Features

Refinements in the data available from the US Federal Highway Administration will improve road management across America. David Crawford reports. In August 2017, the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued the first results from an upgraded version of its National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS). Developed to identify the locations and times of high congestion affecting traffic flows along America’s 259,000km (161,000 mile) national highway system, this is a key resource for sta

Pete Goldin discovers the state of play with connected vehicles trials in the US and the impact of Hurricane Irma on Tampa’s pilot. The US Department of Transportation’s (USDoT’s) connected vehicle (CV) pilot sites have moved into phase 2 of the deployment programme– design, build, test and, maybe most importantly, collaborate.

Having been the first US state to introduce the gas tax a century ago, Oregon is now blazing the road user charging trail. Colin Sowman looks at progress to date. For more than a decade, authorities in Oregon have known of the impending decline in fuels tax income and while revenue increased by more than 5% in 2016, that growth will slow considerably this year and income is projected to start declining in 2020.

As delegates head for the 2017 ITS World Congress in Montreal, we talk to Copenhagen mayor Morten Kabell about why his city is the ideal location for next year’s event. It may have been a long time coming but the ITS World Congress will be in Copenhagen in 2018 and there can be few more fitting places to host the event. By any number of metrics - interconnected transport, cycle commuting, safer streets, reduced pollution, sustainable energy and quality of life - the Danish capital has implemented what m

David Crawford ponders prospects for one of the world’s most congested and polluted cities. In 1992, the United Nations named Mexico City as the world’s most polluted urban centre. In the first half of 2016, following the updating of pollution alert limits to meet international standards, Mexico recorded 115 days where ozone concentrations exceeded the acute exposure health limit.

Sony’s Jerome Avenel looks at how advances in imaging technology are helping improve safety. On the 24th March 1999, a Belgian truck transporting flour and margarine through the 11.6km Mont Blanc tunnel caught alight when a cigarette stub entered the engine induction snorkel, lighting the paper air filter. The fire left over 30 dead and many more injured. At the time, the Mont Blanc tunnel disaster was the world’s worst tunnel fire.

Plagued by intolerable congestion but denied government funding for its solution, tiny Halton Borough Council relentlessly pursued its vision and achieved what many believed impossible. Halton may be a small local authority in north west England, but it had a big traffic problem. However, as the road, or more particularly the bridge, involved was not deemed a strategic route, central government would not commission or even fund a solution - a problem that many other local authorities will recognise.

As Hamburg is confirmed as the host for the 2021 ITS World Congress, David Crawford looks at the city’s moves towards enabling MaaS-type operations. Germany’s second-largest city, Hamburg, is pinning its civic reputation on having its promised all-electric, on-demand, shuttle bus ridesharing service up and running by 2018. Partners in the three-year project are regional metro and bus service provider Hamburger Hochbahn and Volkswagen Group’s Berlinbased mobility innovation subsidiary Moia, which was set

Jack Opiola casts an eye over the numerous road user charging pilots underway in the US. In the USA, congestion mitigation and improving mobility have often focused on network improvements, increased road capacity, improved public transport, high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes or ‘express lanes’ and ITS measures – all of which require political capital and major funding. Nowadays, political capital is as hard to obtain as funding because more political leaders are recognising the decline of fuel excise tax in

Mobility pricing is the best way of sustaining and enhancing mobility, argues Moving Forward Consulting’s Josef Czako. Mobility pricing (MP) is effectively the culmination of the ‘user pays’ principle and has been referred to in many policy discussions about electronic toll collection, road user charging (RUC), and pricing. MP not only reflects the ‘use more, pay more’ nature of RUC, it also takes account of the external cost of journeys including pollution, noise, the cost of congestion and accidents.

Connected-ITS applications are due to appear on a nation-wide scale this summer, through the Netherlands’ Talking Traffic Partnership – if all goes to plan. Jon Masters reports. The Netherlands’ Talking Traffic Partnership (TTP) looks almost too good to be true: an artificial market set up and supported by national, regional and local government to accelerate deployment of Connected ITS (C-ITS) applications. If it does have any serious flaws, these are going to become apparent quite soon, because the first

TM 2.0 views connected vehicles and V2I as two-way communications channels, benefitting traffic management and drivers, as Alan Dron discovers. As connected vehicles are progressively rolled out there will come a point at which traffic managers and traffic management centres (TMCs) will have to gear up to cope with a rapidly-evolving road scenario. The TM 2.0 Platform (see box) is promoting a concept of new-generation traffic management (which carries the same TM 2.0 title) and is studying how future T

Jack Opiola casts an eye over the numerous road user charging pilots underway in the US. In the USA, congestion mitigation and improving mobility have often focused on network improvements, increased road capacity, improved public transport, high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes or ‘express lanes’ and ITS measures – all of which require political capital and major funding. Nowadays, political capital is as hard to obtain as funding because more political leaders are recognising the decline of fuel excise tax

Mobility-as-a-Service is being piloted in the UK’s second largest metropolitan area and will shortly be opened to the travelling public. A fully operational Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) offering is being piloted in the West Midlands region of the UK. Covering seven local authorities which make up the West Midlands metropolitan area and population of 2.8 million, the service is being provided through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), Finnish company MaaS Global