The city of Chicago has awarded a $310 million contract to Parsons to upgrade the airport transit system (ATS) at O’Hare International Airport.

Rendering of the CRCF with ATS extension at O'Hare. Source: Fly ChicagoThe contract would build a 2,000-foot track extension to go to the consolidated rental car facility (CRCF) and also toward designing and replacing the existing ATS system. This project is part of the $782 million CRCF contract, which aims to consolidate all of the rental car companies into one facility and build a new public parking lot.

Parsons will be responsible for managing construction of the project and overseeing design for the traction power, communications, and track work while performing systems integration and commissioning work for the entire project.

Expanding the ATS maintenance and storage facility is also a part of the new contract, and the current 15-vehicle ATS fleet will be replaced with 36 new rail cars from Bombardier, featuring automated vehicle control, traction power and communications improvements.