News

UK company Colas will begin building and trialling the first autonomous impact protection vehicle (IPV) in the UK this year in partnership with two US companies, Royal Truck and Equipment and Micro Systems. Fitted with an electro-mechanical system and fully integrated sensor suite, the autonomous IPV has a leader/follower capability that allows it to follow a lead vehicle, unmanned. GPS position data is transmitted from the leader vehicle to the follower vehicle, which uses the data to follow the exact p

A new traffic app recently launched in Adelaide, South Australia, is helping drivers avoid roadworks and traffic jams with real-time updates. AddInsight taps into more than 400 of Adelaide’s state-of-the-art Bluetooth receivers, which monitor the city’s road network in real-time and broadcasts verbal messages to drivers in about approaching delays through a vehicle’s hands free systems and mobile phones. The free app has been released at a time when the South Australian capital’s road network has been

The Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) has extended its contract with Q-Free for service and maintenance of the Stockholm congestion charging system. The new contract, valued at around US$1.6 million (NOK13 million), is an extension of the contract awarded in 2013 and continues the maintenance for one year from 2017. Congestion charges were introduced in Stockholm in 2006, first as a trial followed by a referendum, then permanently from 2007. “This is a confirmation of the long-standing r

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) has published its Transit Street Design Guide, produced in collaboration with the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). ITE has adopted guiding principles that seek ways to improve safety and mobility in the movement of people and goods in the surface transportation system. Integral to that success is the accommodation of all forms of land uses and the associated transportation needs, be they residential, business, recreational, or

Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, will take centre stage at ITS America 2016 San Jose on Tuesday, 14 June as the keynote speaker for day two of the event, The Infrastructure of Things. Before taking the helm at the Linux Foundation, Zemlin worked at startups in Silicon Valley, including Covalent and Corio. His career started in telecom at Western Wireless. Zemlin advises a variety of startups, including Splashtop, and sits on the boards of the Global Economic Symposium, Open Sou

With space increasingly at a premium in today’s cities, high quality public transport combined with a broader mix of mobility services is the answer to cutting car dependency, according to the latest publication from the International Association of Public Transport (UITP). The document, ‘Public transport at the heart of the integrated mobility solution,’ claims that the key to cutting urban car dependency is an integrated combination of sustainable mobility services. Cities with strong public transport

The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) today released a proposed regulation outlining new performance measures to assess travel reliability, congestion, and emissions at a national level. It calls for an increased level of transparency and accountability in establishing and achieving targets for performance impacting commuters and truck drivers. The measures address the concerns outlined in the USDOT report Beyond Traffic, which examines the trends and choices facing

Police officers across Europe are preparing for their latest Speed Marathon, taking place from 0600 on Thursday 21 April to 0600 on Friday 22 April. The 24-hour initiative forms part of TISPOL’s week-long speed enforcement operation, running until Sunday 24 April. The Speed Marathon concept was devised two years ago in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Here, members of the public have once again been invited to vote on the locations where they would like speed enforcement measures to ta

Sydney, Australia, is to commence an open payments trial in 2017, enabling the city to have London-style open payments technology on its public transportation system. The trial is said to be a first for the southern hemisphere, providing a test case for other Australian cities which have been contemplating open payments. New South Wales (NSW) Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Andrew Constance, made the trial announcement at the opening session of the Future Technology Summit in Sydney. “For t

Registration is now open for the five-day 23rd ITS World Congress, to be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Australia from 10-14 October 2016. More than 7,000 international delegates are expected to attend the Congress, hosted by ITS Australia, on behalf of ITS Asia Pacific, Ertico and ITS America, the Congress theme is ITS - Enhancing Liveable Cities and Communities. The Congress will include Plenary and keynote speakers, special interest sessions and more than 300 exhibitors.

Capital markets financing for infrastructure projects can help bridge the infrastructure gap, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Sir Suma Chakrabarti told the inaugural Global Infrastructure Forum 2016 in Washington. Addressing development partners, Sir Suma said: “Emerging markets and development economies, supported by the multilateral development banks, need to re-double their efforts to create the right conditions for capital market transactions for infrastructur

The Victorian Government in Australia is to provide the full funding for the Western Distributor Project, a second river crossing which includes the Monash Freeway Upgrade and upgrades to Webb Dock, after the Federal Government rejected a request for a contribution to the funding. Construction of the US$4.2 billion (AU$5.5 billion) Western Distributor will start in 2017, local motorists paying for the rest of it with tolls extended until 2045. The Government and Transurban in Australia have now signed

The latest developments and results from the four pilot trials being run under the European R&D&i project, MobiWallet, led by Indra, will be presented today at the sixth European Transport Research Arena Conference in Warsaw, Poland. MobiWallet aims to improve transport in Europe by allowing the combined use of public and private transport, as well as additional services to make for better mobility and render transport smarter and more sustainable. In addition to offering integrated payments for all adde

The by Miami Dade Expressway (MDX) in the US has awarded Q-Free a US$1.9 million contract extension to supply its Intrada ALPR automatic image review system for MDX’s electronic toll collection program. The contract extension authorises system upgrades and technical support through June 2018. We are pleased to provide this unique technical solution and continued related services to support the MDX electronic toll collection program. This award demonstrates Q-Free’s increased visibility and ability to

According to Technavio’s latest report, the global intelligent transport systems (ITS) market is expected to exceed US$58 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of over eight per cent during the forecast period. The global ITS market is expected to grow moderately during the forecast period. The major customer segments of ITSs are public departments, municipal corporations, government organizations, car and truck leasing companies, and construction firms. “These systems help make traffic and fleet manag