Features

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

A marriage of transit, technology and culture is taking shape in Minneapolis, with ITS systems vital to hopes for a sustainable development centred on a hub of public transportation. Construction started in July this year on ‘The Interchange’ – a station in the Midwest US city of Minneapolis claimed as the most spectacular expression yet of the fast-spreading North American concept of transit-oriented development (TOD). Due for completion in 2014, the Interchange is designed as a multi-modal public transpor

In the UK, the necessary radio spectrum has been identified and standardised technology developed to allow cost effective wireless communication between cars, devices and other ‘machines’. This by Professor William Webb. A world free of traffic congestion, with intelligent systems directing vehicles and alerting drivers to free parking spaces may sound a far off fantasy to motorists stuck in seemingly endless queues on the outskirts of London. Yet this is a scenario not confined to the world of science fict

Nick Lanigan, managing director of Clearview Traffic, considers the current outlook in the ITS sector from an SME's perspective. Interview with Jason Barnes. When times are hard, businesses can invest or cut. Either way, they need guidance from customers – governments – on where best to concentrate their efforts. Prolonged economic slowdown is currently an issue. A short recession, however sharp, would have left many industry players able to ride the bow-wave of governments’ multi-year spending on strategic

SQLstream’s Ronnie Beggs discusses with Jason Barnes the potential and pitfalls of using social media for traffic monitoring and management. cataclysmic events such as hurricanes and tsunami have challenged perceptions of what constitutes robust traffic management infrastructure in recent times. Presumptions that only fixed systems could offer high levels of unbroken service, accuracy and communication bandwidth, have been taught some hard lessons by nature. In many respects wireless systems now represent t

Pete Goldin reports on a new Egis project in Canada, providing open road tolling operations for the widest bridge in the world. A bridge can present a bottleneck in a system of roads or it can support the smooth and unobstructed flow of traffic. Much depends on the bridge design, surrounding infrastructure and tolling system. By adding lanes and deploying open road tolling (ORT), the new Port Mann Bridge located in the metropolitan Vancouver area in British Columbia, will alleviate congestion at one of the

An ambitious programme of new and upgraded interoperable toll systems has been launched in India, featuring far-reaching technology developments. David Crawford reports. In April this year, Indian Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways CP Joshi inaugurated a new era of electronic toll collection (ETC) in India when he unveiled the country’s first RFID-based tolling installation. This was at a recently-completed plaza at Chandimandir, near the city of Panchkula in the northern state of Haryana. The sys

Grand plans have been announced for transport investment in India aimed at boosting city economies. India’s Government Secretary for Urban Development Sudhir Krishna explains all to Jason Barnes. There are many reasons for developed countries’ high levels of urbanisation, not least of which is that the types of employment to be found in towns and cities tend to generate relatively greater wealth and so make greater contributions to a country’s economy. That creates the imperative for developing nations to f

Long-time industry leader John Worthington reflects on where transportation in the US is heading – and where it should be going. Interview with Jason Barnes. The US’s new transportation bill reflects much of what is wrong in the sector in general and in ITS in particular, according to John Worthington. While a decision is welcome, he says, it does little more than provide certainty of funding for anything other than day-to-day operations. Worthington, former Chairman and CEO of TransCore, is back in the ITS

On behalf of ITS America, Paul Feenstra maps out implications and opportunities for the ITS industry. A critical milestone was reached last month when the US Congress passed, and President Obama signed, legislation reauthorising the nation’s surface transportation programmes, breaking a nearly three-year log-jam which had stymied critical transportation reforms and delayed much-needed infrastructure projects. The law, numbered P.L. 112-141 but known as MAP-21 (Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century),

Lee County in Florida has consolidated dramatic results of a major traffic signal retiming with installation of advanced monitoring and management technology for generating further benefits. The Lee County Department of Transportation (DOT), in the US State of Florida, has completed retiming of traffic signals for over 50 intersections in the cities of Fort Myers and Bonita Springs. The project aimed to evaluate existing operations and enable adjustments to optimise flows, and has produced dramatic results

After much debate and delay, a unifying European Electronic Toll Service is now finally on the horizon, says ASFiNAG’s Klaus Schierhackl. Here, he talks with Jason Barnes about what that might mean. Aworkable European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) which will allow truck drivers to travel across the continent and pay tolls using a single account and OnBoard Unit (OBU) was originally timetabled to be in place and operating by October of this year. A lack of urgency from some of the stakeholders involved in t