Features

Urban freight policies are becoming more common in European cities and regions. However, it is still difficult to evaluate and transfer the knowledge gained from the different city logistics measures implemented by local authorities. The SUGAR project aims to tackle this by establishing a systematic approach towards best practices identification and assessment, and by developing urban freight plans and actions.

As the calendar rolls over, and we hop from continent to continent and World Congress to World Congress, where Memoranda of Understanding and cooperation agreements are the headline news, it is easy for those not intimately involved to forget that standards definition is a well-nigh continual process. Significant progress has been made in recent months towards achieving the critical mass and economies of scale which are going to drive development and deployment in, amongst other things, cooperative infrastr

Paul Laurenza of Dykema Gossett PLLC discusses the paths which lawmakers may go down on the route to making in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures a reality. The question of whether or not to mandate in-vehicle systems for safety and other applications is a vexed one. There is a presumption on some parts that going down the road of forcing systems' fitment is somehow too domineering or restricting. Others would argue that it is the only realistic way of ensuring that systems achieve widespread d

TISPOL's Peter van de Beek questions whether the thought processes which drive enforcement technology development are always the right ones. Peter van de Beek sees an ever-greater role for technology in traffic enforcement but is concerned that the emphasis of technological development and discussion is not always in the right places. 'Old-fashioned' face-to-face policing remains as valid as it ever did, he feels, but adds that there should be greater communication with those engaged at the sharp end of saf

There is no value in further US VMT charging trials, except to delay the inevitable. These trials should end after completion of the University of Iowa's National Evaluation of a Mileage-based Road User Charge. There is far greater promise in unleashing private operators to commence profitable, non-tolling services, then using these for toll assessment and collection as fuel distributors are currently used to collect fuel taxation. Bern Grush writes

Transportation for America's James Corless talks about the changes needed in the US's transportation policy. Anew report, 'Smart Mobility for a 21st Century America', highlights how improving efficiency through technology is critical as the US's population grows and ages, budgets tighten and consumer preferences shift.

Paul Vorster, CEO of ITS South Africa, takes a look at the national enforcement situation in the year when the country gears up to host the FIFA Soccer World Cup. There are four main drivers pushing the growth of ITS-related law enforcement within South Africa. These are: transport operations associated with hosting the FIFA Soccer World Cup 2010; traffic management linked to increasing congestion; the development of new public transport systems such as BRT; and vehicle and driver-related crime.

Jack Opiola provides an overview of the ongoing debate over US infrastructure funding and the progress – or lack of it – towards vehicles miles travelled road user charging. The future funding of transportation and mobility infrastructure is attracting increased attention. There has been sharp debate in the US, where landmark reports from the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission and the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission both stated that the cu

Dave McNamara and Craig Simonds, Autotechinsider LLC, look at human-machine interface development out to 2015. The US auto industry is going through the worst crisis it has faced since the Great Depression. But it has embraced technologies that will produce the best-possible driving experience for the public. Ford was the first OEM to announce in-car internet radio and SYNC, its signature-branded User Interface (UI), is held up as the shining example of change embracement.

Paul Everett, Research Director with IMS Research, looks at how ITS deployment varies across the US and what this means in terms of market potential for systems manufacturers and suppliers At the end of 2010, the US will have a total resident population of close to 310 million, rising to an estimated 439 million by 2050.

The speed enforcement system on the Hume Highway in Australia combines both spot and point-to-point solutions. Here, Redflex's Peter Whyte discusses its implementation. The Australian State of Victoria has achieved notable success in reducing casualty rates since launching a three-pronged road accident prevention initiative in the late-1980s.

David Crawford looks forward to the completion of Stockholm's JustNu project. End-2010 is the target date for delivery of the final stages of Stockholm public transport authority (PTA) Stockholms Lokaltrafik (SL)'s ambitious JustNu (Right Now) integrated travel information system. Installation began in 2004, and the result will represent a large-scale and highly exportable solution to the need for harmonisation of traveller information in urban regions with multiple transport operators.

Are co-operative systems and personal privacy mutually exclusive? Not necessarily, says Neil Hoose. But the more advanced the application, the greater the concession of privacy may have to become. ITS Stockholm in 2009 and the Cooperative Mobility Showcase event which took place alongside Intertraffic in Amsterdam in March this year both featured live, on-street demonstrations of safety and driver information applications that used Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications,

Robert Bertini, deputy administrator of the USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, discusses the research and deployment paths of cooperative road infrastructures. High-level analysis by the US's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the potential of Vehicle-to-Infrastructure/Infrastructure-to-Vehicle (V2I/I2V) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) technologies indicates that V2V could in exclusivity address a large proportion of crashes involving unimpaired drivers. In fact,

An ITIF report published at the beginning of this year stated that America is falling behind other developed nations in terms of ITS technologies and their deployment to address safety, congestion and environmental challenges. The report asked for a stronger commitment from the US federal government (see 'Just crawling along', interview with senior ITIF analyst Stephen Ezell, ITS International March-April 2010, pp.NA1-NA2) in order to address what it sees as increasing disparities with other countries. The