The US state of Virginia has radically changed which cars are eligible to use high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.
October 28, 2019
Read time: 1 min
Most of the 16,000 vehicles which carry clean special fuel number plates can no longer use HOV lanes without three or more occupants (HOV 3+).
The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles says:
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/#cleanspecialfuel.asp plug-in and electric vehicles such as the Audi A3 e-tron and BMW i3 Sedan still qualify for the privilege.
Additionally, the 1747 Virginia Department of Transportation is to convert HOV lanes on Interstate 395 in northern Virginia to 8217 Express lanes in a move which will require all vehicles except motorcycles and buses to have a properly mounted E-ZPass or E-ZPass Flex. Vehicles bearing a clean special number plate can access the 8217 Express Lanes with a standard E-ZPass or can travel toll-free with an E-ZPass Flex if they meet the HOV 3+ requirement.
E-ZPass and E-ZPass Flex transponders are available at:
https://www.ezpassva.com and at https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/general/#mobileoperations.htmlDMV customer service centres. In addition, E-Z Pass On the Go may be obtained at DMV 2 Go mobile customer service centres.
Virginia Department of Transportation (VDoT) has launched of E-ZPass Flex, a new E-ZPass transponder able to switch between toll-free and toll-paying travel on the 495 Express Lanes scheduled to open by the end of this year. Because these lanes are an all-electronic tolling facility, every vehicle using them will need an E-ZPass transponder. And, though every standard E-ZPass transponder will work in the Express Lanes, only the E-ZPass Flex transponder enables drivers to use a manual switch on the transpond
German urban air taxi manufacturer Volocopter has signed a deal with Honeywell to jointly develop new navigation and automatic landing systems.
They will be used on Volocopter’s vertical take-off and landing aircraft - perhaps as early as this year, the companies suggest.
“A key goal of our collaboration is to fly a Honeywell inertial measurement-based attitude reference system solution in one of our Volocopters in 2019,” says Jan Hendrik Boelens, chief technology officer, Volocopter.
Urban air mob
France-headquartered CS ITS will use the ITS World Congress to highlight its tolling technology including FastFlow, a dedicated solution for addressing congestion charging, HOT/HOV lanes, ORT, AET and truck tolling projects. Also being highlighted is FastLane, designed to enhance toll collection rates and speed up traffic flow at the toll booth. The system includes manual, automated, ETC and Fast ETC lanes equipped with the most advanced automatic payments machines, optical classification systems, ETC beaco
