Features

The world’s ITS Associations participated in the ITS World Congress in Vienna, including: New Zealand, which stressed the need for future proof ITS solutions; the Netherlands; Australia called for greater ITS content in road safety strategy; ITS South Africa discussed new strategic opportunities in the country; ITS Nigeria took advantage of the World Congress to stage its global launch; UK ITS professionals were congratulated on their achievements during the Olympic Games by ITS UK; ITS Canada co-hosted a w

The Olympic flame has moved on, allowing review of the relative degrees of London’s 2012 transportation success, how it was done and with what lasting effects. Jon Masters reports. This magazine’s international position provides a good vantage point for assessing impressions left by London’s 2012 Olympic Games. On the whole, it has been only praise and congratulations heard since the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games in August and the Paralympics in September. The events looked great and ran smoothly

David Crawford investigates initiatives and issues in travel information for disabled passengers. World Health Organisation estimates suggest that 10% of the global population live with a disability. This can impact directly on their mobility, with implications for their independence; keeping active; and travelling to work, education and social activities; as well as the accessibility of information necessary to aid mobility. The EU-supported ‘CARDIAC’ project (Coordination Action in R&D in Accessible & Ass

Jason Barnes considers the social and ethical ramifications of using in-vehicle safety technologies to fulfil enforcement functions. Although policy documents often imply close correlation between enforcement, compliance and safety – in part, as a counter to accusations that enforcement is rather more concerned with revenue generation – there is a noticeable reluctance among policy makers and auto manufacturers to exploit in-vehicle safety systems for enforcement applications. From a technical perspective t

Comparatively little negative comment has been made in Swedish media with regard to the country’s widespread speed enforcement, according to project manager Eva Lundberg of Trafikverket, Sweden’s Transport dministration. Lundberg is due to give a presentation at the Vienna World Congress special session on enforcement, probably with more than a passing word on public acceptance. Trafikverket has put a lot of work into its Vision Zero road safety strategy over the past few years; much of it targeting reducti

The technical programme of this year’s ITS World Congress in Vienna includes a special session on the image of enforcement. ITS International examines the scale of the problem and what can be done about it. Debate on the merits and difficulties of enforcing speed limits appears centred on a conflict of principles. Put very simply, local communities, people living close to busy or hazardous roads, want to see traffic speeds calmed. Drivers on those roads, on the whole, want their principle of freedom to be m

Operators of public transport systems are arming themselves with sophisticated systems of technology to ward off terrorism threats to passenger safety. David Crawford reports. City transportation authorities worldwide are looking more keenly than ever for mass transit solutions to overcome traffic congestion and manage commuter flows. As they do so, concerns over passenger security are driving development of new technologies for terrorist incident detection, response and emergency passenger evacuation. The

Light is being shed on where the real return on investment is today – growing, tangible, revenue-generating markets like ITS. There is a great deal of investment going on within the ITS space, and a great deal of external interest in investing in ITS,” says Scott Belcher, President and CEO of ITS America, which has been connecting investors with technology firms ripe for investment. Interested parties include the leading investment banking firm Raymond James. Its managing director, Gary Downing says: “ITS i

The new Future Standards Forum will homogenise standards develop in the machine vision and partnering sectors. Here, machine vision industry experts discuss developments. By Jason Barnes At the Vision Show, which took place in Stuttgart at the beginning of November, the European Machine Vision Association, the US’s Automated Imaging Association and the Japan Industrial Imaging Association (JIIA) established a joint initiative, the Future Standards Forum (FSF). This, said the EMVA’s President Toni Ventura, a

The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and US Department of Transportation (USDOT) have launched the Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot Model Deployment in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The largest connected vehicle test undertaken, and a critical next step in the development of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. The pilot, a $22 million partnership between UMTRI and USDOT, is part of a joint research initiative led by the National Highway Traffic

Prospects for a vision of vehicles fully connected to traffic information, safety and entertainment services are being boosted by a $100 million investment from Intel. Pete Goldin reports. Hear the name Intel and what comes to mind is processing power. What may not be realised is that Intel is positioned to become a major player in the automotive technologies market, including connected vehicle technology. To strengthen this position, the company’s investment arm, Intel Capital, has established a $100 milli

Cost-benefit analysis invariably finds highly in favour of speed and red light enforcement, particularly so in Edmonton in the Alberta province of Canada, where authorities need no convincing of the merits of road safety engineering. Justification of enforcement efforts on economic grounds has been reinforced this year, by a study of the costs and benefits of red light enforcement. New York-based economic research firm John Dunham & Associates carried out this latest analysis for American Traffic Solutions

Cost-benefit analysis invariably finds highly in favour of speed and red light enforcement, particularly so in Edmonton in the Alberta province of Canada, where authorities need no convincing of the merits of road safety engineering. Justification of enforcement efforts on economic grounds has been reinforced this year, by a study of the costs and benefits of red light enforcement. New York-based economic research firm John Dunham & Associates carried out this latest analysis for American Traffic Solutions

Expansion of ITS systems has accelerated in Qatar this year, with rapid deployment of a traffic control system in Doha. Less than 10 years from now an extensive system of ITS technology will be operating in Qatar, informing and directing users of the country’s roads. That can be stated with confidence for a number of reasons: the world’s richest country per capita will host the World Cup in 2022 and is understood to be planning to develop sophisticated systems of ITS for road safety and traffic managemen

Established detection and monitoring technologies continue to evolve, but is it time to challenge their supremacy and take a serious look at less conventional ITS? Andy Graham considers the options with Jason Barnes. For ITS system providers, the most potentially lucrative markets over the next few years are going to be the BRIC (Brazil Russia India and China) group of countries, all of which are building many miles of new roads, applying tolling to existing ones (8,000km in China alone) and implementing w