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The Oklahoma Federal Highway Administration has designated the I-35, I-40 and I-44 highways as alternative fuel corridors, a special designation aimed at improving the mobility of passenger and commercial vehicles that run on alternative fuels. This new designation means special highway signage indicating the nearest alternative fuelling station will eventually be placed along these highways by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. The federal Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act directed th

US self-driving car startup nuTonomy is to begin testing its growing fleet of self-driving cars on specific public streets in a designated area of Boston. The company, which launched a self-driving car trial in Singapore in September, has been given permission to operate its vehicles in the city’s Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park. nuTonomy equips its vehicles with a software system which has been integrated with high-performance sensing and computing components, to enable safe operation without a driver.

The University of Michigan (U-M) is offering use of its new research vehicles as test beds for academic and industry researchers to test self-driving and connected vehicle technologies at its proving ground. These open connected and automated research vehicles, or open CAVs, are equipped with sensors including radar, lidar and cameras, among other features and will be able to link to a robot operating system. An open development platform for connected vehicle communications will be added later. The op

A new consortium, initiated by Ericsson in Germany, aims to create an infrastructure and real application environment on a motorway test track, to carry out tests in vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure, digitisation of the railway infrastructure and other applications using 5G technology. The 30 kilometre test track consists of several construction sections on the 30 kilometre ‘digital test field motorway’ along the A9 motorway and the high speed rail track between Nuremberg and Greding. The in

Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) is to carry out a major upgrade to the Maryland Transit Authority’s (MTA) automatic fare collection (AFC) system, under a US$4.8 million contract modification which also includes setting the foundation for new features and functionality. The upgraded system will provide the MTA with the opportunity to accept new payment methods, such as mobile payments, as well as add new features, including a new customer web portal and an integration path with third-party transport servi

Northamptonshire County Council and the University of Northampton have received a significant share of US$1.2 million (€1 million) European funding to help shape policy for local authorities wishing to purchase public transport systems. There is an increasing global demand for sustainable and innovative transport in cities, but many authorities use out-of-date methods to choose and buy transport systems, which means they are missing opportunities to purchase the system that’s best suited for their urban

Ertico-ITS Europe has issued a call for contributions for the 12th ITS European Congress, which takes place in Strasbourg, 19-22 June 2017. The main theme of the congress is ‘ITS beyond borders’ and contributions should address the seven main topics, including mobility services, next generation goods delivery, transport networks evaluation, connected and automated transport, satellite technology applied to mobility, ITS and the environment, or the author’s own ideas. More information on the topics is

Ahead of the Autumn Statement this week a motor industry body is calling on the UK Government to make a US$37 million (£30 million) investment in specialist electric and hybrid vehicle training for thousands of maintenance and repair technicians in the independent retail sector. The Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) believes the investment is crucial to support the public switch to ultra low emission vehicles (ULEV). The IMI says the Government will need to spend a proportion of the £600m it has se

The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, local governments and businesses are to jointly invest US$96 million (€90 million) in the Talking Traffic Partnership up to and including 2020. The partnership with the traffic industry, telecommunications and internet companies and automotive companies aims to develop and deliver innovative traffic applications to Dutch roads in the next five years. Participants in the Talking Traffic Partnership are Vialis, Dynniq, Swarco, Sweco, KoHartog Verke

International Road Dynamics (IRD) has partnered with the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) to launch a new weigh station bypass system, NJPass, at all three inbound New Jersey weigh stations for commercial vehicles participating in the service. Traffic statistics show that over 150,000 trucks encounter these three weigh stations on an annual basis creating a need for a traffic management tool like NJPass. IRD sales manager for NJPass, Eric Hooks, said the technology allows compliant veh

Advances in biometrics will radically transform the driving experience, health wellness and wellbeing (HWW) and security of vehicles by 2025, according to Frost and Sullivan. As one in three new passenger vehicles begin to feature fingerprint, iris, voice and gesture recognition, heart beat and brain wave monitoring, stress detection, fatigue, eyelid and facial monitoring and pulse detection, these will be driven by built-in, brought-in and cloud enabled technologies, the automotive biometrics network wi

Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS), is to participate in Microsoft CityNext, a global initiative which aims to help cities do ‘new with less’, by combining the power of technology with innovative solutions to connect governments, businesses and citizens with services that increase efficiencies, reduce costs, foster a more sustainable environment and cultivate thriving communities. NextCity is Cubic’s coordinated framework for building a smarter tomorrow in the world’s urban centers where increasing popu

TomTom and Elgin are to collaborate to in a bid to deliver more accurate and validated real-time traffic information to drivers, fleet managers and traffic management professionals. TomTom Traffic in the United Kingdom now includes relevant roadworks and traffic management information from Elgin. This collaboration ultimately enables drivers to reach their destinations more quickly and highway authorities and utility companies to monitor and respond to the impact of roadworks on road users in real-time.

US-based engineering and planning consulting service Michael Baker International has expanded its inspection services with the purchase of a Topcon Falcon 8 unmanned aircraft system (UAS), offering a new perspective for its pilots to achieve precise aerial imagery and mapping during the inspection of infrastructure elements. Combined with the company’s mobile and static Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) systems for data collection and by utilising the system’s flight stability and high-resolution 32-me

Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has implemented digital variable speed limit signs over a thirty-mile stretch of Interstate 84 between Baker City and La Grande, replacing the standard speed signs in that area. The new signs will use traffic, road, weather and visibility sensors to lower the legal speed limit when ice, snow, fog or a wreck ahead requires drivers to slow down. Along with identifying the current legal speed limit, the digital displays can also show the reason for a reduced speed,