Features

Trevor Ellis, Chairman of the ITS UK Enforcement Interest Group, considers the implications of the UK Government's decision to withdraw funding for road safety camera partnerships

Like most countries, Bermuda recognised that it was losing revenue through non-compliance with vehicle registration regulations and was equally concerned about vehicles that were not properly insured or put through annual inspections. Indeed, the tiny island state, with a population of around 65,000 people and some 30,000 vehicles, estimated it was losing more than US$1.4 million per year in tax-based revenue since approximately 8 per cent of vehicle owners were cheating the system.

Phil Pettitt, Chief Executive of innovITS, the UK's ITS Centre of Excellence, argues that governments need to look beyond the short-term when looking to pump-prime economic recovery with public funds. It seems, in the current economic climate, that a 'good' day is one in which no company is announcing job cuts or going into administration. Consumer demand is down and businesses are retrenching, cutting costs and fretting over the consequences of shrinking opportunities and order books. It has not been this

Scott Andrews of Cogenia Partners, LLC details the findings of the VII Proof Of Concept work carried out to verify the effectiveness of 5.9GHz-based communication for future US cooperative infrastructures

David Crawford surveys European trends in environmental monitoring and enforcement

Jack Opiola explores the oft-underestimated effect that a charging scheme's name can have on public acceptability and ultimate success. The Bard of Avon wrote: "What's in a name?" For transport, especially Road User Charging, that is an especially relevant question.

The 'rebranding' of the US's Vehicle-Infrastructure Integration programme as IntelliDrive marks an effort to make the whole undertaking more accessible both in terms of nomenclature and technology. Shelley Row, director of the ITS Joint Program Office within USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, talks about the changes

John Nelson and Brian Masson, Centre for Transport Research, University of Aberdeen, UK, describe the FLIPPER initiative which is intended to improve the provision of flexible transport services

This section pulls together all the multi-modal topics in each issue. Subject matter will include smartcards; ticketing and payment systems; passenger information systems; fleet management for buses, trains and light rail; park and ride systems; on-line access to real-time information via Internet portals

David Crawford investigates carbon finance in transport. World Bank carbon finance grants are delivering critical support to major mass transit deployments in emerging and developing economies. Only recently operative in the transport sector, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM, see panel) is designed to generate additional income streams and improve internal rates of return on projects funded from public- and private-sector sources.

Fixed penalty notices KRIA's co-founder and President Stefano Arrighetti discusses the events which led up to investigations into the fraudulent use of his company's T-RED red light enforcement system and his house arrest. Looking forward, he says, there needs to be fundamental reform of how Italy goes about the enforcement contract tendering process

Geographically, Russia, the largest country in the world, is vast. So too are the opportunities for the global ITS community, which is why ITS Russia has been actively promoting the country and the opportunities that abound there. ITS Russia is reaching out around the world. In October, at the 17th ITS World Congress in Busan, South Korea, a cooperative agreement was signed with ITS America to promote and strengthen research, educational, and commercial cooperation in the ITS field among the two association

Houston TranStar is using Bluetooth sensors to collect speed and travel data in a project which is already demonstrating significant cost savings

Maurizio Tomassini, Isis, and Monica Giannini, Pluservice, detail the STADIUM project, which is intended to provide those responsible for planning major international events with a blueprint for success

Moxa Americas, Inc.'s Charles Chen ponders the way forward for transportation communications networks in the US