News

The UK Government has published its updated National Infrastructure Pipeline, which shows that planned infrastructure investment has now increased to £383 billion up to 2020 and beyond. The Pipeline, which is converted in to an interactive map format by leading construction intelligence specialists Barbour ABI, has increased from more than £375 billion when it was last updated in December. It is designed to increase the visibility of future infrastructure investment in both the public and private sectors

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) today announces that General Motors CEO Mary Barra is to kick off the 21st World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) on 7 September in Detroit, Michigan with an opening keynote speech that will address the changing transportation environment around the world as well as the rapidly evolving technology of connected, autonomous, and electric vehicles. “Connectivity may drive more positive change for customers than any other te

Bellevue City Council, Washington has approved an expansion of the city’s photo enforcement program, supplied by American Traffic Solutions, from three red-light cameras and two school-zone cameras to six red-light cameras and three school-zone cameras. In an effort to improve traffic safety at busy intersections and school zones, the city in 2009 and 2010 installed cameras to catch red light runners and school zone speeders. Police data show that the cameras now in place generally have changed driver

Budapest transport operator BKK Centre for Budapest Transport has introduced new ticket vending machines which accept both cash and card payments, enabling all passengers to buy tickets round the clock. The company has added an English language instructional video and interactive demo to its website (link www.bkk.hu/tvm) and the vending machine menus are available in Hungarian and English, with German, French, Spanish, Romanian, Slovak, Chinese and Russian to follow shortly.

Plans for an inter-oceanic canal in Nicaragua have been announced by Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment and its local arm HKND. The US$40 billion project involves the construction of an alternative to the Panama Canal. The proposed 280 kilometre, which aims to compete with the Panama canal, would connect Nicaragua's Caribbean and Pacific coasts. It includes the development of a deepwater port at each end of the canal, an oil pipeline running alongside it a dry canal for the transpo

The UK’s Freight Transport Association (FTA) has voiced its support of today’s announcement that the HGV national speed limit on single carriageway roads will increase from 40mph to 50mph. The Government decision followed a public consultation to which FTA had contributed and states that in early 2015 the national speed limit for heavy goods vehicles of more than 7.5 tonnes on single carriageways will increase. FTA said that this decision supports an improvement in road safety by reducing the 20mph

Car park equipment manufacturer APT Skidata has partnered with PayPal to become what is said to be first to market with a mobile phone app solution for paying for parking. The solution, which is being used for the first time at Westfield London, enables Users to simply download and open the PayPal app; they then select ‘Westfield London Parking’ from the ‘local’ section and receive a barcode for their stay. They take a ticket from the car parking entry terminal as normal, but when they come to pay they s

The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) has joined US Department of Transportation (DOT) secretary Anthony Foxx and 11 former DOT secretaries in supporting a call for Congress to find consensus on a long-term solution to funding our nation’s infrastructure. Patrick D. Jones, executive director and CEO of IBTTA, echoed the call for long-term action by stating: “The joint letter released yesterday by our nation’s transportation chiefs is a profile in courage and should serve as an

Allied Vision Technologies (AVT) closes the first half of 2014 with historic sales and volume figures. The machine vision camera manufacturer is far ahead of its plans and achieved record volume and revenues in May and June. Sales in volume in the first half of the year have been above AVT’s ambitious growth plans. The mark of 10,000 cameras shipped in one month was broken in May, a record in the 25-year history of the company. Revenues are also above plan in the first six month of 2014. A historical

Drivers in Turkey are to get real time traffic information, now that TomTom has launched its real-time traffic service in the country. TomTom’s real-time traffic creates a clear picture of traffic conditions as they evolve, keeping drivers in control of their journeys, with the most accurate, largest coverage area and the highest update frequency of real-time traffic information. The latest TomTom Traffic Index ranks Istanbul second in the world for overall traffic congestion levels, with 62 per cen

Volvo will unveil ‘the most comprehensive and technologically sophisticated standard safety package available in the automotive industry’ next month when it launches its all-new XC90 all-wheel drive SUV. The standard safety package will include an auto brake at intersection capability and run-off road protection. The auto brake at intersection function automatically applies the brakes if the driver turns in front of an oncoming car. On-board systems detect a potential crash and automatically apply the br

As Congress considers legislation to avoid a shortfall of the Highway Trust Fund, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and 11 of his predecessors have written an open letter to Congress. Their message: Congress’ work doesn’t end with the bill under consideration. Transportation in America still needs a much larger, longer-term investment. The letter begins: “This week, it appears that Congress will act to stave off the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund. The bill, if passed, should extend surf

Vitronic is to supply Abu Dhabi Traffic Police with an automated enforcement management system, which consists of a network of more than 500 PoliScanspeed spot enforcement systems and 120 PoliScanseco point-to-point enforcement systems across the whole of the Emirate. In addition to the hardware, Vitronic will also deliver a range of software solutions for interconnection of enforcement sites, case processing and management of the enforcement assets.

Nissan Motor Corporation will introduce cars featuring an automatic parking system and traffic-jam pilot within the next year and a half, according to president and CEO Carlos Ghosn. “By the end of 2016, Nissan will make available the next two technologies under its autonomous drive strategy,” Ghosn told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “We are bringing to market a traffic-jam pilot, in which cars will have the capability to drive autonomously and safely on congested highways,”

A THINK! radio campaign has been launched to encourage drivers to take longer to look for motorcyclists after figures revealed that 30 bikers are killed or injured every day at junctions, Road Safety minister Robert Goodwill has announced. The ‘Didn’t See’ campaign will run for four weeks on national radio with the aim of reducing the number of motorcyclist and driver collisions on our roads. Research for THINK! has shown that drivers believe the majority of motorcycle accidents happen because of bike