News

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

The electronic highway signage system and field devices that provide real-time travel information for the 300,000 daily users of New York’s George Washington Bridge are to undergo a major overhaul in a US$65.1 millio0n project. The Port Authority of New York has approved the project to replace the intelligent transportation system (ITS) which includes the upgrade and replacement of 11 existing variable message signs and the installation of seven new ones; the installation of a new overhead sign structure

Q-Free has been awarded a three-year framework agreement for parking guidance systems by European parking operator Vinci Park, which operates 3,900 parking garages in 14 countries worldwide. Q-Free has already installed the first parking guidance system at the Vinci Park car park La Madeleine in central Paris. “This contract represents a breakthrough in the central European market for our parking guidance systems and as such this framework agreement is of strategic importance to Q-Free,” comments Q-Fr

Through its Transportation Lighting and Safety program, the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is evaluating the potential for new lighting technologies and approaches to improve driving safety at night, including new car headlight systems. For the study, vehicle manufacturer Audi AG has provided the LRC with an A7 equipped with adaptive high beam ‘matrix lights’ that allow drivers to benefit from using high beams all the time while selectively dimming a portion of the bea

TomTom Telematics has launched a new smartphone app in the UK and Germany that gives drivers real-time feedback on their driving style. TomTom CURFER uses the latest developments in connected car technology from TomTom Telematics to provide drivers with visual information on how they drive – including live and retrospective feedback on their braking, cornering, acceleration and idling. The app works in conjunction with the TomTom LINK 100 dongle, which plugs into the vehicle’s OBD port to connect car

A new report from Navigant Research analyses the global market for smart urban mobility infrastructure and services in smart cities, including car sharing, advanced traffic management, smart parking, and other transportation innovations, with regional forecasts for revenue, through 2024. According to the report, Urban Mobility in Smart Cities, the market for smart urban mobility infrastructure and services is expected to exceed US$25 billion in 2024. In cities around the world, thoughts on mobility in ur