Features

In 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, it took over four hours to open the road after a major commercial vehicle incident. Not any more. Four years ago the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) cited Atlanta, Georgia as the third-most congested city in the United States. Each traveller in metro Atlanta lost an incredible 57 hours a year to traffic delays, wasting 40 gallons of fuel while sitting in traffic. In 2007, it took nearly four and a half hours to open travel lanes after an average tractor-trailer incident. Th

At the beginning of August, 2011, Carole Coune took up her new role as Secretary General of the International Transport Forum at the OECD. Here, she tells ITS International of the challenges and opportunities the global sector faces. Transport is a growth industry. Despite the current financial crisis, the trend for transport is pointing upwards. Demand is mainly driven by global economic integration, a growing world population and rising incomes in emerging economies. As we head toward nine billion humans

The 2011 Urban Mobility Report from the Texas Transportation Institute highlights the dangers of continued underinvestment in transportation infrastructure but also offers some hope in terms of possible solutions

IRD, Inc's Terry Bergan discusses future applications of weigh in motion technology. The application in recent years of Weigh In Motion (WIM) at tollgates has been driven by recognition of the fact that there is economic value, which can be levied, attached to Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) which haul laden (and are therefore heavy) rather than empty. As wear and damage to road surfaces increases exponentially with weight, the targeting of HGVs in particular makes sense from both the economic and maintenance p

The use of frequency spectrum at 5.9GHz for vehicle safety applications is at risk because of two draft bills currently before Congress. Here, we look at why and what’s being done to address the issue. In the US, the right of cooperative infrastructure to use frequency at 5.9GHz is under threat as a result of the proposal of two bills in Congress. The chronology of spectrum allocation for Dedicated Short- Range Communications (DSRC)-based Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) safety a

Rather looking to solve congestion by spreading the load, perhaps we need to look at concentrating it. Michael L. Sena writes. We humans were made to walk and run at embarrassingly slow speeds by comparison with other, more fleet-footed organisms. The sea is not our natural habitat and we were definitely not designed to fly unaided. Nevertheless, humankind has evolved a method of living during the past century that is dependent on transporting its members over very long distances during relatively short per

David Crawford explores new initiatives in enforcement. Achieving the EU’s new road safety target of reducing road traffic deaths by 50 per cent by 2020 depends on removing legal and institutional barriers to the deployment of new enforcement technologies, stresses Jan Malenstein. The senior ITS Adviser to Dutch National Police Agency the KLPD, and a European-level spokesperson on road and traffic safety, points to the importance of, among other requirements, an effective EUwide type approval process for fr

Telvent’s Jorgen Pedersen and Tip Franklin discuss how integrated corridor management can create synergies within a multimodal transportation infrastructure, while promoting modal shift. The mantra ‘We cannot build ourselves out of congestion’ has long been stated and too often ignored. But with the economy in dire straits, funding deficits and pressure to reduce governmental spending, this is now being taken seriously by almost everyone who has an interest in the flow of traffic. By ‘everyone’ we include

Peter Bell, managing director of journey planning provider Trapeze Group, ponders the business models which will underpin future travel information services from a UK perspective Traditionally, journey planning websites for public transport in the UK (for example, Transport Direct, the Traveline regions or National Rail Enquiries) have been provided by the transport operators keen to increase ridership and revenues, or by public bodies who hope to encourage a modal switch to public transport by making it e

The In-Time project is looking at the effect that multi-modal real-time traveller information services can have of reducing transport's energy consumption levels. By Martin Böhm, AustriaTech GmbH. Around the world, significant research and development effort is currently directed towards reducing energy consumption by addressing those areas where the biggest savings can be expected. European studies have shown that the transport sector has the potential to reduce its energy consumption by up to 26 per cent

One of the biggest problems facing US ITS professionals, says Georgia DOT's Hugh Colton, is the constrained thinking which is sometimes forced upon those making procurement decisions. It is time, he says, to look again at how we do things. In the November/December 2010 edition of this journal, Pete Goldin interviewed Joseph Sussman, chairman of the US's ITS Program Advisory Committee. Amongst other observations that Sussman made was that, technologically, ITS in the US is 10 years behind that in the world-l

David Crawford detects a market for European experience. Well-established now in at least three European countries, Hard Shoulder Running (HSR) on motorways is exciting growing interest in the US. A November 2010 Report to Congress by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), on the Efficient Use of Highway Capacity, notes the role of HSR in the European-style Active Traffic Management (ATM) strategies now being recommended for implementation in the US where, until recently, they were virtually unknown.

Guillaume Ponsar, tunnel safety engineer with Egis Road Operation, writes about the advantages to be gained from the use of tunnel simulators. Major tunnel disasters over the last decade and more have shown how swiftly and badly a simple crash or fire may evolve should the wrong actions be taken by control room operators or traffic managers. Global safety issues and the reactions of operations staff have now become the principal concerns for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) service providers. As a result, n

In Sweden, marketing company DDB Stockholm employed a mock speed camera as part of a promotional campaign for automotive manufacturer Volkswagen. The result was worldwide online interest and promotion of the debate over excessive speed to the national level. A developing trend in traffic management policy is to look at how to induce road users to modify their behaviour by incentivising change rather than forcing it through the application of penalties. There have been several studies conducted into this; an

The new Hindhead Tunnel is the first in the UK to use radar-based incident detection. Paul Arnold, project manager with the Highways Agency, talks about the project. The comparatively remote location of the A3 Hindhead Tunnel has resulted in it becoming one of the most sophisticated in the UK in terms of monitoring and control systems, according to Paul Arnold, project manager for the Highways Agency (HA), which manages strategic roads in England and Wales. It is the first tunnel in the UK to use radar for