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.”
Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) is in the driver's seat for driverless vehicle innovation. SWRI's latest autonomous vehicle model, an upgraded Polaris MRZR, is parked on the show floor at ITS America, and it is ready for action, literally. The latest SWRI intelligent vehicle systems are being tested by the US military.
Deutsche Telekom is within months of moving into full-scale operation of its new-generation contactless payment kiosks as it tests the technology with initial users. Pilot schemes are already underway for two versions of its MyWallet Kiosk system, Compact and Flexible. Compact processes any card, including those with PIN entry, while Flexible is optimised for payment schemes with contactless or EMV chip and no PIN entry.
Castel is at Intertraffic showing off its new full IP/SIP audio video intercom kit. The firm says it allows a single network cable to manage audio, video and data flow, or PoE power supply in car parks.
Belgian company Graco, a specialist in advanced airless striping solutions, will be at Intertraffic Amsterdam 2014 to launch the LineLazer IV 250DC, which the company says is the first stand-on self-propelled striper in the market for multi-colour road markings. Modularity is one of its main advantages. A complete pressurised bead system can be added to the unit to achieve ultimate retroreflection, while the unit can also be expanded with bead tanks, bead guns and spray guns, providing more capacity and the
