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The University of Michigan is creating the Mobility Transformation Center (MTC), in partnership with government and leading tech companies, as a means to test and develop the infrastructure and in-vehicle components to make autonomous vehicles a reality. M City, the nickname for the MTC, is a mock city that allows developers to test a fully autonomous driving experience in a real-world environment. With completion scheduled for July, the 32-acre facility on U of M’s North Campus will include buildings,

New Zealand is to implement multi-lane free flow tolling on key routes in Tauranga later this year, with the installation of two high-tech electronic tolling gantries, each with 16 cameras, on Tauranga Eastern Link (TEL) and Route K. The cameras will capture an image of the vehicle’s front and rear registration plates using the latest optical character recognition technology. The cameras will read the registration plates and determine the size of the vehicle and whether it is a motorcycle, car, truck or

A major investment in technology to help tackle congestion and give better information to drivers across parts of the UK’s north west will be completed by the Highways Agency by the end of the month. Improvements worth more than US$8.5 million, with extended CCTV coverage of the region’s motorways and new electronic variable message signs (VMS), are being delivered by the Highways Agency as part of the Government’ US$470 million pinch point programme. Work on installing new electronic signs and CCTV c

Speaking at a major industry forum, Scott Charlton, CEO of Australian toll roads operator, Transurban, said that the country’s major cities risk a decline in liveability without major investment in transport systems and an overhaul of transport funding model. Charlton said that despite significant progress by state governments traditional funding systems were outdated, unsustainable and unfair, and cannot sustain the funding needed to address Australia’s transport infrastructure deficit. Charlton said it

The latest report by Marketsandmarkets, "Road Safety Market by Types (Highways and Bridges Safety, Urban Roads Safety and Tunnels Safety) & Systems (Red Light Enforcement, Speed Limit Enforcement, Bus Lane Enforcement, Communication, Incident Detection) - Worldwide Market Forecast (2014-2019)", indicates that the road safety market is expected to grow from US$3.37 billion in 2014 to US$5.73 billion in 2019, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.2 per cent from 2014 to 2019. In terms of regions,

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