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Early bird registration for ITS World Congress in Singapore is now open and runs until 19 August. Themed ‘Smart Mobility, Empowering Cities’, the 26th World Congress will offer a technical programme and demonstration showcase as well as technical tours that encompass a range of transport modes. Other themes include intelligent, connected and automated vehicles; crowdsourcing and big data analytics; sustainable smart cities; multimodal transport of people and goods; safety for drivers and vulnerable user

The new president of TISPOL, the network of European traffic police forces, has insisted that rules around traffic safety must be harmonised across the continent. "I believe a simplification of regulations is necessary,” says Volker Orben, whose appointment was confirmed at a TISPOL council meeting in Prague. “I will make this a priority when I am working with EU experts and other organisations for traffic safety.” Orben, from the ministry of the interior and sports in Germany's Rhineland-Palatine reg

Kapsch TrafficCom is working with local partner Evocon to provide its urban mobility management solution EcoTrafix to the city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. EcoTrafix is a software suite which gathers all traffic data into a real-time dynamic visualisation which, Kapsch says, allows operators to further optimise traffic. The €18 million contract is with the local authority, Instituto Nacional de Tránsito y Transporte Terrestre, and includes a 17-month period for the implementation of ne

Traffic management and enforcement specialist Videalert has launched an electric mobile enforcement bike. The BMW C Evolution e-scooter will enable councils “to enforce a wide range of moving traffic, parking and clean air zone contraventions whilst demonstrating their commitment to reducing emissions”, Videalert says. The company points out that other bike brands can be used “if required” but the BMW has a range of up to 160km plus intelligent energy recuperation when braking and accelerating. I

Lyft is to invest at least $50 million of profits to local transportation initiatives in the US as part of a commitment called Lyft City Works. Starting in Los Angeles, Lyft – which has just begun life on the stock market - says it will support local groups by providing transportation, developing transportation infrastructure and creating clean energy. The company is partnering with mayor Eric Garcetti’s A Bridge Home programme which seeks to tackle homelessness. Lyft will provide transportation to

Lime has launched 100 electric scooters in the Brookline area of Boston, US. It hopes the roll-out will help change current legislation which prohibits electric scooters from operating in Massachusetts. Brookline sits on the border of several Boston neighbourhoods including Fenway-Kenmore and is home to around 6,000 residents. The project comes hot on the heels of Boston city council’s vote to create new guidelines for electric scooters, which - according to Lime - is an indication that the city is

ITS (UK) has developed a ‘Scale of connections for co-operation of connected vehicles’ to help people understand how connected their vehicles are. It mirrors the existing scale for automated vehicles, the SAE international standard, which goes from Level 1 (driver assistance required) to Level 5 (fully autonomous). The ITS (UK) scale, developed by the group’s Connected and Automated Vehicles (C/AV) Forum and supported by the Department for Transport and Highways England, uses letters instead. “Currently a

Private ride-hailing giant Uber, which is aiming to follow rival Lyft in becoming a public company this year, has warned that it may never be profitable. The candid admission comes in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Uber prepares for an initial public offering (IPO) which it reportedly hopes will value the company at $100 billion. This potential IPO figure is some way below the $120bn predicted by analysts just last year. And Uber warns: “We have incurred significant loss

Flowbird has deployed touchscreen terminals at three park and ride sites in the UK city of Durham, allowing users to pay for multiple tickets in a single transaction. The company says its Cale Web Terminal Touch product, installed by scheme operator NSL, is reducing queues at Belmont, Howlands Farm and Sniperley sites. The terminals, installed by scheme operator NSL, allow users to pay via coin, credit/debit card as well as Apple Pay and the Android equivalent. The system’s back office allows us

Daimler Trucks has acquired a majority stake in Torc Robotics in a bid to commercialise highly automated trucks operating at SAE Level 4 on US roads. Roger Nielsen, CEO of Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), says: “Torc’s Level 4 system has been shown to operate well for both urban and highway driving in rain, snow, fog, and sunshine.” Martin Daum, member of the board of management at Daimler, says the deal will combine the company’s truck hardware with Torc’s “agile software development”. Torc i

New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio has signed an executive order to reduce the city’s on-road public sector vehicle fleet. The move is part of a commitment to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. The city will remove 1,000 vehicles from its fleet by June 2021 and reduce the number of take-home vehicles by at least 500. Additionally, it will replace at least 350 SUVs with electric plug-in sedans and promote greater vehicle efficiency by using advanced data collection. “Eliminating unnecessary vehicles fro

Serco has signed a two-year extension with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to continue operating and maintaining Dubai Metro until September 2021. HE Mattar Al Tayer, director general and chairman of the board of executive directors of the RTA, says: “Serco has delivered operational performance levels on the Dubai Metro with a high train service availability of 99.9% and a punctuality of 99.8%, achieving a record of 204 million journeys in 2018.” The £140m contract includes the operation

Telensa is to deploy its Planet intelligent street lighting system as part of an upgrade project in the city of Palmerston, Australia. Athina Pascoe-Bell, Palmerston mayor, says: “Telensa’s smart technology will improve our street lighting service, save money and provide a platform for future smart city innovations.” The city, in Australia’s Northern Territory, will replace 5,000 streetlights with wirelessly connected LEDs, controlled by Telensa’s central management system hosted by Amazon Web Services

Jaguar Land Rover is using PTV’s Vissim, a multi-modal microsimulation tool to simulate and test connected and automated vehicle (C/AV) concepts. Vissim can be used for the modelling of multi-modal urban or motorway networks and for testing the design and feasibility of transport infrastructure projects. It can also be used by researchers, vehicle manufacturers, transport planners, traffic engineers and public authorities to help design future transport systems, testing the impact of C/AVs on road network

German technology group ZF Friedrichshafen is to acquire Wabco, a supplier of braking control systems for commercial vehicles. ZF says commercial vehicle braking solutions are central for the control of automated driving functions such as emergency braking manoeuvres of trucks and trailers. Wolf-Henning Scheider, CEO of ZF, says the deal will help “create a foundation” for the company to offer systems for automated mobility solutions for passengers and goods. ZF expects that automated driv