Networking & Communication Systems

The problem of finding a parking space in the most important parking facility in the German city of Dillingen has been solved, thanks to a wireless parking sensor system developed by Dutch technology company Nedap. The car park, with both private and public spaces, is located in an inner courtyard and not visible from the main access road, resulting in visitors continuously searching for a free parking space.

Clearview Traffic Group is entering the smart parking market with a range of solutions designed to maximise the effective use of existing parking capacity. The company has launched the M300, its first smart parking product, with others scheduled for later in the year, for both on and off-street parking in a wide range of applications including: retail and lorry parks; motorway service areas; multi-storey car parks; zone signing and dynamic parking charging; taxi ranks and loading bays.

Danish technology company Blip Systems and Aventi Technology are to partner in a venture designed to expand the BlipTrack tracking solution into the Norwegian market.

A new app that integrates real-time arrival information for Ireland’s national travel services all in one place, the Real Time Ireland app, is now available for free, for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The Real Time Ireland app shows combined transport updates from Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Luas, DART and Irish Rail and allows users to set alerts to inform them when their bus is ten minutes, twenty minutes or thirty minutes away from a certain bus stop. For GPS-enabled devices, it can also inform users w

More cameras and sensors are to be installed in Chesapeake, Virginia, in an effort to prevent traffic bottlenecks throughout the city. The city won a US$2 million federal grant to update the traffic management centre (TMC). The plan calls for adding about twenty cameras at key intersections, together with additional traffic sensors at intersections to aid the timing of traffic signals. Several intersections on main roads are already linked by wireless communication. The TMC serves as the command and control

TrafficLand, US supplier of live traffic video has launched Broadcast 4.0, a new service for TV station news operations to customise content for on-air traffic and weather reporting. TrafficLand Broadcast 4.0 geo-locates real-time video from Department of Transportation cameras on Google Maps with traffic flow-data. Developed for the Apple iPad platform by TrafficLand and its development partner CLO Software, the application enables news producers and reporters to monitor local road conditions and quickly p

Volvo Car Group has developed what it claims is an ingenious concept for autonomous parking. The concept car finds and parks in a vacant space by itself, without the driver inside. The smart, driverless car also interacts safely and smoothly with other cars and pedestrians in the car park. Vehicle 2 Infrastructure technology informs the driver when the service is available. The driver uses a mobile phone application to activate the autonomous parking system and then leaves the car. The vehicle uses sensors

The challenging issue of revenue collection was under discussion at the 2013 Australian National Electronic Tolling Committee (NeTC) Forum hosted in Brisbane in May by ITS Australia. ITS Australia chief executive officer Susan Harris said the collection debate focused on ways to educate customers about the rationale for charges, payment processes and tactics to avoid repeat deliberate non-payers. The Forum provided an opportunity for industry and government to explore case studies about the costs of process

Technology developed by Melbourne’s La Trobe University’s Centre for Technology Infusion that aims to reduce or even eliminate accidents at railway level crossings is to be trialled by the Queensland government as part of a $2 million commitment to address safety at rail crossings. The system uses GPS and dedicated short range communications (DSRC) wireless technology to establish a wireless connection between trains and vehicles approaching a railway crossing. The system is designed to detect the possibili

A trial using wireless communications technology to deliver real-time traffic information has been launched by New Zealand’s Ministry of Transport and ITS consultants AraFlow. The Co-operative Intelligent Transport Systems trial will investigate whether providing accurate real-time information about traffic conditions to participating commercial transport operators improves the productivity of freight movements. Ministry of Transport Chief Executive Martin Matthews says “We are testing whether this informat