News

Highways England is leading a project to establish a high tech corridor on the A2/M2 in Kent which will allow specially-equipped vehicles to interact with roadside infrastructure. As part of the initiative, Highways England hosted a week-long Testfest event in Chatham, Kent, this week, showing how test vehicles receive information on road conditions, road works and the time left for traffic lights to change to green via a wireless network. Jo White, head of Highways England’s intelligent transport system

Here Technologies says its cloud management service will make it easier for developers and map makers to manage location data. The Here XYZ, available in Beta, provides map makers and developers of location-aware applications with access to uploaded data, rendering tools and cloud services to share their locations, the company adds. The solution allows developers to access the XYZ Hub API where they can upload location datasets and edit them via the Command Line Interface. ‘Casual’ mappers can also use

Electromobility trade association AVERE has slammed a key European Union Council position on future CO2 emissions in cars. AVERE says the stance agreed this week by EU environment ministers “falls short in providing the e-mobility sector with right signals to support the e-mobility transition”. The Council has suggested that cars should put out 35% less CO2 by 2030 compared to 2020 – but just last week MEPs called for a 40% cut. This means that EU states have chosen “to support and prop up old business m

Cam2vision has launched a camera which it describes as an ‘all in one’ hardware solution to carry out the whole automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) process. The Embedded ANPR Karabin consists of colour and IR cameras, electronic boards which carry out image processing and a lighting system for specific plate imaging, the company adds. Karabin also features violation records for speed, traffic zone entrance and red lights. According to Cam2vision, the camera also comes with a heavy vehicles traffic

US authorities have signalled that voluntary – rather than compulsory – standards will be the way forward to integrate automated vehicles (AVs) into the country’s transport system. The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has issued new AV guidance but warns that the new document - Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0 (AV 3.0) - does not replace the voluntary guidance it provided in Automated Driving Systems 2.0: A Vision for Safety. “The safe integration of automated

Spanish firm Ficosa has pulled back the curtain on its new centre for developing electromobility solutions. The €10 million, 1,200-m2 ‘e-mobility hub’ near Barcelona in Spain, currently contains four new labs and will be the location for developing and manufacturing software and hardware solutions for hybrid and electric vehicles, specifically battery-management systems and on-board chargers. It is home to 120 engineers, and the company says it will take on 100 more in 2019, as well as adding a new

Vietnamese ride-hailing company FastGo intends to expand its service to Indonesia and Myanmar by the end of the year. In a report from Việt Nam News, Nguyễn Hữu Tuất, FastGo’s CEO, says the company expects to occupy a 30% market share in Indonesia and take second place after Grab in Myanmar. The company aims to raise US$50 million in a new round of funding to help accelerate regional expansion, Tuất adds. According to Tuất: “We chose Myanmar and Indonesia as we have relevant strategies for them in place.

Transport company ComfortDelGro is trialling MaaS Global’s Whim app in Singapore. The Finnish mobility company secured a €9m funding round for the app in August to support its ambition in revolutionising the way people move. ComfortDelGro says the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) app’s users will be able to access its fleet of taxis as well as transition from a train or a bus or choose to finish the trip on a bicycle. Kaj Pyyhtiä, MaaS Global co-founder, says the company will use the initiative to enter

The Australian government and the US state of Michigan have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop vehicle and road systems to help improve road safety. Michael McCormack, deputy prime minister and minister for infrastructure, transport and regional development, says the agreement is part of a strategy to position Australia for safer roads through automated and connected vehicles. “This is just one way the government is promoting safer vehicles on safer roads, including for our region

CAVita, a subsidiary of Econolite which focuses on connected and autonomous vehicles, has appointed Barry Einsig as principal. Abbas Mohaddes, Econolite president and chief operating officer, says: “Working closely with various levels of governments, automakers, and broad enabling technologies, Barry brings exceptional expertise that will be invaluable to CAVita’s clients.” Einsig was previously an executive at Cisco Systems, where he was responsible for global automotive and transportation solution

The Gulf Traffic exhibition and conference has signed its first strategic partnership with the Saudi Transport Ministry (TM). Saudi Arabia has recently announced a $453 million infrastructure project to extend 23 roads across the country. “As we progress with our plan for the private sector to operate much of the kingdom's future transport infrastructure, being part of international platforms, such as Gulf Traffic in Dubai, will give us access to the transport suppliers needed to drive this strategy,” s

Two public transit associations are to cooperate on training around electric buses and new mobility services as part of a new agreement. The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) and the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) have signed a memorandum of understanding which will see them identifying training programmes on other issues going forward. UITP and APTA said they would work together, “where possible, to organise joint events on topics of common interest to the benefit of

Ride-hailing companies could be taxed for starting their journeys in San Francisco following a bill signed by California governor Jerry Brown. The bill - AB 1184 - calls for a 3.25% tax on net rider fares for single-party trips, or those provided by an autonomous vehicle, as well as a 3.25% tax on shared rides. Additionally, the city or county would be able to set a lower tax rate for net rider fares for those provided by a lower emission vehicle. A report by the San Francisco Chronicle says the

Car-share platform Car2go will launch in Paris in January 2019. The Daimler-owned company will start with 400 electric Smart EQ fortwo cars and says it expects to operate several hundred more in the French capital over the course of next year. “Paris offers ideal conditions for our free-floating car-sharing principle. I’m certain that Paris will become a very successful Car2go location,” says Car2go CEO Olivier Repper. Car2go’s service also has fully-electric fleets in three other European cities:

Nearly a quarter of UK millennials would forgo buying a car and are likely to subscribe to a car-as-a-service scheme within the next year, according to new research. The study by cloud software subscription service Zuora states UK millennials are ‘key drivers’ for the ‘subscription economy’, with 73% looking to increase subscription use over the next two years. Zuora’s A Nation Subscribed research involved 2,000 consumers and was carried out by YouGov. It shows 77% of 16-24 year olds and 85% of 25-34