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The US House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade has released a number of staff drafted proposals as part of the committee’s ongoing work to keep families safe on America’s roads. The staff draft includes proposals to: Incentivise the adoption of crash avoidance technologies and other connected vehicle technologies that improve roadway safety and fuel efficiency; Improve recall awareness; Increase privacy and security protections for motorists; and modernise the Nation

Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre has developed a mobile phone-based navigation service which guides older users to the right address, even when lost in a strange town. The result of a European project, the service helps older people to use public transport, assisting them along the entire route. This intuitive navigation service differs from standard public transport applications by offering continuous guidance during the journey, walking directions to stops and destinations, and timetable and rea

Houston-based Trafficware has expanded its operations into Canada and appointed industry veteran Juwal Steiner to lead its Canadian operations as senior business development manager. For the Canadian market, Trafficware provides transportation authorities with direct access to a trusted technology and manufacturing solutions provider. Factory direct sales will encompass Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces while Fortran Traffic Systems will serve the Western Canada Provinces from Manitoba to Briti

Image Sensing Systems has announced the appointment of Andrew T. Berger to its Board of Directors. Berger is the managing member of AB Value Management, which serves as the General Partner of AB Value Partners. Berger has nearly two decades of experience in investment analysis, investment management and business consulting. From March 1998 to January 2002, he served as Equity Analyst for Value Line. Since February 2002, he has served as president of Walker's Manual, an investment publisher that he tra

The UK’s Transport Systems Catapult has identified key areas of development in the transport network in its traveller experience study, Traveller Needs, which comprised of 10,000 online questionnaire respondents, 50 company interviews, and 100 expert interviews. The research found that 75 per cent of journeys are characterised by pain-points, with 57 per cent of travellers always looking for ways to optimise their journey. Public transport is considered to be poor value for money with the ‘high cost

HaCon is expanding its international activities into the North American market, in a partnership with Bytemark that will see the two companies deliver new IT capabilities for transit agencies and accurate real-time transit information for passengers. Bytemark and HaCon are currently carrying out their first joint project for Capital Metro, the regional public transportation provider in Central Texas. In and around Austin, passengers will soon benefit from multimodal door-to-door trip planning, push notif

Drivers using the Dartford Crossing at peak times are saving around an hour and a half every week thanks to Dart Charge, according to Highways England. New figures released by Highways England show that journeys over the Dartford Crossing, which cost £62million (US$95 million) to convert to free-flow tolling, are up to 56 per cent faster than before payment barriers were removed. Drivers at peak times save up to 14 minutes southbound and seven minutes northbound.

Siemens has been awarded a US$112 million contract to build an additional 29 SD-160 light rail vehicles for Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD), extending the company’s 22-year relationship with RTD. The new vehicles are expected to be delivered early in 2018 and will be completely interoperable with the current system, continuing the potential for notable savings in maintenance and operation costs that RTD says it has achieved over the years.

The Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) has awarded TransCore a US$85 million project to design, install and maintain a new, innovative electronic toll collection system for over 300 toll lanes, as part of an ongoing initiative to improve its transportation management system. TransCore will upgrade the system with its Infinity Digital Lane System, which consists of independent modules that can be easily replaced, upgraded or removed in the field without affecting lane operations, reducing long-ter

WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff has launched a series of technical forums with European rail specialists in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland. Its Swedish director Mats Önner and senior consultant Michael Fransson will share their knowledge and experience of upgrading signalling infrastructure on railways throughout Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology, as part of an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) sensor suite, will be mostly deployed for active safety functions with only 29 per cent fitted for fully automated driving purposes by 2021, according to Frost & Sullivan. Out of the top 13 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), seven are working on automated driving passenger vehicles using a LiDAR. Frost & Sullivan’s latest analysis, LIDAR-based Strategies for Active Safety and Automated Driving from M

London’s streets are set to be safer for all road users, say the members of the new London Freight Enforcement Partnership, which will build on the work of Transport for London (TfL) and partner agencies, including the Industrial HGV Task Force and Commercial Vehicle Units. It will further tackle unsafe HGVs and take any non-compliant and unsafe commercial vehicles, drivers and operators off London’s streets. The partnership, between TfL, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), the Metropolitan P

Siemens has been awarded an option order to deliver an additional five S70 light rail vehicles for Metro Transit, which serves the Twin Cities region, Minnesota. The US$20.1 million order will add to the existing 59 light rail vehicles currently in operation on the Metro Green and Blue lines. Metro Transit will use the new trains to enhance service on its light rail lines, which are experiencing record ridership. The new vehicles are designed and built specific to the needs of the Twin Cities. The veh

Two car parks in Skåne, Sweden, are benefiting from a new parking system installed by Swarco, which uses automatic licence plate recognition (ALPR) to replace the previous payment system. SwappAccess enables users to register their vehicle details with the system’s web portal and pay in advance for parking via a credit card. The system automatically registers the licence plate of each vehicle arriving and departing the car park, which Swarco says results in a more efficient traffic flow.

Analysis by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has found that human factors continue to significantly outweigh other reasons for crashes on British roads, and have called again for drivers to look on improving driving skills as part of their lifelong personal development. The figures from the Department of Transport show that in 2014 driver/rider error or reaction were cited as contributory factors in 74 per cent of accidents, involving more than 117,000 casualties. Some 20,830 of these were in Lo