Air Quality & Weather Systems

The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland's Pekka Leviäkangas writes about the initial results of the EWENT project, which was set up to research the effects of severe weather on the European transport network. The European EWENT (Extreme Weather impacts on European Networks of Transport) project, financed by the European Commission under 7th Framework Programme for Research, recently issued its first Work Package (WP1) report. This is a review of extreme weather phenomena and their effects on the Europe

David Crawford investigates a new approach to discouraging car use - the 'kitchen as travel centre'. ITS technology working together with UK planning legislation is driving an innovative 'kitchen as travel centre' approach to home design which is boosting public transport as an alternative to car use. The combination is already proving powerful enough to assuage environmentalist opposition to major urban developments. It is also being seen as a way of delivering wider social and community benefits inside an

In June, ITS Taiwan will host the 11th ITS Asia Pacific Forum and Exhibition. Dr. Bert J. Lim, president of the World Economics Society and a member of the local organising committee, provides an insight to ITS development in the country. Many of the thought-provoking issues he raises could be applied equally to most countries around the world. Governments need to assume a far greater leadership role, not just in ITS R&D, but also ITS deployment. In the case of Taiwan, it is time for the Ministry of Transpo

Exponentially widening mobile phone ownership is opening up the field to new ways of obtaining and disseminating better travel information from and to public transport users, via for example social media and tracking riders' phones. Over 50 US transit agencies, including major actors such as TriMet, in the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon, Dallas Area Rapid Transit in Texas, and San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), as well as smaller operators, now have Facebook and/or Twitter accoun

Houston TranStar, which has been collecting travel time and segment speed data using vehicle probe data since 1995, has an extensive coverage area that envelops most local commuters' daily freeway routes. However, expanding the existing Automated Vehicle Identification (AVI) system would be cost-prohibitive except for high-volume freeways. The partners of the Houston TranStar consortium needed a new method to measure speeds and travel times on arterial roadway systems and rural freeways. Instead of using co

David Crawford reports on a pioneering blend of transport technology and aesthetic By gaining a design award before installation has even started, the US$6.9 million City of Santa Monica (California)'s Big Blue Bus Shelter and Branding Package has ensured early interest among what it expects to be a new wave of transit riders. The American Institute of Architects' Los Angeles chapter's recently conferred 'Next LA Citation Award for Architecture', given for design excellence in projects as yet unbuilt, comm

ITS International contributing editor David Crawford foresees the vehicle as 'sentinel being'

Telvent has announced an important expansion of its weather information systems and forecast services with the launch of Telvent Total View - a comprehensive solution that takes advantage of distributed multi-nodal platform controls integrated via cloud computing. It efficiently collects the weather measurements users specify and combines them, through the secure computing cloud, with forecasts and operational data from clients' enterprise-level platforms.