Vision:
Revolutionize the adoption of ITS technology by partnering with our customers to achieve success
Mission:
To consistently go the extra mile in meeting our customer’s needs while maintaining a family oriented organization of highly motivated, transit-knowledgeable people committed to the advancement of our industry, our company, and our employees.
Founded January 1st 1999, Avail Technologies is a licensed Corporation in the state of Pennsylvania that is headquartered in State College, Pennsylvania. This single location provides an atmosphere of team synergy, which encourages the dynamic exchange of ideas between our engineers and fosters innovative concepts for the transit industry.
By design Avail has remained a small company that stays focused on providing cost effective engineering services and cutting edge technologies to our target market of transit operators with 250 vehicles or less.
This targeted approach is a huge benefit to our customers as it allows Avail to dedicate all of our resources to understanding the needs of these properties and ensures that we are the industry experts for transit operators of this size. To date, Avail is the only Systems Integrator that has limited our pursuits to a specific market segment.
Behind the scenes at Avail is a staff with more than 300 years of combined experience of working with transit professionals throughout North America and the world, to design, develop and adopt technology solutions, which provide the features and benefits that improve daily operations. This experience has not only taught Avail how to maximize the positive results that can be achieved through technology adoption, but it has allowed us the opportunity to perfect our approach to systems integration.
Today the results of this experience is evidenced in Avail's unprecedented track record of 100% customer satisfaction and our staff being recognized by vendors and transit professionals alike, as possessing some of the most talented and sought after engineering resources in the Public Transit market space today.
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Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technology for public transit began to evolve in the early 1990's. Avail's staff has been directly involved with this evolution since 1992 as we worked for companies such as Raytheon Transportation Management Solutions (Raytheon TMS) and Orbital Sciences Corporation prior to opening Avail on January 1st of 1999.
Through the early 1990's Avail's staff members were seen as forefathers of this technology adoption as we led many of the cutting edge "first of their kind" projects that shaped ITS technology for more than a decade. These projects included such things as designing, developing and deploying the first ever Next Stop Annunciation System to be triggered via GPS data and the first ever Traffic Light Preemption System triggered via GPS, both for which Avail staff have received U.S. patents. (U.S. Patent #'s: 5,808,565 & 6,064,319)
During this time however the group of people who are now Avail were continually amazed by the lack of attention and support that was being given to the smaller transit properties as the industry vendors designed and developed their technology solutions for the large agencies.
This situation became the founding concept behind Avail, which was assemble a company based on world class engineering talent that would focus its efforts on products and services for the small and mid-sized transit properties that historically had only been available to much larger properties with far greater resources.
Having spent the past 8 years working with transit properties ranging in size from 20 vehicle fleets to properties with over 2,000 vehicles in their fleet, Avail's staff has witnessed first hand that it is impossible for any one company to provide a solution that meets the needs of all public transportation providers. Because of this, the first thing Avail did was to target one specific segment of the market and then to focus all of our energy, resources and past experience to become a true industry experts on this market segment. Having worked with such a wide range of operators over the years, the Avail staff knew that the needs of operators running 250 vehicles or less were similar enough to each other that a suite of products and services could be developed to meet their needs without increasing the level of cost and complexity that would be required for the operators that are running 500, 1,000, or more vehicles. So, in 1999 Avail opened our doors for business, by applying our years of knowledge and experience to evolve a company that would define the standard for technology adoption in public transportation operators running 250 vehicles or less.
However, before we ever started to develop any products Avail spent the first three years probing deeply into the day-to-day operations of transit operators within our target market to ensure that we had a complete and thorough understanding of the challenges they faced. Avail accomplished this by providing consulting and engineering services to these transit properties and helping them assess their operational issues, select technologies to address those issues, and most importantly, develop a technology adoption process that would ensure they received the benefits needed to improve their operations.
After three years of assessing the needs of our target market, Avail spent the next four years designing, developing and deploying the industry's only suite of nonproprietary open architecture products that are specifically focused on the needs of transit operators operating 250 vehicles or less. This product suite (OmniPoint) provides all of the features and benefits that historically had only been offered to the much larger operators via more costly products, while taking into consideration the operational differences, more limited resources and smaller budgets faced by these operators.
Today, Avail is recognized as the industry's leading provider of ITS technology solutions to small and medium sized transit operators throughout North America. As such, we are firmly positioned to better serve you, the transit operators, through a focused market approach, "Best of Breed" products, proven engineering processes, and the highest degree of integrity possible.
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Since 1992 numerous members of the Avail staff have stayed closely involved with the local, state and federal agencies that steer ITS technologies and the standards within the ITS market place. This involvement has included us participating in many groups and forums that combine policy makers, transit operators and industry professionals for the betterment of transit operations.
Currently our staff is serving on national committees such as the Technical Advisory Group for Intelligent Transportation Systems, various working groups within APTA's Transportation Communications Interface Profiles (TCIP), and the Transportation Research Board. In addition, one of Avail's principles, Mr. David Matta, is also one of four industry experts representing the United States as a member of the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee 204 Working Group for Public Transport and Emergency Services.
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