Features

With the Idris system now validated as a speed verification tool, the way is open for loops to be used in more complex enforcement applications. Diamond Consulting Services (DCS), developer of the Idris inductive loop-based vehicle detection and classification system, has recently successfully conducted validation trials which, the company says, open the way for Idris to be used for speed verification and loop-based sensors to be used for more complex applications such as speed-on-green and differential spe

ITS needs to be sold to politicians in plainer terms and we need to be encouraging greater continuity at the policy-making level says Josef Czako, chairman of the IRF's Policy Committee on ITS. At the ITS World Congress in New York in 2008, the International Road Federation (IRF) held the inaugural meeting of its Policy Committee on ITS. The Policy Committee's formation, says its chairman, Kapsch's Josef Czako, reflects an ongoing concern over the lack of deployment of ITS technology on roads in anything li

The automated road safety enforcement industry in the United States had a very robust 2010. The industry continued to grow to the point that providers now have nearly 5,000 cameras deployed in 25 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with more than 650 communities utilising such life-saving technology. Intersection safety cameras are the most common application but more communities are also implementing road safety camera programmes to deter excessive speeding. Deploying cameras to protect children

DG TREN's Fotis Karamitsos, on why the European Commission's new ITS Action Plan is looking to the past for future direction. The European Commission's (EC's) new Action Plan for the Deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in Europe, which was announced as 2008 drew to a close, intends that transport and travel become 'cleaner; more efficient, including energy efficient; and safer and more secure'. At first sight, that wording might be interpreted as marking a significant policy shift within Europe, wit

David Crawford finds evidence of a new trend in American intercity travel: that better access to data sources on the move is tempting passengers away from air travel and onto surface modes. In the US the ease of use of Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) is successfully wooing long-distance travellers away from airlines and onto surface public transport, according to just-published research. Using data from field observations of 7,028 passengers travelling by bus, air and train in 14 US states and the Distri

David Crawford finds evidence of a new trend in American intercity travel: that better access to data sources on the move is tempting passengers away from air travel and onto surface modes. In the US the ease of use of Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) is successfully wooing long-distance travellers away from airlines and onto surface public transport, according to just-published research. Using data from field observations of 7,028 passengers travelling by bus, air and train in 14 US states and the Distri

For major road works schemes, necessary lane closures are timed to minimise congestion, most frequently at night and on weekends when traffic is at its lightest. As a result, rigid timetables are used in planning, programming and implementing work. In the UK, to calculate the expected traffic demand through roads works, historic profiles from the loop-based MIDAS (Motorway Incident Detection Automatic Signalling) system were used. These provided a valuable indicator of anticipated traffic behaviour but were

Beginning in the first quarter of 2010 it became evident that the IntelliDrivesm programme direction had been reestablished, by the USDOT's ITS Joint Program Office (JPO), after being adrift for a few years. The programme was now moving toward a deployment future and with a much broader stakeholder involvement than it had exhibited previously. By today not only is it evident that the programme was reestablished with a renewed emphasis on deployment, it is also apparent that it is moving along at a faster pa

Magnetic levitation has been dismissed as unproven, too costly, or pie in the sky. It's time to reappraise it. With the unveiling by China (see News section, page 10) of its own, home-grown magnetic levitation train, it would be odd if politicians, policy-makers and the ITS industry did not want to take a closer look at the 'unproven' technology that is magnetic levitation. Fortunately, doing so is easy. The non-profit International Society for Maglev Transportation (The International Maglev Board) has an e

Peter George, MVA Consultancy, questions the future direction of environmental impact assessments

Continuing developments in telecommunications and public expectation have left the US's legacy, analogue 911 emergency call system trailing. Linda D. Dodge, Public Safety Program Manager for the ITS programme in USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, the sponsor of the Next Generation 911 initiative, writes about efforts towards updating

In 2006, within a span of four months, two incidents of drivers entering the 16km-long Westpark Tollway in Houston, Texas resulted in horrific accidents that caused a number of fatalities. As a result, Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) began investigating technologies that could help detect vehicles entering the tollway in the wrong direction.

Although much of the emphasis of research into intersection management has tended to concentrate on the needs of urban locations, there remain specific issues pertaining to rural intersections which need to be addressed. Here, Rebecca Szymkowski and Greg Helgeson, Wisconsin DOT, Todd Szymkowski, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Craig Shankwitz and Arvind Menon, University of Minnesota detail progress on an intersection collision avoidance system for more remote locations.

Pete Goldin reports on a new wireless, solar-powered traffic detection system being used by Caltrans District 12. As more and more traffic data is necessary to satisfy the needs of traffic management centres and traveller information systems, and as traffic detection technology becomes more ubiquitous, transportation authorities are pressured to find more economical ways of expanding their detection systems. Caltrans District 12 is leading this push by deploying the latest detection system from Case Global

Mike Schagrin, ITS Joint Program Office, RITA, and John Harding, NHTSA, describe US progress towards an in-vehicle Intersection Violation Warning system. In 2008, there were 37,261 fatalities on US roadways. Of these, 7,772, some 20.8 per cent of the total, were defined as intersection crashes or intersection-related crashes. Through a multi-agency research initiative led by the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has developed a prototype In