Location Based Systems

Canadian researchers Olivier Quirion-Blais, Martin Trépanier and André Langevin have developed an algorithm to determine the most efficient routes for snow ploughs and gritters. Snow plough routing has always been something of a ‘black art’: to direct a fleet of show plough to clear priority roads without having the same road cleared several times while others are left untreated. Increasingly, GPS is being used to track the routes the clearing vehicles have taken but until now it has not been possible to ta

Robert Poole, co-founder of the Reason Foundation, has worked on transportation policy for more than three decades and is an influential voice on tolling, congestion pricing and infrastructure finance. Writing in his monthly newsletter (link http://reason.org/news/show/surface-transportation-news-131) he voices his scepticism of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology which may one day allow cars to communicate with each other and with traffic infrastructure to avoid colli

Australian telematics solutions provider Intelematics took advantage of the ITS World Congress to announce a major network expansion of its real-time traffic service. In one of the Southern Hemisphere's largest service rollouts, Intelematics will add more than 45,000 square miles (72,500 square kilometres) to the SUNA traffic channel’s RDS-TMC network by December 2014. The network's coverage footprint will be expanded by more than 80 per cent and be available to more than 17.5 million Australian motor

Findings of a Jordanian Customs’ trial of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (E-GNSS) and EGNOS (the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service which corrects GNSS errors to improve accuracy and security) are to be presented at a special event in Amman. The trial evaluated the system for tracking and tracing containers shipped across the Mediterranean Sea and the vehicles transporting the goods in Jordan.

The technology exists to make self-driving cars an emerging reality in the next three to five years - if the country will build the infrastructure and the government will issue the necessary rules, the CEO of wireless communications company Verizon told the Detroit Economic Club on Monday. His comments, reported by the Detroit News, came the day after the announcement that Michigan will install cameras and sensors along 120 miles of Detroit freeways to connect cars wirelessly to highways and each other.

Iteris has joined the University of Michigan as one of 13 companies that includes Denso, Delphi, Econolite, Ford, GM, Nissan, Verizon and Toyota as a founding partner in its Mobility Transformation Center (MTC). The MTC will initiate and execute multiple research programs to advance the technology and policies surrounding new methods of transportation relating to smart vehicles and infrastructure. Iteris plans to collaborate with MTC and the select group of companies to guide the selection of specific re

Xerox joins a select group of companies, including Econolite, Iteris, Delphi, Denso, Bosch, Honda, Nissan, Toyota and General Motors, which will be the founding partners in the University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center (MTC). Spanning such sectors as auto manufacturing, suppliers, ITS, insurance, telecommunications, data management, and mobility services, the MTC’s Leadership Circle will join with government and academic partners to lay the foundations for a commercially viable system of co

According to a new research report by Berg Insight, shipments of OEM embedded telematics systems worldwide are forecasted to grow from 8.4 million units in 2013 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.6 per cent to reach 54.5 million units in 2020. Moreover, Berg Insight forecasts that the number of cars sold worldwide equipped with head-units featuring handset-based telematics capabilities will grow from 7 million in 2013 to 68.5 million in 2020.

The next USDOT connected vehicle pilot deployment program webinar, Communications and role of DSRC, will take place on 19 September at 1100-1200 EST. The program seeks to combine connected vehicle and mobile device technologies in innovative and cost-effective ways. Ultimately, this program will improve traveller mobility and system productivity while reducing environmental impacts and enhancing safety. The USDOT anticipates a procurement action for multiple pilot deployment concepts in 2015.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) has launched its I-94 truck parking information and management system (TPIMS), a system that assesses truck parking availability along the I-94 corridor in southwest Michigan and delivers real-time parking availability information to truck drivers. The project is federally funded under the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Truck Parking Facilities Discretionary Grants Program.