News

A consortium including Graham, Stantec, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Balfour Beatty and Hamon Constructors (GBBH) has been awarded a US$343 million contract by Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) to design and build the north metro rail line. The North Metro project, part of RTD’s sprawling FasTracks transit network, is a proposed 18.4 mile electrified commuter rail line that will connect Denver and Adams County by serving Commerce City, Northglenn and Thornton. Construction begins in 2014 and t

ITS and ticketing provider INIT is to equip French public transport company Transport en Commun de la Région d´Avignon (TCRA) in Greater Avignon with a new intermodal transport control system (ITCS) and TETRA digital radio system. The solution will replace the existing fleet management system and be operational by the end of 2014. In the first phase, around 138 public buses are to be integrated into the ITCS. Additionally, 24 trams running on the newly constructed tram lines are to be linked up to the s

Toll consultant HNTB Corporation has expanded its national toll leadership team by naming a new vice chair of its toll practice and a new director of toll technology consulting and hiring a toll market practice leader, all to advance its clients’ programs as the importance of tolling in the United States grows as a proven funding option for infrastructure. Kevin Hoeflich, with more than 27 years’ industry experience, has joined HNTB as toll market practice leader, with primary focus on the east coast, fo

Romania will receive EU financing worth US$4.06bn for road infrastructure projects between 2014 and 2020, according to the Minister for Infrastructure Projects, Dan Sova., Several road projects are currently being developed including the Sibiu-Brasov, Brasov-Bacau and Sibiu-Pitesti motorways, a segment of the Bucharest ring road and the Craiova-Calafat national road. Romania's national road rehabilitation projects total 4,300 kilometres, 1,532 kilometres of which are being upgraded with financing fr

Serco’s transport solutions business will become a part of Cubic Transportation Systems following Cubic Corporation’s acquisition of the business for an enterprise value of US$70 million. Serco’s primarily a UK-based transport technology and services business and had revenues in the last calendar year of approximately $67 million.

The West Virginia Division of Highways (WVDOH) is to add truck parking guidance to its Open Roads advanced traffic management system (ATMS). Open Roads, as a sub consultant to ALL Construction and Davis H Elliot Company will be deploying the OpenTMS Parking Guidance module in partnership with TCS International, a Q-Free company. The parking guidance system will utilise wireless sensors to monitor parking space availability in rest areas and provide space availability information in real time to the WVDO

Congestion on some of Liverpool’s busiest roads is set to be eased, thanks to US$29 million improvement works. Transport Minister Baroness Kramer has given approval for work on the A5758 Broom’s Cross road scheme to start. The Department of Transport will provide a maximum of US$23 million towards the full scheme cost of US$29 million. Baroness Kramer said: “This scheme will ease congestion and cut pollution on some of Sefton’s busiest roads. The US$23 million we are putting into this project shows t

Brazil's federal government will provide US$913 million for eight public transport projects in the cities of Fortaleza and Caucaia in Ceará state. The projects include the construction of Fortaleza metro's 18.2 kilometre western line, and improvement works on the southern line, as well as the construction of a 23.2 kilometre bus corridor in Fortaleza, the conclusion of a 6.5 kilometre bus rapid transport (BRT) lane and an additional 37.2 kilometres of bus lane throughout the city. Meanwhile, Caucaia will

China’s fifth annual Future Challenge earlier this month pitted eleven unmanned intelligent vehicles against each other on a course designed to test their capabilities in suburban and urban road tests, over a 23-kilometre course. All of the first eight cars to finish were equipped with Velodyne’s 3D Lidar vision technology which provides active sensing for crash avoidance, driving automation and mobile road survey and mapping. Velodyne HDL-64E and HDL-32E sensors deliver 360-degree views of the car’s env

US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx has announced a Transportation Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan for US$275 million to build new reversible lanes along I-75 and I-575. The 29.7-mile-long project will relieve congestion along the heavily trafficked corridor during morning and evening peak periods. The loan will go toward the US$833.7 million total cost of the project. The corridor has long been recognised as one of the Atlanta region’s most congested travel corridors with over 4

Last month’s Economic Development Vitality Initiative forum, co-sponsored by IBM, identified strong infrastructure, including intelligent transportation systems (ITS) as highlighted by panellist Scott Belcher, CEO of ITS America, as essential. The key to ensuring the sustainability and resilience of our critical transportation infrastructure, in the end, comes down to encouraging the right choices. Data collected by industry, government and academia over the past several decades shows a clear correlation

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) solutions provider Open Roads Consulting is to deploy its automotive incident response module for West Virginia Division of Highways’ (WVDOH) advanced transportation management system (ATMS). Open Roads’ OpenTMS has been the backbone of the WVDOH state-wide ITS program since 2008. The modular and extensible architecture of the OpenTMS platform will seamlessly incorporate the automated incident response module into the core system. The automated incident managem

The latest multi-function inductive loop vehicle detectors from intelligent transportation systems supplier Reno A&E are designed to reliably detect all vehicles, as well as differentiating cycles from all other vehicles. The Model C-1101-B and C-1201-B two channel loop detectors are available in 170/2070, NEMA TS1/TS2, ITS and ATC cabinet configurations and provide intersection safety without sacrificing efficiency Additional passage time for bicycles can be provided by either the loop detector or the con

Canadian company STI-Tassimco has developed the STS-22 to enable traffic authorities to easily synchronise all its traffic controllers. Featuring a GPS satellite time synchronisation module and a user friendly display, the device fits standard a NEMA or 170 detection chassis or can be mounted in its own one-position chassis, and updates the controller’s clock on a regular basis. The STS-22 will compensate for the clock’s temperature drifting and other variations observed in the field, keeping it accurat

A partnership between UK payment and ticketing solutions provider Parkeon and Cloud Amber is about to deliver real time passenger information (RTPI) in advance of travel that the companies say is redefining the effectiveness of RTPI systems. The system developed by Parkeon and Cloud Amber enables over-the-air location tracking of buses, the deep integration with urban traffic management control (UTMC) data and two-way driver messaging. This bus-centric view means that operators are better able to manage