News

Passengerfta is to supply Transport for London (TfL) with engineering quality monitoring (EQM) and will carry out quality monitoring inspections and audits on London’s 8,500-strong bus fleet. As part of the Freight Transport Association (FTA), Passengerfta offers a range of services designed for passenger carrying vehicle (PCV) operators and carries out thousands of PSV inspections throughout the United Kingdom and Eire every year.

In a special event attended by more than 100 high level representatives of all sectors of European transport, the European Conference of Transport Research Institutes (ECTRI), recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary Brussels, Belgium. Among the speakers who stressed the importance of ECTRI’s role in European transport research was ECTRI President, Professor George A. Giannopoulos, director of the Hellenic Institute of Transport. He discussed ECTRI’s achievements over the past ten years, in particular: t

Spanish consulting and technology firm Indra, will use its participation in the Trafic International Road Safety and Equipment Show in Madrid 15-18 October to present its traffic management and intelligent technology solutions for improving urban mobility and moving towards the smart cities model. The company will display its comprehensive, advanced technology traffic management and control solutions, intelligent transport systems (ITS), tunnel control systems and toll and electronic toll systems, placin

The “Better Regulation of Public-Private Partnerships for Transport Infrastructure” report just released by the International Transport Forum at the OECD looks at public-private partnerships (PPPs), which have become an important tool for governments to attract private finance for infrastructure investments. In the face of tight budgets, PPPs are seen as a means to maintain transport investment and limit public spending at the same time.

Flir Intelligent Transportation Systems is taking advantage of this year’s ITS World Congress in Tokyo, Japan, to launch its ThermiCam, an integrated thermal camera and detector for vehicle and cycle presence detection and counting at signalised intersec¬tions. ThermiCam uses the thermal energy emitted by cycles and other vehicles to distinguish between them, day or night in all weather conditions, providing traffic managers uninterrupted, 24-hour detection of motorised vehicles and cyclists regardless o

Jenoptik’s Traffic Solutions is to operate mobile speed enforcement systems in New South Wales, Australia, under a major contract awarded by the Australian Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) for a new traffic safety program by the RMS designed to increase speed enforcement in New South Wales from six to around 45 mobile vehicles, delivering 7,000 enforcement hours each month. The contract, which has been awarded to two companies, is worth around US$33.5 million over three years.

A newly published Frost & Sullivan video report, The Future of Mobility summarises the key factors which impact the way people will move from door to door in the future and which will add a new dimension to the mobility behaviour of human beings. The video report highlights trends impacting mobility, presents future mobility solutions like car sharing, and mobility apps, providing door to door one stop shop journeys, and discusses and compares what organisations within the mobility eco-system are doing to e

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) recently completed a smart corridor project on State Route 12 in Solano, Sacramento and San Joaquin counties, and I-5 in San Joaquin County. The project utilises intelligent transportation system (ITS) technology for five electronic message signs and four closed-circuit TV cameras to provide drivers with up to date travel information, enabling them to choose an alternate route in the event of congestion or roadway incidents.

The UK’s Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) smart cities meeting on 16 October will debate the technologies, skills and innovation needed to deliver the smart cities of the future. Prof Dr Uwe Krueger, CEO of Atkins, will discuss how coping with mass urbanisation will require a new kind of design, engineering and delivery – one which delivers adaptable and smart solutions, prioritises materials and energy efficiency and yet still meets the highest standards of quality and safety. It will me

Toyota has revealed two new integrated safety systems designed to reduce the risk of pedestrian collisions and deliver safer driving in traffic, both of which will be brought to market in the next few years. Its auto-steering function for its pre-collision system (PCS) works in conjunction with automatic braking to help the driver avoid an impact, while its automated highway driving assist (AHDA) system keeps the car on an optimum driving line and a safe distance from the vehicle in front.

German intelligent transportation systems supplier init has been awarded its first major order in France with the award of a contract by French local authority Le Grand Avignon. The contract, worth more than more than US$6.7million, is for the supply and installation of a new control system (ITCS) for local public transport company TCRA (Transport en Commun de la Région d‘Avignon), a subsidiary of the TRANSDEV Group.

UK ports owner Associated British Ports (ABP) has selected Indra’s iMare vehicle traffic service (VTS) for the monitoring and management of maritime traffic in the port of Southampton, one of the UK’s largest and most important ports, handling over 38 million tonnes of cargo a year.

According to ABI Research, the number of full electric vehicles (EV) shipping yearly will increase from 150,000 in 2013 to 2.36 million in 2020, representing a CAGR of 48 per cent. Asia-Pacific will exhibit the strongest growth, driven by mounting pollution issues in its many megacities; however, true mass-market uptake will only start happening in the next decade.

A consortium of Siemens, US company Bechtel and local construction companies Almabani and Consolidated Contractors Company has been awarded a subway contract worth US$10 billion by the Riyadh High Commission for Urban Development (ArRiyadh Development Authority). Siemens, whose share of the deal is worth around US$2.1 billion, is supplying subway rolling stock, electrification systems and signalling technology for driverless operation, as well as system integration.

More than thirty vendors from all over the world gathered at the second eCall Testfest, organised by Ertico-ITS Europe and ETSI to test the interoperability of the vendors’ eCall implementations. The event, hosted by CETECOM, was supported by the HeERO project and the European Commission and proved to be important, not only in terms of attendance numbers, but it also demonstrated that eCall is nearing deployment.