News

The USDOT's Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) is to host a free webinar to discuss the various technologies that enable automated vehicles. The webinar, Enabling Technologies for Vehicle Automation, scheduled for 14 October from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm EST, will discuss current capabilities and future direction for key automated vehicle-enabling technologies. The webinar aims to share project findings and receive expert feedback from the automated vehicle technology community.

Lexus has extended its relationship with Inrix to equip its luxury cars with Inrix Weather and Inrix Fuel. The move will give Lexus drivers access to up-to-the-minute weather alerts and the ability to search for the lowest fuel prices nearby. These real-time services will be embedded into the navigation head units of new Lexus vehicles, starting with the all-new Lexus RX, which will be launched in Europe at the end of 2015. Inrix Weather gives drivers a five-day forecast for destinations across Europe,

Founded by Josef Szaco, the new Moving Forward Consulting company aims to address the innovations, challenges and future developments in transport and mobility, and work with public and private clients to create innovative policies, services, systems and solutions, based on intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Previously vice president of international business development at Kapsch TrafficCom , Szaco is a well known figure in the industry and his new organisation plans to use its global experience

By the end of 2015, Toyota will make a new intelligent transportation system (ITS) safety package available on three models in Japan. The package, named ITS Connect, uses Japan's standardised ITS frequency of 760 MHz to receive and share data transmitted by external infrastructure and other vehicles. ITS Connect uses vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication to provide drivers with the kind of safety information that cannot be picked up by onboard sensors. This includes

In a contract worth US$49.6 million from the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Thales is to upgrade the New York subway’s busy Queens Boulevard Line with its signalling solution. The contract includes the deployment of the Thales’s communications-based train control system, SelTrac CBTC, as well as the supply of equipment for the line’s train fleet. Design work for the Queens Boulevard Line is getting underway and installations are expected to begin in mid-2017.

Swedish transport administration Trafikverket has awarded Alstom a contract worth US$73.5 million to implement the Iconis railway control centre solution. The new traffic management system will cover the entire country and forms part of a broader project by Trafikverket to improve the punctuality and capacity of its network. The scope of the contract, which will run for eight years with an additional nine-year option, also covers the development and maintenance of the system. Alstom’s Iconis Mainline con

Figures obtained by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) show that, over the last decade, speeding is still the biggest motoring-related offence where the defendant is found guilty in court. The numbers of those found guilty have risen sharply in the past 12 months – from 115,935 to 148,426, an increase of 28 per cent, the highest number since 2005. The 2014 figures were two per cent greater than 2004. The next highest offence where defendants were found guilty was vehicle insurance-related crime

The share of private cars in urban mobility remains stubbornly high, despite heavy investment into public transport systems over the past decades. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) can become the game changer by making public transport responsive to the mobility demands of citizens in real time. This is the message the International Transport Forum (ITF), an intergovernmental organisation for the transport sector with 57 member countries, is taking to the ITS World Congress meeting in Bordeaux, France

Adam Sheets has joined architecture, civil engineering consulting and construction management firm HNTB as manager of strategic services and associate vice president. Sheets most recently served as a senior project manager with the Ohio Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) Division of Innovative Delivery, where he provided legal and policy advice on the state’s P3 program.

Humberside Police has admitted to hiding cameras in farm vehicles in a bid to catch speeding bikers on a high casualty rural road in East Yorkshire, despite advice from the Government that ‘vehicles from which mobile speed cameras can be deployed should be liveried and clearly identifiable as an enforcement vehicle’. Humberside Police admitted go the Daily Mail it had employed the new tactics as part of an ongoing aim to reduce the number of motorcyclists killed or seriously injured on the B1253 in East

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) has awarded TransCore a US$24.9 million multi-year design-build-maintain contract for a complete overhaul of the agency’s toll collection system infrastructure. The modernisation project will include virtually every aspect of the agency’s toll system: manual cash collections, conventional toll-lane E-ZPass transactions, highway-speed open-road tolling, and future all-electronic tolling at the Scudder Falls replacement bridge.

International Road Dynamics (IRD) has been awarded a US$4.9 million contract for weigh-in-motion (WIM) systems installation, maintenance and data services by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Infrastructure Research and Development. The contract is a task-order based, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity agreement covering a sixty-six month period, under which IRD will be issued task orders to provide installation, maintenance, repairs and verification that data collected from the W

The market for automotive navigation software, data, and location-based services is shifting as OEMs focus on bringing a mix of connected navigation experiences for drivers and using location data for ADAS and enabling self-driving cars, according to Strategy Analytics’ latest report. The report, Navigation Market: Maps for Self-Driving Cars Shift Segment's Focus - 2015 Update, features the service's most up-to-date navigation forecast, which is a combined figure that includes shipments of embedded navig

Following this month's European Mobility Week, the EU is now launching the 4th Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) Award, as part of the Do the Right Mix campaign. The SUMP Award recognises local authorities that have demonstrated excellence in this year’s European Mobility Week theme of ‘multimodality’ where citizens can choose, change and combine their modes of transport. The winning three regions or local authorities will receive a high-quality promotional video showcasing their mobility efforts, a

Australia’s National Electronic Tolling Forum (NeTC) 2016, hosted by ITS Australia, takes place in Brisbane on 25 and 26 May 2016. The program committee is now inviting speakers to submit abstracts for consideration for presentation. Submission topics include: Customer service and tolling; Tolling back office systems; Enforcement and collection; Recent and upcoming projects in Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific and Global; Big Data – Collection, Exchange and Privacy Issues; Deadline for submissions