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A border traffic booking service pilot project, where drivers can book their border crossing in advance, is due to begin in Finland at the end of 2014 for passenger and freight traffic travelling from Finland to Russia through the Vaalimaa border crossing point. An agreement for the development of the pilot project was signed by the South-East Finland Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (South-East Finland ELY Centre) and GoSwift Suomi earlier this year. It aims to evaluate whe

Secretary for Transport Martin Matthews today launched an intelligent transport systems technology Action Plan that will help make transport safer and more efficient in New Zealand. The plan identifies what is needed in New Zealand for advancing the introduction of intelligent transport systems technologies. Intelligent transport systems use technologies such as sensors, computing and communications in vehicles and in transport infrastructure such as roads; and include such things as traffic control syst

The iMobility Awards Ceremony, which took place during the ITS European Congress in Helsinki, recognised the ambitious and innovative iMobility deployments carried out by winners of the awards, paving the way to safe, smart and clean road mobility. Hermann Meyer, CEO of Ertico–ITS EUROPE, and Lina Konstantinopoulou, iMobility support coordinator, presented the awards and congratulated all the nominees, paying tribute to their high calibre and professionalism before awards were presented to: TomTom for

Four companies, Balfour Beatty, together with Costain, Carillion and a BAM Nuttall Morgan Sindall joint venture, have been awarded the contract to upgrade a 17 mile stretch of the M60 and M62 to a ‘smart motorway’. The US$313 million upgrade, for the UK Highways Agency, aims to increase capacity, reduce congestion and shorten journey times for motorists. The M60 between junctions 8 and 12 will be upgraded to a controlled motorway with traffic flows managed by technology interventions responsive to the

Finland’s technical research centre’s (VTT) TransSmart vision of a model country for sustainable transport throws the spotlight on efficiency – in vehicles, systems, and services. It says transport will be a fusion of sustainable energy sources, advanced technology, safety, high service levels, mobility alternatives and new ways of operating. According to VTT, Finland in 2020 will use low-emission vehicles running on renewable energy, electricity, hydrogen and sustainable bio-fuels. The share of public t

Self-driving cars could appear on Dutch roads before long as the government is preparing regulations that will make large-scale public testing legal. According to Minister for Infrastructure and the Environment Melanie Schultz van Haegen who made the proposal, the age of self-driving cars has arrived and she wants the country to be ready to play a leading international role in the innovation: “Self-driving cars will make a positive contribution to the flow of traffic and to the safety of our busy road ne

A ministerial round table discussion of EU member states on transport at the ITS Europe 2014 Congress on 17 June supported the long-term aim of turning mobility into a service, with the objective that users’ mobility and transportation needs are met under one agreement. Mobility as a service means an overall change in the entire transport system and in the roles of the operators in the transport sector. It is outlined in the statement that in future, transport modes and services will be widely interoper

Technology services company telent has won three prestigious five year contracts worth over US$25.4 million with the UK Highways Agency to maintain critical roadside technology across the east, south-east and M25 regions' motorways and trunk roads. telent now manages all routine and reactive maintenance for over 12,000 technology assets, such as emergency roadside telephones, message signs, traffic signal sites, the Highways Agency weather stations, CCTV cameras, tunnels and many more. The company’

Q-Free has added two new high performance products to its product portfolio, both with low power consumption and long life use. The OBU615 is a Dedicated Short-Range Communication-based (DSRC) on-board unit (OBU) for applications such as electronic toll collection (ETC) and congestion charging, automatic vehicle identification (AVI), electronic registration identification (ERI), access control and parking. The device uses the same in-vehicle mounting as he OBU610, reducing logistic and operational costs

Iteris has been selected, along with Here, to compete with a small group of other companies to provide traffic data and analytics for the I-95 Corridor Coalition, which stretches nearly 2,000 miles from Maine to Florida. Iteris will work in partnership with Here to deliver advanced traffic analytics to support the Coalition, allowing decision-makers to closely monitor traffic and weather conditions, measure performance, optimise operations, and communicate actionable information to traffic engineers.

Vaisala claims it is set to revolutionise the ITS road weather industry by launching an entirely new road weather station, the RWS200, which, when combined with Vaisala’s RoadDSS software suite, delivers a complete road weather solution called iRWIS. Vaisala iRWIS consists of intelligent roadside hardware making its own decisions, combined with sophisticated decision support software that makes decision making easier and more accurate. iRWIS is flexible, from the scalable software solutions to RWS200 tha

The ‘Getting schooled in infrastructure’ campaign bus tour by the US Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) began this week at the now-closed I-495 bridge in Wilmington. The tour, intended to highlight LIUNA’s concerns about the country’s failing roads and bridges, will travel through more than 22 cities and Congressional districts in a bid to press Congress to pass a long-term, full-investment Highway Bill this year. The campaign also includes radio ads, billboards, online activity and g

The iMobility Challenge presented intelligent vehicle systems to policy makers, ITS professionals and the general public in Helsinki during the European ITS Congress. The highlight of the day was the participation of the Formula One driver, Valtteri Bottas, in an eco-driving competition. The competition evaluated a short drive in Helsinki by the F1 driver giving him a ‘smart’ driving score, thanks to an on-board device monitoring the energy-efficiency of his driving style. Visitors then had the chance to

A consortium led by Codiser and including Indra has been awarded a contract to build facilities and provide equipment to operate a 380 kilometre stretch of the east-west Algerian highway. The contract, awarded by L’Algerienne de Gestion des Autoroutes (AGA), the organisation responsible for managing, operating, maintaining and servicing the Algerian national highway network, covers a stretch that links the cities of Hammam El Bibane and Bou Kadir, via the country's capital Algiers, in the central sectio

Cubic Transportation Systems and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) have been awarded the ITS-New York Project of the Year for MTA Bus Time, the customer information system for bus location and arrival times that was developed for the MTA. Bus Time was completed in March and covers more than 15,000 bus stops in New York City. Under a contract awarded in 2013, Cubic was selected to build and integrate the bus hardware system that includes the on-board computer and bus location device