As visitors to the Q-Free booth at the ITS World Congress Detroit will see, the company has transformed its portfolio, shifting from a predominant focus on tolling to cover all aspects of road operations – financing, condition monitoring, real-time management and emerging cooperative ITS applications.
September 7, 2014
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Transforming the portfolio: Jenny Simonsen of Q-Free
As visitors to the 108 Q-Free booth at the ITS World Congress Detroit will see, the company has transformed its portfolio, shifting from a predominant focus on tolling to cover all aspects of road operations – financing, condition monitoring, real-time management and emerging cooperative ITS applications.
With the event being staged in Detroit, it provides Q-Free with an opportunity to highlight its appreciable presence in the North American market. Recently it acquired 5660 Open Roads Consulting, a specialist in advanced transportation management and traveller information systems that operates mission-critical traffic systems and undertakes video-based surveillance of critical assets in 30 states across the US.
Previously, Q-Free bought 7045 TCS International, a US-based, international supplier of advanced parking guidance systems. Meanwhile, Dacolian USA, another Q-Free group company, is North America’s major supplier of automatic number plate recognition and vehicle signature recognition image processing software.
Nevertheless, says Thomas Falck, CEO, these developments have to be considered in an international context: “The North American region will play an increasing part in our future but it is the international nature of our business which remains one of our core strengths. We will be keen to demonstrate at the 6456 ITS World Congress that with offices around the world, we have a huge range of talent and experience on which to draw. This means we can create solutions which benefit from the best of global practice but which, nevertheless, are closely tailored to local needs.”
An innovative intelligent bicycle parking system has been named the overall winner of the 2014 Intertraffic Innovation Awards. Entered by HR Groep Traffic & Signing, the MB Track & Trace system - which is being trialed in Rotterdam – also won the Smart Mobility section and beat off the other category winners (ITS/Traffic Management; Parking; Safety; and Infrastructure) to claim the award.
Four leaders in the transportation technology industry were inducted in the ITS America Hall of Fame during an awards ceremony at the 22nd meeting and exposition. Former House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar and Gerald Conover, who previously advocated for ITS at Ford, were on hand to receive the honors.
Econolite comes to this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting with new above ground detection technology for intersection applications – the recently announced Autoscope Duo. “This new class of hybrid vehicle detection combines radar and video together,” said Econolite group president & CEO David St. Amant. “It appeals to agencies searching for a cost-effective, non-intrusive detection solution. Moreover, Autoscope Duo represents a low-risk path to achieving multi-tasking ITS goals.”
ComNet, a manufacturer of fiber optic transmission and networking equipment, is showcasing its latest five-port Ethernet switch on the showroom floor at ITS America. Designed to include proprietary self-managing technology, the switch requires no user intervention and is pre-programmed to avoid flooding the network.
