News

Denmark has become the first country in the world to rely on GPS probe data to monitor traffic and congestion on a national scale. The Danish Road Directorate has awarded Inrix the contract to provide real-time traffic information throughout the country, enabling it to monitor traffic flow and gridlock more effectively. The Danish Road Directorate has more than 10 years' experience of using GPS data to monitor traffic and believes that gathering real-time information from private and commercial vehicle

Intelligent traffic systems supplier Siemens has acquired UK traffic enforcement organisation, Zenco Systems. The announcement underlines Siemens’ commitment to the growing traffic enforcement market and follows a number of successful joint technology projects between the two companies in the UK, including deployments in Manchester and London. Zenco Systems was founded in 2006 to provide local authorities with the ability to use CCTV video evidence to enforce traffic contraventions. Following the first d

The international Celtic Plus Co-operative Mobility Services of the Future (CoMoSeF) project which, involved the development of data exchange between vehicles and infrastructure, has just presented its findings. The resulting communication system provides drivers with real time information on road weather, road conditions and incidents. During the project a cooperative roadside weather monitoring station run by the Finnish Meteorological Institute relays the latest reports – and weather updates covering

French technology group Lacroix has recently made two strategic acquisitions, enabling it to expand its international presence, to develop in the smart cities sector and to capitalise on new growth areas. The acquisition of Spanish company DSTA enabled Lacroix to expand its offering in variable message signs, traffic signals and public transport information panels, making it more competitive while providing its customers with proven end-to-end technological solutions. By acquiring SOGEXI, the French s

A new cloud-enabled performance management system from Xerox uses data analytics to help parking managers better manage workloads, make smarter patrol decisions and create high-performance teams of civil enforcement officers. CitySight automates many manual processes by providing a logging mechanism that analyses the daily activities of civil enforcement officers (CEOs) such as time worked, patrols, public interaction, penalty charge notices and more. Supervisors can then use the insights gleaned from t

Mapping and navigation specialist Here has been selected by Finnish traffic agencies Finnish Transport Agency (FTA) and Trafi, the Finnish Transport Safety Agency to lead a pilot project to enable vehicles to communicate safety hazards to others on the road. Here will also work with traffic information management service company Infotripla in implementing the project, which will be the first to implement a road hazard warning messaging system as described in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)

All Aboard Florida has selected Siemens as the full maintenance provider for its passenger-rail trains connecting Orlando and Miami, starting in 2017. Under a 30-year contract agreement, Siemens will maintain and service all aspects of All Aboard Florida’s passenger-rail vehicles, including inspections, corrective and preventative maintenance, and provisioning of parts and labour. As previously announced, Siemens is also building trains for the project, which, will be constructed at its solar-powered ra

Polis has just released the draft programme for its 2015 Annual Polis Conference, ‘Innovation in transport for sustainable cities and regions’. Technical sessions cover topics such as: transport planning beyond the city, ICT and active mobility, smart parking strategies, urban freight goes electric, translating road safety data into measures, global cooperation for sustainable transport, from open data to transport apps, and more. Early bird rates apply until 30 September 2015. More information is ava

The Ohio State Highway Patrol (OHSP) and the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) are to partner in traffic safety initiative in a bid to change driver behaviour and reverse the upward trend of traffic deaths in the state, which has recorded 76 more deaths in the period to June 2015 than in the same period last year. The initiative will use the 130 ODOT digital message boards visible above highways across the state and will rotate between the year-to-date number of traffic deaths of 2015 and traffic

In a bid to reduce traffic noise and congestion, the Spanish town of Málaga is planning to build bus and cycle lanes. The move is being taken after a review of the city’s action plan against environmental noise, which concluded that measures such as better traffic control and more use of public transport and bicycles could improve the situation. The proposed measures, which also include redeveloping roads with techniques to reduce noise, will be analysed by technicians from the city’s transport, urban

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) has signalled its approval of the introduction of the Future Transportation Research and Innovation for Prosperity (Future TRIP) Act. Proposed by US Congressman Dan Lipinski, the (Future TRIP) Act would create a research and development framework around the implementation of autonomous and connected vehicles. ITS America president and CEO, Regina Hopper, said, "ITS America's members would like to thank Congressman Dan Lipinski for introdu

Poland’s General Directorate of the National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) has awarded Egis two contracts for the maintenance of telecommunication, traffic management and tolling systems on 162 kilometres of the A4 motorway between Wroclaw–Katowice in Poland. These contracts cover 68 toll lanes on 13 toll plazas monitored by one operation centre and 80 pairs of emergency roadside telephones located along the motorway. They continue GDDKiA’s intention to bring the A4 up to toll motorway standards and inclu

Daimler, Bosch and car2go are cooperating on a new project that will see cars parking themselves. Automated parking uses an intelligent infrastructure in the car park and a vehicle control unit from Bosch in conjunction with the newest generation of Mercedes-Benz on-board sensors and the car-sharing expertise of car2go. This will enable automated manoeuvring in appropriately equipped parking garages in the near future. The user books a vehicle from car2go via smartphone and as soon as he is in the ca

UK truck supplier Central Truck Bodies and Central Crane has taken delivery of a dynamic axle weighbridge system from axle weighing specialist Axtec. The weighbridge will be used to ensure that all vehicles built by the company are compliant the requirements of the VCA, the UK’s national approval authority for new road vehicles, agricultural tractors and off-road vehicles. Designing and building bespoke lorry loader bodies for plant or platform vehicles ranging from 3.5 to 32 tonnes, Central Truck Bodies

UK parking equipment specialist APT Skidata is to install, service and maintain new parking control and management systems at the DTZ-managed Telford Shopping Centre in the UK. The contract will see the company upgrade and replace the technology it installed more than 13 years ago, during which time it has processed approximately 150 million vehicles and payments across the centre’s 52-acre site. New hardware and software will be installed to cover the 32 entry and exit lanes to allow for 3,750 parking s