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Latvia’s road traffic Safety directorate (CSDD) has called for the reintroduction of stationary and mobile speed cameras and higher penalties for exceeding the speed limit. CSDD representative Janis Golubev emphasised that the two main causes of death are violation of speed limits and the carelessness of pedestrians who do not use light-reflecting accessories. ‘Most of the road accidents are linked to speed limit violations,’ he said. He admits that ever since speed cameras disappeared from Latvia’s roa

More than 50 organisations representing all sections of the electric vehicle (EV) industry have united to enable and drive e-mobility progress. They have used EVS27 in Barcelona to officially launch an open standards organisation, the eMobility ICT Interoperability Innovation, eMI3, established as an Ertico Innovation Platform, tasked to integrate and harmonise the way information and communication technology (ICT) data is “In a very short amount of time, the EV industry has overcome many obstacles by

According to new research from the analyst firm Berg Insight, the market value for public transport intelligent transport systems (ITS) in Europe was US$1.3 billion in 2012. Growing at a compound annual growth rate of nine per cent, the market is expected to reach US$1.9 billion by 2017. Berg Insight suggests that the European market for ITS for public transport is in a growth phase which will continue throughout the forecasted period. The fluctuating economic climate has in most countries had little eff

Kapsch CarrierCom has won a further order worth US$56 million from the Polish railway company PKP for the design, delivery and installation of the GSM-R train radio system on the stretch of line E20 from Kunowice to Terespol. The 26-month project will be implemented in cooperation with local partner Torpol. Kapsch will install 114 base transceiver stations (BTS) at 57 locations. In addition, base station controllers (BSC), transcoder units (TCU) and packet control unit support nodes (PCUSN) will be supp

Sensys Traffic is to supply a long-standing customer in Malta with speed enforcement systems and support services in a three-year order worth around US$1 million for traffic speed enforcement. The customer will pay a fixed monthly fee for a period of three years. Deliveries are expected to take place in the first quarter 2014.

According to recent research by Frost & Sullivan, there is a palpable reorientation of purchasing habits among American citizens as the country continues its march toward urbanism. In the future, 85 percent of the country’s population is anticipated to live in urban areas, while North America could see the emergence of three mega cities, eleven mega regions, and seven smart cities by 2025. One of the biggest gainers of this massive-scale urbanisation is the automotive industry, particularly autonomous drivi

The European Programme Committee has issued a call for ITS experts to submit a Special Interest Session proposal or a paper to be considered for presentation and publication at the 10th European Congress and Exhibition on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services taking place in Helsinki, Finland, 16–19 June, 2014. Technical papers may address the institutional, business and economic aspects of ITS as well as technical subjects; Scientific papers should concentrate on research and scholarship as they wi

The European Union will use over US$15 million from the Ten-T programme to co-finance two initiatives for the extension of Vienna’s tri-modal port container handling capacity and a project to upgrade the transport link between northern Sweden and western Finland. The project to extend Vienna’s tri-modal port will receive funds of over US$7 million and includes studies and works which will help eliminate major bottlenecks in the port's transfer and combination capacity. The studies will plan and design

Deal values for global transactions of transport infrastructure assets including airports, ports and road operations have risen steeply since the beginning of the year with 2013 poised to be a record year for transport infrastructure deals, according to an analysis by global advisory firm KPMG. The first half of 2013 saw global deals of infrastructure assets worth US$16.6 billion, by the end of the third quarter this figure had risen to US$23.5 billion, which already exceeds total annual deal values fo

Following violent protests from HGV drivers in France, the country's planned introduction of their distance-based eco-tax scheme has now been suspended. French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici has announced plans to renegotiate the contract concluded with Italian-led consortium Ecomouv, charged with implementing the country's controversial heavy goods vehicle (HGV) eco-tax, to minimise the cost of the levy for taxpayers in France. He emphasised that although the HGV tax has indeed been suspended in the

Danish wireless technology company Blip Systems and its Canadian partner G4Apps have installed wireless sensors to help reduce traffic congestion on one of Ontario’s busiest highways, the Queen Elizabeth Way, which averages close to 200,000 vehicles per day. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is using Blip Systems’ combined Bluetooth and wi-fi sensors to verify travel time prediction algorithms. BlipTrack sensor are mounted on posts at strategic points in the road network and detect wireless

'Smart' road barriers that will speed up emergency response times to crash sites are being trialled in South Australia. The wire rope technology, designed in South Australia, is expected to improve crash response times by sending an electronic message direct to the city's traffic management centre when a vehicle crashes into the barrier. The technology has been installed on one of the state's most notorious roads and will be trialled for a year at a cost of US$112,000. If successful, the government wi

A consortium of Kapsch TrafficCom Russia, Kapsch TrafficCom and Russian company JSC (NIS) have successfully pre-qualified and are now set to work on the next stage of the tender for the development of Russia’s nationwide tolling system for heavy vehicles. The system, based on the use of the GLONASS/GPS satellite signal, will target vehicles with a maximum authorised weight of more than 12 tonnes. The project duration is thirteen years. The consortium unites Kapsch and NIS in a joint venture that has a

In a deal worth around US$16 million, Siemens, in association with local construction company BAM, is supplying the road and tunnel technology for the Leidsche Rijn tunnel in the Dutch city of Utrecht. Siemens will also maintain the installed technology for a period of three years. Handover of the tunnel is scheduled for summer 2015. The 495 metre long tunnel is designed to relieve traffic congestion in the new Leidsche Rijn district which is currently under construction to the west of Utrecht. The new t

City-bound traffic on Sydney’s M5 came to a standstill when the partly raised body of a truck struck the roof of the M5 East tunnel causing extensive damage. This video clip on the BBC’s website shows the incident unfolding