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Jump, an Uber bike-rental company, has upgraded its electric bikes to include swappable batteries which it says can be changed within a few minutes. Riders can use a front dashboard underneath the handlebars to unlock the bike as well as a phone mount for easier navigation. The bikes now feature a retractable cable lock to offer riders more flexibility when locking a bike to a rack or structure, the company adds. Last year, Uber announced its plans to launch its Jump bikes in Seattle as part of a stra

Vietnamese firm FastGo has launched its ride-hailing, delivery and catering services in Myanmar as part of a strategy to grow its business in 2019. A report by The Saigon Times says the company intends to attract two million users and 100,000 driver-partners this year in Myanmar’s major cities and provinces. In the coming years, FastGo is expected to form partnerships in Myanmar and Vietnam to help make its services and products more popular. In October 2018, FastGo announced its plans to enter Myanmar

Keolis has launched a free electric autonomous shuttle service at the University of Lille in France which is operating on open public roads for one year. Two Navya shuttles are running on a 1.4km route in Villeneuve d'Ascq, northern France, which includes four dedicated stops from Monday to Friday. These vehicles will also provide connections to two the Cité Scientifique’ and 4 Cantons Stade Pierre Mauroy metro stations. This trial was realised through an agreement with the European Metropole of Lille.

Cubic has acquired US technology company Gridsmart Technologies in an $87 million deal and will use its video tracking solution to help reduce congestion. Gridsmart’s Bell Camera offers horizon to horizon tracking with a fisheye lens for intersection actuation, data collection and situational awareness. The solution is also expected to track vehicle trajectory from approach through the centre of the intersection to exit. The acquisition will also help advance Cubic’s NextCity vision of creating a smarte

Dutch identification technology company Nedap has launched two more cameras for its automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) platform. The advanced ANPR Lumo can be applied in challenging vehicular access control applications, including in regions with license plates that include different font formats. The ANPR Access V2 is the successor of Nedap’s ANPR Access, offering better performance while being fully compatible with existing installations, says the company. Both new cameras easily integrate

US engineering services firm Parsons has promoted Thomas Topolski executive vice president, infrastructure business development to help extend the company’s infrastructure portfolio while also leading proposal operations. In his new role, Topolski will be based at the company’s Centreville office in Virginia and report to Carey Smith, Parsons’ chief operating officer. Smith says Topolski has more than 30 years of experience in strategy, business development and operations for infrastructure companie

Gojek to expand ride-hailing service across Singapore

Volvo Trucks puts its first commercial autonomous vehicles into action

RoadBotics has been chosen to use their machine-learning technology to assess the city of Detroit’s entire 4,185km road network. The company will work with PlanetM, a Michigan state networking partnership of mobility organisations, educational institutions, research and development groups and government agencies working together in the automotive sector. RoadBotics will provide Detroit transportation officials with its standard Artificial Intelligence pavement assessment as well as a new AI Maintenanc

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) in Hawaii is trialing Holo Card, an account-based electronic fare system from Init, over a three-month period. It will then be made available on all buses owned by Oahu Transit Services. The e-fare system will allow passengers using Oahu’s TheBus service to load passes or add value via their mobile device on route to board a bus or by visiting a local retail outlet. This project stems from an agreement with the City and County of Honolulu Department

International Road Dynamics (IRD) is to install its Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) sorting system to protect road infrastructure in the US state of South Dakota. The $1.3 million deal is part of a wider ambition from the South Dakota Department of Transportation to deploy more WIM systems throughout the state. The Port of Entry Commercial Vehicle WIM Sorting System is scheduled to be operational by December 2019 at the Valley Springs Port of Entry on Interstate 90 east of Sioux Falls. It is expected to weigh all

Time is running out for submissions to the ITS European Congress in Brainport, Netherlands, in June. ITS experts have until 11 January to submit special interest Sessions proposals and papers to be considered for presentation and publication at the event. Experts are invited to share ideas and discuss mobility challenges that cities face and how they can be addressed through ITS solutions. Draft papers should be a minimum of five pages for technical and commercial topics, and nine pages for scient

The US Department of Transportation (USDoT) is seeking public comment on how Vehicle to Everything (V2X) technology should be integrated into the transport environment. The organisation says it intends to maintain the priority use of 5.9Ghz spectrum for transportation safety communications. It points out that the automotive industry and local authorities “are already deploying V2X technology and actively utilising all seven channels of the 5.9 GHz band” and says that technology such as Cellular-V2X (C-V2

London could reduce congestion by emulating New York when it comes to open data, claims technology firm Karhoo. New York has publicly-available anonymised TPEP/LPEP75 data which allowed Karhoo to assess the impact of taxi and private hire (PH) movements on traffic flow, congestion and pollution, the company says. It adds that if Transport for London (TfL) were to follow suit, it “would be quick and relatively low-cost given that almost every licenced vehicle is connected to tracking systems already”. Tf

Init has opened a development centre in Ireland to develop software for ticketing systems and field devices. Currently, eight employees are working at the facility located in the town of Maynooth, Kildare. Future plans include the creation of 20 additional jobs. Matthias Kühn, director of Init Ireland, says: “This also is an opportunity to improve the service for our existing customers in Ireland.” Init has completed projects in Ireland which include the delivery of an integrated ITS solution to help D