News

Highways England, the government-owned company which will deliver the largest investment in England’s major roads in a generation, officially launches next week. The company, which replaces the Highways Agency from 1 April, will invest US$16 billion in delivering a raft of improvements on England’s motorways and major A roads making roads even safer, improving traffic flow and reducing congestion. The improvements over the first five years of operation include: 112 major improvements, including 15 sma

The Ho Chi Minh City-trung Luong highway connecting the city and the Mekong Delta province of Long An has become the first in Vietnam to be controlled by an intelligent transport system (ITS), says the Vietnam News Agency. The was implemented between April 2013 and December 2014 and was officially launched on 20 March, with a total investment of US$38.5 million, funded by preferential loans of the Republic of Korean Government and the Vietnamese Government budget. The system includes a smart control

Trafficware’s latest version of its advanced traffic management system, ATMS.now 2.2, will support both of the widely popular Google Maps and Microsoft Bing Maps web-based mapping systems, says the company. As Trafficware’s product development is driven by customer feedback, ATMS.now 2.2 provides more flexibility and convenience selecting mapping capabilities from an array of resources versus being limited to a single source. The latest release also includes enhanced analysis tools, the expanded measu

São Paulo state government has approved a tender for second phase works to finish São Paulo metro company CMSP's line No.4. In addition, the Corsán-Corviam consortium is due to start work by April on its allocated sections of the project, according to news website Terra. The group will have 12 months to finish building the Higienópolis-Mackenzie and Oscar Freire stations as well as a metro yard and bus terminal at Vila Sônia station, Terra added. São Paulo state government has also approved a new tender to

Inrix is to join the Corporate Partnership Board (CPB) of the International Transport Forum (ITF) at the OECD. Created in 2013, the CPB is the ITF's platform for engaging with the private sector and enriching policy discussion with a business perspective among its 54 member countries. Inrix joins the 13 current CPB members from across the transport industry: Bombardier Transportation, China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO Group), Kapsch TrafficCom, Meridiam, M

Kenya plans to start tendering in May for toll-road contracts estimated by the government to be worth $2 billion to improve the efficiency of the East African nation’s biggest commercial routes, according to Bloomberg. The contracts will be in addition to the 45 deals worth about US$3.2 billion that the government will start awarding as early as next week, to double the nation’s paved-road network through an annuity program. The government is planning to introduce five toll projects covering about 800 kilom

Road deaths fell by a negligible one per cent in the EU last year according to new data released by the European Commission. The drastic slowdown in progress puts at risk the region's target of halving road deaths by 2020. TISPOL general secretary Ruth Purdie called for an immediate end to the reductions in numbers of traffic police. “It is unlikely that anyone will establish a precise provable link between the decline in traffic police numbers and the increase in casualties across Europe. But as long as ro

Councils across England will receive a share of US$410 million for major local roads maintenance, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has announced. The Challenge Fund will be used for one-off major infrastructure schemes by local authorities to improve life for local residents and businesses. The 31 schemes being awarded funding across the 28 local authorities include safety repairs, bridge renewal, carriageway and drainage improvements, as well as upgrading street lighting in a number of areas to bring

An imaginative and systematic approach to monitoring and evaluation has won Bremen, Germany the European Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) Award, while Östersund in Sweden has been presented with the European Mobility Week Award for its work on sustainable travel options. Bremen’s interactive web platform was used to obtain feedback from residents and a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis was carried out using this and other data. Five different scenarios were then examined showi

Indra has been awarded a US9.9 million contract by Tenerife's regional government to implement the latest public transportation management technology in its urban and inter-city services. Indra will install an operation assistance system (OAS) to manage a fleet of 530 buses on the island and an integrated contactless-ticketing solution for its buses and streetcar services. Indra's new multimode contactless-ticketing system means that the ticket has only to be passed over a reader, replacing the current magn

Amsterdam-based digital security provider Gemalto is to provide China Telecom with a mobile contactless payment solution using its UpTeq Multi-tenant NFC SIMs to deploy secure NFC transport services in China's two largest cities, Shanghai and Beijing. China Telecom is a leading operator in the country with more than 183 million subscribers. This deployment will enable up to 45 million daily commuters to travel on the metro and pay for everyday purchases with a simple tap of their smartphone. The NFC SIMs ar

Automatic Systems has been awarded a contract by Spanish toll roads manager Abertis Autopistas to supply 601 barriers for toll applications in Spain. Automatic Systems' BL 229 and BL 229 Toll barriers will be installed on the toll highway network in the Catalonia region and the highways around Barcelona, Girona and Tarragona. Delivery of the barriers is expected to be completed by July this year. "Automatic Systems has been working directly with Abertis Autopistas since 2013 in various highway toll projects

Sensys Traffic is moving into what it calls a new phase with the appointment of a new CEO. Torbjörn Sandberg, currently a member of the company’s Board of Directors, is replacing Johan Frilund, who will assume responsibility for strategic business development following this change. Having established itself in the market, the company is now entering a new phase in which the focus is on growth, both organic and through acquisitions, continued internationalisation and business development. After seven years a

Bristol City Council in the UK has unlocked funding from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund to support the installation of CycleEye cyclist sensor alert systems on a number of buses operated by the European Green Capital’s main operator First West of England. Designed by Bristol-based Fusion Processing, CycleEye has been developed to reduce the growing number of cyclist collisions and casualties. Fitted to the side of a bus, CycleEye operates night and day in all weathers, using radar and camera sensors t

Smart cities are going to be amazing community hubs that will be more sustainable, efficient and supportive of citizens, according to a new report, Australia - Smart Cities - People, Transport, Cars, Buildings from reportbuyer.com. The concept of smart communities is based on intelligent infrastructure such as broadband (FttP) and smart grids, so that connected and sustainable communities can be developed. However, they cannot be built within the silo structure that currently dominates our thinking; a holis