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Incredibly, the Volar-e car displayed on the Applus Idiada stand will accelerate from 0-100km/h in under three seconds – not bad for an electric car. The Idiada engineering and technology division of the certification body Applus put all of the various technologies of this car together and fully tested it within nine months.

The first intended deployment of shared driverless vehicles (SDVs) in America has been announced at Bordeaux by EasyMile. Its EZ10 SDV vehicle is designed to transport up to 12 people the ‘last mile’ to and from transport hubs in areas where cars are either off limits or where parking is limited. EasyMile is a joint venture between vehicle manufacturer Ligier and robotics specialist Robosoft, and its EZ10 is to be tested under an exclusive agreement with Californian-based GoMentum Station.

Israel-based Autotalks says its partnership with STMicroelectronics is bearing fruit in the V2X market, with customers set to benefit from complementary technologies, and improved quality management and supply.

Vaisala is showing its latest weather station, which aims to give more accurate results to help provide safety information for road users. The heart of the new station is an onboard Linux computer. This enables it to take data from several sensors and interpolate between them, giving ‘best of breed’ information using the best elements of each sensor, said Daniel Johns, Vaisala’s global head of road and rail.

Q-Free is highlighting the power of ‘cross pollination’ in Bordeaux and its smart parking exhibit on its stand at World Congress is a prime example. The system uses ANPR to record vehicles entering and exiting a car park without the use of a barrier and offers cashless payment for account holders.

As the 22nd ITS World Congress wraps up in Bordeaux, it’s time to set our sights down under to Australia where Melbourne, the World's Most Liveable City for the 5th year running, is preparing to welcome an international contingent to the 23rd World Congress from 10-14 October 2016. Here, ITS Australia CEO Susan Harris provides an outline of what to expect from the event.

Cubic is celebrating the signing of a landmark contract with Transport Scotland here at the 2015 ITS World Congress, to support delivery of the Traffic Scotland service. The deal, worth an estimated €XX million, extends Cubic’s 20 year history of delivering services for Transport Scotland.

International Road Dynamics (IRD) has been awarded a $4.9m contract to help manage the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)’s weigh-in-motion (WIM) programme.

US kinetic wireless mesh specialist Rajant’s first attendance at the ITS World Congress has opened its eyes to the business possibilities of the sector. “It’s very interesting,” said Graham Owen, Rajant’s sales director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. “We’ve been looking around and 80% of the people at this show have wireless infrastructure to deliver their applications. We see the transport market as a huge growth areas globally.”

Solutions for smart cities have come to the fore, so are the main focus of attention from GMV here at the 2015 ITS World Congress. “People are talking more and more about the need for smarter, safer and cleaner mobility in cities,” says GMV’s business development executive for mobility services Sara Gutiérrez Lanza. “The products and services of our GMV Mobility business provide the hardware and software associated with this growing demand for car and bike sharing networks, including the central ITS platfor

Chip maker u-blox is to take over manufacture and supply of Cohda Wireless’ V2X radio module. “We have decided to license its design in order to focus on software IP,” explained Paul Gray, CEO of Cohda. The move will help meet what the companies call “rapidly increasing demand for V2X modules for trials, early deployments and infrastructure roll-out”.

A ‘world’s first’ has been claimed by Honda, with this year’s introduction of intelligent adaptive cruise control (i-ACC) to its CR-V production models. The i-ACC system makes use of Honda Sensing technology to detect and analyse other vehicles and objects.

Turkish exhibitor Aselsan has enjoyed a recent boom in Traffic Systems projects. The company is participating in all of the country’s recent public-private partnership (PPP) highway construction projects as the electronic toll system supplier. It is involved in three prestigious PPP projects. The İstanbul-İzmir highway involves a 500 km highway plus the İzmit Bay Bridge, one of the world’s longest span bridges. The northern part of the highway is set for operation by the end of this year.

Human machine interface (HMI) systems are being demonstrated for the first time by Denso at the 2015 ITS World Congress, as part of the company’s planned roadmap to fully automated driving. Denso has predicted full automation will be reached at some point after 2020, requiring cooperation between four main fields of technology.

The Swiss Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) has awarded Pöyry the engineering, project management and site supervision services assignment for the complete renewal of all operational and safety equipment in the Gamsen Tunnel close to Visp, in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. Pöyry will carry out the conceptual design, detailed engineering, management of permission procedures, tender support, site supervision and commissioning services for the completion of all operational and safety equipment and signalling