News

Copenhagen metro operator Metroselkabet has appointed Arup as part of a joint venture with Rambøll to develop the light rail on ring 3 for greater Copenhagen. The new light rail system includes a double track alignment of 27 kilometres and 27 stations with a rolling stock fleet of 27 light rail vehicles. This major project was planned to promote the use of public transport as well as encourage the urban development along the route and the passage across the city to avoid interchanging in the centre.

Florida is one step closer to meeting national mandate for interoperability, with the announcement that the Florida Department of Transportation has entered into an agreement with Neology, a subsidiary of SMARTRAC Technology Group, for the patents associated with specific licensed products that offer the 6C protocol for electronic toll collection (ETC). “The licence provided through the agreement with Neology allows the Department to implement a variety of strategies to provide toll collection services,”

Siemens is to supply and install traffic signals and controllers for two major junction improvements schemes on the M27 motorway in Hampshire, UK. The contracts, which are funded by the UK government’s US$488 million pinch point scheme, have been awarded by civil contractors Interserve Construction and Jackson Civil Engineering and are intended to help alleviate the flow of traffic joining and leaving the busy M27 junctions 3 and 5. The upgrade work, which is already underway, will see additional lane

The UK’s Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has lifted the lid on the worst examples of excessive speeding caught on safety cameras across England and Wales in 2014. Britain’s two worst speeders were caught at 146mph, both by Kent Police on the M25, one travelling anti-clockwise, the other going clockwise. There were three other recorded instances of speeds of 140mph or more; 145mph on the M6 toll road (70mph limit), 141mph on the A1 Great Ponton Northbound road (70mph limit) and 140mph on the A5 C

The Victoria Government in Australia is sponsoring a new framework to trial technology on the state’s road network that will improve the operation of heavy vehicles and promote Victoria as Australia’s freight and logistics capital. Minister for Roads, Luke Donnellan, called on the heavy vehicle, freight and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) industries to develop innovative approaches to using intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and associated technology to improve the productivity and safety of ro

TomTom has announced a multi-year agreement with automobile manufacturer Volkswagen Group to bring its traffic service to their cars across Europe, beginning with Audi and Volkswagen. TomTom is a major supplier of traffic information, with one of the most extensive bases of real-time GPS probes in the world, detecting the actual traffic situation on all roads. According to the company, recent industry benchmarks and awards prove that TomTom Traffic covers more jams with fewer false alerts than its comp

Q-Free has reported strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2014, reflecting a substantial increase in sales within the advanced transportation management systems (ATMS) business following the acquisition of US-based Open Roads by the end of the third quarter 2014 and an increase in product revenues. “In early 2014, we revised our strategy and now aim at creating more leads in the small and mid-sized segments. In Q4, we have made significant progress in this respect. At the same time we succeeded

New standards are needed to plug security and privacy gaps in cars and trucks, according to a report by US Senator Edward J. Markey. The report, Tracking & Hacking: Security & Privacy Gaps Put American Drivers at Risk and first reported on by CBS News’ 60 Minutes, reveals how sixteen major automobile manufacturers responded to questions from Markey in 2014 about how vehicles may be vulnerable to hackers, and how driver information is collected and protected. The responses from the automobile manufacturer

Ahead of its discussion on the European Union’s key priorities for the next decade, seven stakeholder organisations from industry, transport and cities have written to the College of the European Commission regarding the creation of a European Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy. They called on the commissioners to focus on the transport sector, which represents about a third of the EU’s overall energy consumption and is almost exclusively dependent on imported fossil fuels. The let

US Senators Marco Rubio and Cory Booker have reintroduced S. 424, the Wi-Fi Innovation Act, legislation to expand unlicensed spectrum use by requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to test the feasibility of opening the upper 5 GHz band to unlicensed use. At a time when demand for spectrum is drastically increasing, the legislation aims to provide more of this valuable resource to the public to bolster innovation, spur economic development, and increase connectivity. According to Rubio,

Dutch Infrastructure and Environment Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen, along with representatives of the European Commission, recently took part in test drive of truck platooning on the A28 in the Netherlands. The convoy consisted of three Scania R500 Streamline trucks; the steering was done by truck drivers, but speed and braking were controlled by the front truck using wi-fi technology. The plan is to have fully self driving trucks in the future. This method of coupled drive, based on adaptive cr

The first trial of driverless cars is launched today in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London. The Greenwich Automated Transport Environment project (GATEway) is one of three projects chosen by the Government to deliver demonstrations of automated vehicles in urban environments. The trial officially gets underway at Greenwich Peninsula today, attended by Business Secretary Vince Cable and Transport Minister Claire Perry, who also officially launched a regulatory review and the UK Government’s ‘Intro

Jordan is to host a Euromed regional conference on 21 October in Amman on the use of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), in particular European GNSS (E-GNSS) in ITS for freight and road transport.

According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research, Automatic Number Plate Recognition Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020, the automatic number plate recognition market globally is forecast to reach US$1,023.2 million by 2020. The key factors driving the growth of this market include increased adoption in traffic enforcement and surveillance applications and increasing trend of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) integrati

Nedap’s parking solution for the Swiss city of Zug utilises its Sensit in-ground wireless parking bay sensors to provide real-time occupancy information, which is displayed on dynamic messages signs to guide drivers to available spaces. The new system was integrated with the parking systems of Nedap partners Hectronic and Swarco and enables the city’s parking capacity to be enforced effectively.