Features

ITS America 2016 promises to be anything but ‘business-as-usual’ as its new president and CEO, Regina Hopper, aims to broaden the scope and discussions at the event, billed as “A New Show Representing This Transformative Moment in Intelligent Transportation.” Signifying the changes, this year’s event is in San Jose at the heart of Silicon Valley and has adopted the theme “Integrated Mobility. Transportation Redefined.”

Moves to make life easier and safer for vulnerable and impaired road users are gaining strength on both sides of the Atlantic. A recent webcast by the US Roadway Safety Institute, based at the University of Minnesota, showcased work in progress on a positioning and mapping methodology using Bluetooth and smartphone technologies to support situation awareness and wayfinding for the visually impaired.

A traffic incident management project in Arizona has speeded up reopening closed lanes and saved an estimated $165m through reducing traffic delays. The process for clearing roadway incidents on the Maricopa County freeways in Arizona has always reflected industry best practice with, for instance, a live feed of freeway cameras to the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) dispatch centre and the City of Phoenix Fire dispatch centre. The region has nearly 480km (300 miles) of freeway connecting 27 citi

The US has a new trend in personal mobility and David Crawford takes a closer look. US automaker General Motors and ridesharer Lyft’s announcement of a strategic partnership aimed at delivering, over time, an integrated network of on-demand autonomous as well as conventional vehicles has taken the nation’s car industry from traditional manufacturing to new arenas.

Josef Czako takes a look at what the future developments may hold for both the transport sector and society. As the dust of the 2015 World Congress in Bordeaux settles, we can begin to see more clearly some of the most important future innovations in ITS are starting to be linked together: mobility as a service (MaaS), mobility pricing and autonomous vehicles. They all are based on global trends, like digitalisation, automation and servitisation.

Transit priority is proving a win-win in Europe and Australia. David Crawford reports. Technology that integrates with the Australian-originated Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) is driving bus signal priority and performance analysis initiatives on both sides of the world; in its homeland, with a major deployment in 2015, and in the capital of the Republic of Ireland.

After 45 years in transportation, Ken Philmus sees the need for major change in a sector currently ill-prepared to meet the challenge of funding and rapidly advancing technological change. Having worked in both the public and private sectors, Ken Philmus, currently senior vice president of transportation solutions at Xerox, appreciates both approaches, but times are changing and he believes the sector needs to change too. “I like trains, planes and automobiles but I love the concept of mobility and that’s w

Amsterdam had taken the final step in digitising parking and parking enforcement and the move is paying dividends. It was almost a decade ago that the City of Amsterdam decided to start the evolution - or maybe even a revolution – of its parking enforcement: it got rid of the paper parking permit or ticket behind the windscreen and introduced the digital parking right. It was the first step on a bumpy but successful road to digitization, resulting in a fore running position in on street parking enforcement.

Eric G. O’Rear and Wallace E. Tyner look at the benefits of mileage charges and how these might be implemented. Since the early 1900s, taxes on petrol (gasoline) and diesel fuels have been used to finance the construction and maintenance of roadway infrastructure and, in some countries other government spending too. Now, a combination of improved fuel economy, the advent of hybrid and alternative fuelled vehicles and a reluctance in some countries (especially the US) to increase fuel taxes has led to a d

Smart bike share technology and funding policies help bridge the transit gap through the final mile as Andrew Bardin Williams explains. The sharing economy is coming to Portland this summer. BikeTown, the city’s new bike share program sponsored by Nike, will be launched in mid-July with 1,000 bicycles distributed across 100 stations throughout the city. Originally funded by a $2 million federal grant, the program has been boosted by a $10 million sponsorship deal with Nike ensures funding for the next five

The Netherlands aims to lead Europe, and the world, in the area of cooperative ITS and smart mobility. That’s not an aspiration – it’s a necessity as Frans op de Beek, principal advisor for traffic management and ITS within the Rijkswaterstaat, the Ministry for Infrastructure and the Environment, explains.

Intertraffic Amsterdam 2016 is bigger, smarter, more innovative, more connected, and more relevant than ever before, as Richard Butter, domain manager for Intertraffic Worldwide Events, explains.

Buoyed by the success of its recent ITS introductions, the authorities in Moscow are planning additions to the system as Eugene Gerden discovered. The government of Russia’s capital, Moscow, plans further improvement to the city’s transport systems, partly through the introduction of new ITS technologies and the modernisation of existing systems. At the beginning of 2015 the Moscow government completed the introduction of a new ITS infrastructure in the city, which, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin

David Crawford looks at the sunny side of the street. Solar power has been relatively slow in entering the transport sector, but a current blossoming of activity bodes well for the large-scale harnessing of an alternative energy that is zero-emission at source and, in practical terms, infinitely renewable. Traffic management and traveller information systems, and actual vehicles, are all emerging as areas for deployment. Meanwhile roads themselves are being viewed as new-style, fossil fuel-free ‘power stati

David Crawford looks at an under-utilised solution for city-centre deliveries. The use of rivers and canals for moving freight is a well-established mode in North Western Europe, where it can take advantage of an intensively developed network. In the Netherlands, 40% of the total volume of goods transported internally goes by water; the figure for Flanders (the neighbouring Dutch-speaking region of Belgium) is 11.5%.