Air Quality & Weather Systems

I-95 Corridor Coalition awards vehicle probe project data contract

June 10, 2014

The I-95 Corridor Coalition, working through the University of Maryland, and following a thorough competition, has announced a new contract for procuring real-time speed and travel time data. Under this new contract, Coalition member agencies are expected to realise up to a 50 per cent reduction in cost over the prior contract. Member agencies may choose from Here, Inrix and TomTom to procure traffic speed and travel time data. The multiple-vendor approach creates a traffic data marketplace, allowing ag

App informs drivers of delays during Long Beach bridge replacement

June 6, 2014

David Crawford previews a work zone travel breakthrough. In February 2014, the Port of Long Beach in California launched what it claims is a groundbreaking construction zone navigation aid - LB Bridge mobile app. The app is designed to help drivers during the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement programme by keeping them up to date on activity and the ensuing traffic diversions when construction starts in summer 2014. The unusually content-rich app is designed to convey current project news (enlivened by phot

Iteris launches cloud-based weather analysis

May 30, 2014

ClearPath Weather from Iteris is the company’s next-generation road maintenance decision support system (MDSS). The cloud-based software solution provides winter maintenance strategies for optimising personnel, equipment, and chemical purchases in addition to providing actionable pavement information for more effective government agency maintenance response.

TrafficLand, Global Weather Corporation offer combined weather and road data

May 29, 2014

TrafficLand is to partner with with Global Weather Corporation (GWC) to market a service combining local road and atmospheric weather condition forecasts of with real-time local traffic camera video. The combined content is available through an application programming interface (API) that allows customers to choose data layers, which can include local weather data for road conditions, temperature, precipitation and wind speed, as well as real-time video from local roadside traffic cameras. The new servic

Lighting the way for tornado tracking

May 28, 2014

US manufacturer and supplier of infrared (IR) and white light illuminators and license plate recognition products, iluminar, is supporting NBC Universal’s The Weather Channel Tornado Track crew. Featured regularly on The Weather Channel on the road chasing storms, the Tornado Track crew uses a GMC Yukon SUV to check severe weather conditions and report their findings live, on-air and online. Helping the Tornado Track crew to see the powerful natural phenomenon in the dark is iluminar’s new Q-Ball came

Smoothing out city freight movements

May 28, 2014

David Crawford welcomes a national first. Urban freight movements, while commercially and socially vital, are a growing logistical headache for planners and people alike. Figures from France’s Lyon Laboratory of Transport Economics indicate that goods transport in major urban areas accounts for: 20% of traffic; 35% of CO2 emissions made by all urban trips; and 50% of the diesel used; while final km delivery runs account for 20% of the total cost of the transport chain.

Olympic challenges in Sochi

May 27, 2014

Sporting events always create problems for traffic planners and none more so than the Winter Olympics. It is difficult to think of more diametrically opposite challenges for transport planners than the 2012 Olympics in London and this year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi: from a summer event in the heart of a megacity with well established transport infrastructure to winter games with unpredictable weather and events in remote and mountainous locations. The Winter Games are always a challenge and Sochi was no di

Intelligent crossing points leads to safer future for pedestrians

May 19, 2014

An innovative project at a busy UK retail park could provide the blueprint for a new approach to pedestrian safety, according to its developers. The system utilised hard-wired active flashing LED road studs from Rennicks UK to delineate the crossing, in conjunction with LED warning signs from Swarco. Pole-mounted C-Walk pedestrian detectors from Flir activate the high performance LED studs to create a striking visual warning for motorists approaching an internal crossing at Giltbrook, near Nottingham.

Colombia awards major traffic management contract to Indra

May 8, 2014

Colombian highway concessionaire Coviandes has awarded Indra the contract, worth nearly US$35 million, for the design, installation and start-up of the intelligent traffic systems (ITS) the control and communications systems for 45 kilometres of the Bogota-Villavicencio highway in Colombia.

NEC control centre aids Santander’s role as Europe’s smartest city

May 7, 2014

NEC Corporation is providing a new operational control software module as part of its Cloud City Operations Centre to enable the city of Santander in Spain to automate the management of city infrastructure in real-time to minimise resource usage and reduce operational costs.