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Volvo is to supply Luxembourg bus operator AVL (Autobus de la Ville de Luxembourg) with five Volvo 7900 Electric Hybrids and ABB bus chargers to be delivered towards the end of 2016.as part of the city’s investment in sustainable mobility. Luxembourg was one of the first cities in Europe to implement buses with hybrid technology and today 14 Volvo 7900 hybrids operate in the city. Volvo 7900 electric hybrid buses are with an electric motor, batteries and a small diesel engine and can be powered by el

Following new research from psychologists at the University of Sussex, road safety charity Brake has renewed its calls for the UK government to look again at the laws around driving and mobile phone use. The study, published in the Transportation Research Journal, shows that drivers who are engaged in conversations that spark their visual imagination are much less able to spot and react to potential hazards. When the drivers involved in the study were asked about a subject that required them to visualis

The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), Texas A&M University and the City of College Station are joining forces with seven key private sector companies to help design, develop and test safer, smarter intersections, where vehicles alert drivers to stalled traffic miles before the queues begin – and suggest alternate routes. They say the ability to detect traffic flow and volume, analyse complex traffic data in real time, calculate multiple route alternatives and send the resulting recommendations to

On 7 June, EU Transport Ministers debated on the best way to cut NOx emissions from diesel cars in the wake of the VW scandal. They reflected on possible ways to improve existing legislation to avoid illegal use of defeat devices and explored what technical solutions could already minimise emissions. The Dutch Presidency encouraged Member States to share the findings of their enquiries with other. The proposal to update Euro 5 legislation on the use of defeat devices would have increased uncertainties, rath

Xerox is using the ITS European Congress to launch its Seamless Transportation Solution, a next-generation approach to secure ticketless public transport payment by smartphone. The launch follows a successful nine-month pilot of the technology with the local transport authority Valence Romans Déplacements (VRD), in the city and area of Valence, in south eastern France. The system uses Near Field Communication (NFC) tags provided by Xerox and installed on the transport network. Users download the app to t

The Inrix Off-Street Parking service is now available in the Mercedes-Benz E-Class in Europe and coming to the US this summer, a newly-integrated feature which drivers to easily find, compare and navigate to available off-street parking spaces using the COMAND infotainment system. Inrix Off-Street Parking provides drivers with real-time parking information that includes routes to the closest garage locations, detailed rates, limitations and restrictions and real-time occupancy. It offers access to a comp

In an interview with the BBC, US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx said: "Driverless technology presents a lot of potential for disruption on a number of fronts,” adding: "It's unclear to me now exactly how that future unfolds." Speaking during the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, Secretary Foxx commented on the recent accident in California involving a Google autonomous car and a bus saying it “was not a surprise.

Six European truck manufacturers will bring platoons of semi-automated trucks to public roads, crossing borders from various European cities in order to reach their final destination of the Port of Rotterdam on 6 April. The overall objective of this European Truck Platooning Challenge is to accelerate the introduction of truck platoons by putting the subject high on the agenda of EU policy makers.

Zipcar has partnered with Westminster City Council and Volkswagen UK to bring premium zero-emission driving to Londoners at an affordable price. Fifty Volkswagen Golf GTE plug-in hybrid electric cars are now available to Zipcar members, with 40 cars located in the City of Westminster and 10 additional cars elsewhere in London, such as Tower Bridge and Old Oak. To make this possible, Westminster City Council has installed new charging infrastructure in 40 of their car club parking bays. Westminster Cit

Launched at the ITS World Congress in Bordeaux last October, the MaaS Alliance, a public-private partnership has been officially established as an independent organisation in Brussels. This first meeting in Glasgow is the opportunity to kick off the four working groups’ activities, Single market, End user perspective, Legal framework and Technical and to set a plan for further development of the Alliance. The Mobility as a Service (MaaS) topic itself is heavily represented at this year’s ITS European

Kapsch TraffiCom is attending the ITS European Congress in Glasgow to demonstrate the progress of its Strategy 2020, which 2015 aims to develop new, integrated multi-application solutions, with an increased focus on end customers and an expansion of solutions and services from the highway to the city. The company will present innovative solutions like DYNAC, its advanced traffic management system, the all new Connected Next on-board unit (OBU) with Bluetooth Smart, as well as the Kapsch eVignette (elect

Southampton City Council in the UK is introducing CCTV enforcement of bus lanes in key areas of the city using Videalert’s DfT Manufacturer Certified hosted solution. The new fixed bus lane cameras will go live on 20 June 2016. The Videalert solution has been procured through Balfour Beatty Living Places (BBLP) which has a ten-year contract to manage all highway infrastructure assets on behalf of Southampton City Council. Videalert’s hosted platform does not require any hardware or software to be i

As part of its modernisation of over 550 km of railways, Chilean railroad company, Grupo EFE, has awarded Indra a ten-year, US$7.8 million (€6.9 million) contract for the supply, installation, configuration, testing and maintenance of a multiservice Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) communications network. The project, on one of the highest-traffic areas of the Chilean railway, includes the installation of the MPLS network equipment and installation and repair of overhead fibre op

Google’s smart cities research unit Sidewalk Labs has partnered with Transportation for America (T4A), an alliance of elected, business and civic leaders in an initiative to engage cities in developing efficient and affordable transportation options. The two organisations will work with dozens of US cities to define how technology can help them meet their pressing transportation challenges. This collaborative aims to help local leaders get more people where they want to go quickly and affordably, enhancing

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and China’s Minister of Transport Yang Chuantang unveiled the US-China Race to Zero Emissions (R2ZE) Challenge during the eighth US-China Transportation Forum in Los Angeles and invited cities and transit agencies in the two countries to join in. The R2ZE Challenge is a collaborative and friendly competition that encourages cities and metropolitan transit districts in the US and China to deploy innovative and advanced non-polluting zero emission buses (ZEBs) in th