News

One of Europe’s leading car importers has selected the connected car technology of TomTom Telematics to provide its customer with access to real-time information about their vehicles’ status and performance. Pon’s Automobiel Handel will use the TomTom Telematics cloud-based services platform and the company’s mobile app development expertise that draws upon vehicle dashboard information for a national pilot across the Netherlands.

A failsafe track switch designed to eradicate a 200-year-old problem on the railway has been created by engineers at Loughborough University in the UK. The technology, known as Repoint, is a robust and reliable points mechanism which will improve safety, reduce maintenance costs and boost capacity on the railways.

Inrix is accelerating its development of smart parking services with the acquisition of ParkMe, a Santa Monica, California company that helps drives find parking, make reservations and mobile payments worldwide. According to Inrix, the acquisition expands its data aggregation and industry expertise, enabling it to more rapidly deliver a comprehensive set of parking services, including locating, comparing, reserving and paying for parking from a smartphone or vehicle. The acquisition also expands the par

According to research company MarketsandMarkets, the market for commercial telematics is expected to grow from US$20.02 billion in 2015 to US$47.58 billion by 2020. In terms of regions, Europe is expected to be the largest market in terms of market size, while Middle East & Africa and Asia-Pacific (APAC) are expected to experience an increase in market traction, during the forecast period. Latin America is expected to experience a high growth rate and adoption trend in this market.

The University of Michigan (U-M) plans to invest US$100 million over the next five years in a new data science initiative aimed at working with big data sets that can further research into such things as driverless cars, medicine and climate change. The money will pay for 35 new faculty members to be hired over the next four years, support interdisciplinary data-related research initiatives and foster new methodological approaches to big data, as well as enabling the university to expand its research com

The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has revealed that nearly 18,000 pedestrians were injured in an incident involving a vehicle in the last full year with analysis available. The charity is calling for an even greater focus on pedestrian protection to make cars safer and raise awareness of the risks. The figures come from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made by the IAM, Britain’s biggest independent road safety charity, asking for details of the most common pairs of contributory factors repo

According to Juliette van Driel of Dutch government organisation ProRail, who is to speak on the subject at the Rail Technology Conference in Paris in November, there is a requirement for identification tags on European trains. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags enable the monitoring and tracking of the separate components of a wagon, such as axles and wheels, over time. This enables the early identification of locomotive, carriage and wagon defects and the prevention of derailments. “It’s imp

The Sturt Highway, an important road link between Sydney and Adelaide, will become the fourth stretch of South Australian road to implement average speed cameras when the system is activated on 14 September. The cameras calculate the average speed of a vehicle between two points, as well as the vehicle’s actual speed at each camera location. Average speed cameras have been operating on Dukes Highway and Port Wakefield Road since July last year and on Victor Harbour Road since June this year. Two more

While quite common in smartphones and personal computers, remote over-the-air (OTA) software updates are still only in their infancy in the automotive space, according to a new report from IHS Automotive. The report finds that OTA software updates will eventually be a big benefit for the automotive industry due to their capacity to reduce warranty costs, potentially increase overall completion rates for software-related recalls, improve customer satisfaction by eliminating trips to the dealership for so

European Commission and Parliament officials said during a panel discussion in Brussels that they were moving towards regulating connected cars, but are still a long way off from sealing new legislation on autonomous vehicles. Major car companies have been running tests on autonomous or driverless cars over the last couple of years and some European companies have launched test drives with autonomous cars on public streets. Germany's Daimler got the go ahead this month from state authorities to drive the

The ITS Hall of Fame Awards highlight the successes of the most outstanding, ambitious and innovative ITS deployments and reward the people and organisations most worthy of recognition and praise. European winners of the 2015 awards include Richard Harris, who received the Lifetime Achievement award for his charisma and ITS leadership for over 25 years. The local government award went to AustriaTech, which supports the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology and relevant stakeholders in al

French public transport company Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP) and Tunisian public transport operator Transtu have signed a five-year cooperation and partnership agreement that will help foster exchanges between the two companies to improve their respective networks and enhance efficiency. Cooperation between the two companies will address various transport-related activities including operations, maintenance, safety, security, passenger information and ticketing and employee training. Th

The laser ranging (LIDAR) systems that most self-driving cars rely on to sense obstacles can be hacked by a setup costing just US$60, a security researcher has told IEEE spectrum. According to Jonathan Petit, principal scientist at software security company Security Innovation, he can take echoes of a fake car, pedestrian or wall and put them in any location. Using such a system, which he designed using a low-power laser and pulse generator, attackers could trick a self-driving car into thinking somethin

The 8th European Conference on ICT for Transport Logistics (ECITL) will be held in Bordeaux from 5 to 7 October 2015 with the theme of Intelligent logistics solutions – a catalyst for digital economy. The ECITL is co-organised by Ertico-ITS Europe under the auspices of the CIP Pilot CO-GISTICS. The conference will look at in-depth technologies as intelligent transport systems (ITS), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), etc., which are not only essential for the introduction of e

Drawing on its experience with optical disc technologies consumer electronics giant, Pioneer Corporation is developing a 3D-LIDAR (light detection and ranging) compact, high performance low-cost sensor for autonomous vehicles. The company has completed trial manufacture of the sensor and will begin in-car trials in 2016. During the in-car trials, Pioneer will launch advanced map creation using mapping vehicles fitted with 3D-LiDAR, with Increment P Corporation, its map creation subsidiary. In the near fu