News

The International Transport Forum (ITF) has welcomed the target to “halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020” set by world leaders in September at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York. Every year, almost 1.3 million people are killed in road crashes around the globe, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The average UK driver is currently being outsmarted by their own car, according to new research. The survey of 1,000 British car owners, carried out by BookMyGarage.com, found that 73per cent don’t understand how to use all of the high tech gadgets and safety features in their vehicle. This is despite over half of British adults admitting they were sold on the car they bought because of the features it offered.

UK haulier KBC Logistics, which operates a 120-strong fleet of 44-tonne articulated trucks, has introduced a risk management initiative underpinned by Webfleet, the TomTom Telematics fleet management platform, which it says has helped improve the safety of its drivers by cutting instances of speeding by 95 per cent. The OptiDrive 360 indicator in Webfleet scores drivers based on a range of key performance indicators and KBC are using daily colour-coded (red, amber, green) reports to help identify areas f

The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has unanimously approved the Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform (STRR) Act of 2015, a bipartisan, multi-year surface transportation bill to reauthorise and reform federal highway, transit, and highway safety programs. The STRR Act helps improve the Nation’s surface transportation infrastructure, reforms programs and refocuses those programs on addressing national priorities, maintains a strong commitment to safety, and promotes innovation to

An audit of the state’s speed cameras has found that the Queensland Police Service (QPS) and the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) in Australia have strayed from best practice in using the devices to reduce speeding, with a resultant effect on road safety, according to PSNews online. In his report Road Safety: Traffic Cameras, Acting Auditor-General, Anthony Close found that in the past seven years the QPS had issued 3,760,962 speeding tickets from camera-based evidence, with TMR collecting AU

US display and lighting technology provider Luminator Technology Group (LTG) is to acquire BMG MIS, a well-known authority in the information display systems field. LTG manufactures display and lighting technology, providing products and systems to a wide range of customers in the bus, rail and aircraft transportation segments. As a manufacturer of LCD information systems worldwide, BMG MIS provides up-to-date travel information to millions of people daily at railway stations, airports and transport

TomTom is to launch its traffic service in Hong Kong, which it says is the fourth most densely populated metropolis in the world, with 7.2 million inhabitants. TomTom provides accurate traffic information for highways, major roads and secondary roads in 48 countries. TomTom Traffic includes congestion forecasting, which indicates whether a jam is growing or dispersing, and estimates how long a delay will last. According to TomTom data, the busiest hour of the day for traffic in Hong Kong is between 8a

To coincide with its participation in the new Freight in the City event on 27 October, the LowCVP is calling on fleet operators, local authorities and others to join forces in building the market for heavy goods vehicles which cut carbon, reduce emissions and lower fuel costs. In earlier research, the LowCVP has identified three main opportunities for cutting emissions from HGVs which pointed to the need for specific interventions: independent testing to validate the effectiveness of retrofit technology

A consortium of Indra and Alstom España has won the contract to install public safety and security systems in the six tunnels on the high-speed rail link connecting Antequera and Granada in Spain. The contract also includes system maintenance for a period of 42 months. Over 100 km long, the rail link represents a key infrastructure in the development of the Andalusian Crossrail Project and forms part of the Trans-European Transport Network as one of the priority networks for improving passenger and cargo

International group Egis is to provide the municipality of Amsterdam in the Netherlands with the operation of on-street parking services of the city, under a four-year contract with a possible four-year extension. Egis will replace the current operator Cition and will take over part of its existing staff. The contract involves an implementation period of six months after which the take-over of staff will become effective in 2016. Through the operator back-office, Egis will manage approximately 150,000 p

Evidence provided by a telematics device has resulted in a suspended prison sentence for a motorist who ploughed into a pedestrian walking home from a Christmas celebration on 12 December last year, says anti-motor fraud unit, APU. The driver admitted the incident, as well as perverting the course of justice after he failed to stop after the incident and later denied responsibility. Other charges included failing to report an accident.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has given the latest sign that the iPhone maker is planning an assault on the car industry, saying there is a ‘massive change’ in the market, according to the Telegraph. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive conference this week, Cook talked of the growing importance of software in the car of the future, the rise of autonomous vehicles and the shift from an internal combustion engine to electrification. "It would seem like there will be massive change in that industry, mass

Canada-based road lighting control manufacturer Nyx Hemera Technologies has signed an agreement to carry out a study on Colombian tunnels lighting with the Colombian Tunnelling Association (ACTOS) and Colombian Society of Engineering (SCI). The study will identify how tunnel lighting can be optimised with photometric expertise, the latest LED lighting technologies, and advanced intelligent lighting control for tunnels. It will focus on 30 existing tunnels of over 240 metres and over 150 tunnels to be bui

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) has selected TransCore to lead the initial design of its recently announced Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program. When deployed, this project will integrate TransCore’s TransSuite traffic management system technology with an in-vehicle device to further improve traffic flow, reduce accidents and improve pedestrian safety.

Imaging specialist Perceptics is to install next generation licence plate readers at over 165 Canadian border primary vehicle inspection lanes, in a key contract awarded by the Government of Canada. The 2MP Checkpoint licence plate reader offers technologically advanced features that provide personnel at border checkpoints with superior images with over 95 per cent licence plate read rate accuracy in all weather conditions, says Perceptics. The devices integrate vehicle and surrounding scene and driver i