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Air Quality & Weather Systems

November 1, 2019
Nodum launches road closure coordination software
Start-up Nodum has launched a product which allows transit authorities and construction engineers to coordinate road closures to minimise disruption.
October 16, 2019
Q-Free launches web-based lane management
Q-Free has unveiled LaneAware, a web-based application which it says streamlines the lane management of workzones to reduce workload on agency staff and minimise traffic disruptions. Q-Free America’s senior vice president Morten Andersson says most lane closures are managed via phone calls and Excel spreadsheets which creates a “nightmare for transportation management operations centres and contractors”. “LaneAware solves these issues and provides traffic managers with much greater situational awarene
October 11, 2019
C40 mayors make global ‘clean air’ pledge
In a move that will have significant implications for urban transit, 35 mayors at this week’s C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen have pledged to “implement substantive clean air policies by 2025”. Among other developments, this is likely to mean further increases in low- or zero-carbon public transport and zero-emissions zones, along with enhanced incentives and infrastructure to support walking and cycling, in cities worldwide. Signing the C40 Clean Air Cities Declaration, the mayors signalled their
August 20, 2019
Vaisala's RoadAI can optimise maintenance
Alerts for natural disasters are ones that most of us would rather do without, writes Adam Hill. But the ITS industry still needs help to deal with more common meteorological issues Google Maps has added SOS alerts to its service. For those of us more used to using the phone app to navigate from a metro station to an unfamiliar restaurant, this may seem extreme. But this is not what Google has in mind. Its SOS messages are for “hurricane forecast cones, earthquake shake-maps and flood forecasts”. That
May 3, 2019
Gearing up for the global electric vehicle revolution
As transport, communications and energy networks become inextricably linked, policy makers are recognising the implications for our built environment – and the growing electric vehicle market will have a major impact on the world’s infrastructure, says Rolton Group’s Chris Evans
April 29, 2019
Yeti more AV snow-clearing by Semcon
There is a lot of debate about the place of autonomous vehicles on our roads – but a Swedish company is already ploughing ahead with driverless snow clearance on airport runways, writes David Arminas Femcon, a Swedish applied automation company, has started an on-site project to clear snow from runway landing lights using autonomous vehicles (AVs). Most often, this time-consuming job has to be done manually because of the intricate manoeuvres needed to avoid damaging the lighting systems. The trial pro
April 1, 2019
Houston hurricane prompts TranStar warning
Hurricane Harvey led to the creation of the Houston TranStar flood warning app
January 29, 2019
Mercedes-Benz to trial electric buses in two German cities
Mercedes-Benz has supplied three fully-electric buses to German municipal transport company Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr (RNV) to help improve air quality in the cities of Mannheim and Heidelberg. Dr. Peter Kurz, mayor of Mannheim, says: “The electrification of buses is now an important milestone on the way to a clean city and will make local public transport significantly more attractive.” The first eCitaro bus will operate in Heidelberg, travelling from the main train station to the Altstadt commuter rail stati
January 16, 2019
North Carolina DoT wins top award for hurricane response
North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDoT) has won a major award for its work responding to Hurricane Florence last year. The organisation was the overall trophy winner – up against 60 other submissions - at the first annual Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Awards, run by the US National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE). The gong was presented to Jennifer Portanova, NCDoT state systems operations engineer, at the 2019 Transportation Research Board annual meeting
December 5, 2018
England’s first motorway celebrates 60th birthday with ITS upgrade
Sixty years today, 2,300 drivers drove along an eight-mile section of road in England – the first motorway in the country. Opened in 1958, the Preston bypass – now part of the M6 - only had two lanes in each direction, with no safety barrier in the central reservation. There was also no technology – not even simple electronic signs. Highways England is pledging to celebrate the birthday by completing four upgrades on the M6 by spring 2022. The £900m project will add extra lanes and better technolog