News

2,000 Washington-based volunteers are taking part in an Emovis project which will replace the gas tax with a pay-per-mile travelled charge. The results of the year-long trial will help shape the state’s future transportation funding policy. Called the Washington Road User Charge Pilot Project, it will also test multi-jurisdictional charging by relying on the location-aware capabilities of on-board mileage recording devices. The simulated charges applied to trips will vary depending on the location of each

Commuters in the US state of Maine travel 9.8 miles to work on a daily basis, a 72% longer journey than the 5.7-mile median commute in Wyoming, according to the latest report by StreetLight Data. The transportation analytics company conducted its study on nearly 30,000 ZIP codes in areas with over 1,000 residents as part of a strategy to help encourage businesses and governments to start fixing the accessibility gap. The inquiry also highlighted the longest and shortest commutes in each state by ZIP cod

Winners of the ITS (UK) Apprentice Essay have collected their awards from the Society’s president Steven Norris, at a ceremony in London. The competition set out to encourage and recognise talent in the next generation of transport professionals. Dan Johnson, apprentice transport planning technician at the Suffolk County Council and Leeds College of Building, won the award with his driverless vehicle essay Chummy Saves Christmas, based on the children’s TV show Brum. Joel Shevlin, apprentice transport

Members of the public are invited to trial a fleet of driverless pods operating on a 3.4km route around Greenwich Peninsula as part of the £100m ($139m) Gateway project’s final phase. The pilot aims to understand the public acceptance of, and attitudes towards, driverless vehicles. The four pods will use advanced sensors and autonomy software to detect and avoid obstacles while carrying passengers. The vehicles, developed by Westfield Sportscars and Heathrow Enterprises, have no steering wheels or typical

The London Borough of Newham has installed Videalert’s CCTV-based system to provide unattended enforcement of bus lanes and moving traffic contraventions with a focus on box junctions. The open network video interface forum Profile S certified digital high definition cameras and processing units are based at 22 locations that have high levels of driver non-compliance. Newham has also invested in additional data storage capacity to accommodate future system expansion at other sites that need enforcement

The US Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and National Parking Association have agreed to work together on updating their respective Parking Generation Manual and Shared Parking tools, last revised in 2010 and 2009. Fresh analyses in the former will differentiate levels of demand in rural, general urban/suburban, dense multi-use urban and core city centre locations, said ITE CEO Jeffrey F Paniati

Cross-border C-ITS-enabled roads (C-roads) will start becoming a reality in 2019, with safety as the driver, according to AustriaTech/ITS Austria's Martin Bohm. He made the comment during a recent Brussels workshop run by the European ITS and C-roads platforms to assess results of road corridor pilots. The latter is a joint initiative by EU member states and road operators to test and implement C-ITS services for universal harmonisation and interoperability. We can, he continued, deploy systems

Telensa will assess the potential quality-of-life and economic benefits of a range of smart city technologies in partnership with Essex County Council (ECC) and Hertfordshire County Council. The potential to monitor issues remotely, according to Ian Grundy, ECC cabinet member for highways, will save taxpayers money and help fix issues before they become a problem. Both councils are now assessing the suitability of three sites in Hertfordshire and Essex towns for a two-month pilot in March. The smart

Q-Free will supply tags to The Expressway Authority of Thailand in a contract valued approximately ฿68m (£1.5m). Håkon Volldal, CEO of Q-Free, said: “This order confirms the high technical performance of Q-Free’s tags and our ability to supply significant volumes on short notice.”

UK-based The Traffic Group (TTG) has acquired supplier of automatic number plate recognition cameras Mav systems (Mav) to provide a more extensive range of traffic solutions. It will also extend Mav’s international partners with a broader product portfolio from other TTG companies and present opportunities to cross-sell their market solutions to new regions. Steve Walker, co-founder and managing director of Mav, said: “In joining forces with TTG we are already seeing opportunities to develop enhanced pro

Proterra has ordered 57 Veefil-RT DC 50kW fast chargers from Australia-based Tritium to power its Catalyst buses. The agreement is intended to help support the expansion of US manufacturer in the transportation market. After trialing the chargers, Tritium has collaborated with Proterra to provide a series of modifications to the software to meet the company’s requirements. Matt Horton, chief commercial officer at Proterra, said: “We aim to partner with like-minded companies. Proterra needed to resource

Goodyear has exhibited the latest advances on its intelligent tyre prototype at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show. The shared mobility product is designed with the intention of providing continuous connectivity and real-time data sharing for safer and more cost-efficient mobility. The solution is an information system that includes a tyre, sensors and cloud-based algorithms. The sensors work with the vehicle and third-party information to provide real-time data to Goodyear’s proprietary algorithms.

UK-based health and care organisation Provide has adopted Spark EV’s artificial intelligence-based technology with the intention of removing range anxiety for drivers in its electric vehicle (EV) fleet rollout. The technology is said to enable the cars to complete 20% more journeys between charges. Called Spark, the system collects live driver, vehicle and other data sources through an in-car sensor. It uses cloud-based machine learning algorithms to provide more accurate journey predictions for EVs.

New Zealand's Hurunui District Council (HDC) in partnership with Chargenet and Mainpower has implemented an electric vehicle (EV) charging station as part of the near completed Culverden Service Hub. The facility is expected to provide a resource for the community and ensure that visitors are provided with up to date services. The hub is funded by grants obtained from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s regional mid-sized tourism fund. ChargeNet’s new station in the Countdown Amberley

Clearview Intelligence's (Clearview) M100 product range will be used on traffic signal controls managed by Newcastle City Council as well as those around the UK's North East region, following a tender issued by Gateshead Council. The technology will provide wireless vehicle detection with the intention of reducing roadworks and cutting congestion and providing safer working environments for highway engineers. The solution is said to offer a cost-effective alternative to inductive loops. It features a sma