data.
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Our Key Staff continued
Shmuel Tzirkel Chief Traffic Management
Expert Shmuel has more than 20 years of
experience in the field of Traffic Management. He
is proficient in the design, installation and
maintenance of Traffic Control Centers, both for
car traffic and public transport. He has served
for more than 10 years as the manager of
Jerusalem Traffic Control Center, , a
state-of-the-art TCC for which he designed all
the elements, wrote most of the codes and
integrated the components.
Gassan Mazaawi Traffic Engineer Gassan is an
experienced traffic engineer, who has acquired
international experience in Georgia, Kosovo, and
Lagos. Gassan has designed several traffic
arrangements in congested urban environments,
including priority facilities for public
transport (dedicated lanes, bus stops, terminal,
traffic lights, etc.) He has more than 15 years
of experience as traffic engineer.
Leonid Kheifitz Chief Transport
Modeler Leonid is a highly experienced
Transport Modeler. He has designed and applied
numerous TDMs worldwide, including several
state-of-the-art Activity Based Models. Leonid
is the main developer of the Tel-Aviv Travel
Demand Model. Until 2003 he was Deputy Director
for RD at the Israel Institute for
Transportation Planning and Research (IITPR). He
was involved in some of ROMs largest
assignments, such as the Lagos Transportation
Master Plan.
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Managerial capacities and QC

• Our firm has 13 years of experience in
  international project management. In addition to
  our technical capacities in the field of
  transportation we have acquired proficiency in
  leading, managing and supervising complex
  transportation projects in a variety of work
  environments, from developing countries to
  emerging economies and to technologically-advanced
  markets. Our management capacities, and our
  ability to perform complex tasks under tight
  schedules and budget, have been demonstrated in
  many projects worldwide.
•  
• ROM engages several multi-lingual project
  managers with international experience. We always
  assign professional staff with the highest
  expertise in the relevant fields, and proved
  experience in similar assignments. In addition,
  we believe that the best results can be reached
  by matching international and local expertise.
  Therefore in all our projects we cooperate with
  local firms, consultants and experts.
• We have been selected as consultant in many World
  Bank financed projects, and are fully acquainted
  with all World Bank procedures and standards.
• ROM has ISO 9000 certificate since 1997. Two
  staff members are dedicated to QC/QA. The
  adopted standards cover all areas including home
  based and client's site.

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Contacts
ROM Transportation Engineering Ltd. 97 Jaffa Rd,
POB 28009 Jerusalem 91280, Israel Tel
972-2-6246169 Fax [phone] www.rom-transpo
rt.com Dr. Moshe Hirsh Office
972-2-6246169 Mobile [phone] E-mail
mhirsh_at_rom-transport.com Ofir Cohen Office
972-77-3537088 Mobile [phone] E-mail
ofir_at_rom-transport.com Nir Ratzkovsky Office
972-77-3537088 Mobile [phone] E-mail
nir_at_rom-transport.com