News

Four new solutions based largely on existing technology could drastically improve the safety and efficiency of travel and transportation by 2025, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group. The report, Connected World: Transforming Travel, Transportation and Supply Chain, is the product of a cross-industry effort involving over fifty leading companies from the travel, transportation, and information and communications technology industries. It out

BMW Group recently brought its ActiveE program to China to prepare for the future commercialisation of electric vehicles in the country. Twenty Beijing residents selected to participate in the project received the keys to the all-electric car they will be driving over the next year. Fifteen users in the southern city of Shenzhen will also get cars at the end of June to give the company an idea of how the model operates in the city's hot, humid climate, balancing the results from the test in the cooler, dri

French engineering and consulting group Egis has been selected by Turkish toll concessionaire Oyotol as its partner for the operation and maintenance of the Gebze-İzmir motorway in Turkey. The deal follows the award of the Eurasia tunnel in 2012. The Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) project is being carried out on behalf of the Turkish General Directorate of Highways and is said to be the largest BOT project in Turkey to date. It includes 420 km of motorway (2x3 lanes) between Gebze on the North shore of

Speedy Hire, the UK’s leading provider of equipment rental and support services to construction, infrastructure and industrial related industries has installed CCTV technology on its new fleet of heavy goods vehicles (HGV) and light commercial vans as part of an on-going commitment to road safety. The equipment will improve visibility for drivers, support driver behaviour feedback and training and protect Speedy against erroneous insurance claims. Commercial fleet CCTV company, Vue, supplied its video data

Michigan’s Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC) has revamped its online real-time traffic map, making the congestion-monitoring tool simpler, easier and faster to use. The changes allow users to see congestion levels on county roads across Oakland County, thanks to data provided by RCOC’s Faster and Safer Travel through Traffic Routing and Advanced Controls (Fast-Trac) adaptive traffic-signal system. Fast-Trac detects the volume of traffic moving in each direction at equipped intersections and uses th

Kapsch CarrierCom is to supply its GSM-R railway communications solution for a prestigious project in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to ensure safe train operations on the 450 km high speed line between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The contract, awarded by Indra and the Saudi Railways Organisation, utilises the latest technology based on the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) level 2. The rail line will connect multiple urban regions as well as the international King Abdullah Airport. The

A temporary joint venture comprising Indra, Altia, R and Ilux has been awarded the first phase of the Smart Coruña project and will develop the first comprehensive platform for a smart city in the city of A Corũna in Galicia, Spain. The consortium will be responsible for the design, supply, installation and configuration of all the computer equipment and software infrastructure that comprises the Smart Coruña platform. It will also establish the technical project office for the consultancy and supervision o

Volvo Cars Finland is to enhance its 2014 models by including Mediamobile’s V-Traffic TMC real time traffic information on all cars equipped with Sensus infotainment and RTI navigation systems. The V-Traffic Premium TMC service provide drivers with real-time information on traffic incidents on the Finnish main road network and improves turn by turn navigation by estimating the best route and estimated travel time depending on traffic conditions. "The Volvo Sensus infotainment system with its many options is

Vinci Autoroutes in France, the largest toll operator in Europe, has chosen Q-Free’s OBU 610 universal toll tag in an order valued at US$5.5 million. With more than four thousand kilometres under their concession Vinci Autoroutes controls around half of France’s national network. The OBU 610 is Q-Free’s fourth generation transponder, small yet powerful enough to support all 5.8 GHz CEN DSRC protocols.

Allied Vision Technologies (AVT) has expanded its Burnaby location near Vancouver, BC in Canada with additional office space, providing additional room for its rapidly expanding R&D team. “AVT has ambitious growth plans at its various worldwide locations to meet the strong demand for its high-quality machine vision cameras. With both R&D and manufacturing, the Burnaby site has a strategic role in that respect”, says Frank Grube, president and CEO of the company.

Volvo Car Group has developed what it claims is an ingenious concept for autonomous parking. The concept car finds and parks in a vacant space by itself, without the driver inside. The smart, driverless car also interacts safely and smoothly with other cars and pedestrians in the car park. Vehicle 2 Infrastructure technology informs the driver when the service is available. The driver uses a mobile phone application to activate the autonomous parking system and then leaves the car. The vehicle uses sensors

One of the largest field tests ever conducted on Car-to-X communication has shown that information exchange between vehicles and infrastructure make traffic safer and more efficient. simTD (Safe Intelligent Mobility – Test Field Germany), a joint project by leading German automotive manufacturers, component suppliers, telecommunication companies, research institutions and public authorities recently carried out tests on the simTD technology using 500 test drivers in moving traffic. Scientists at the Technis

Kapsch TrafficCom has been awarded a US$860,000 contract to implement and operate a new variable message sign (VMS) system on the only access road to El Teniente copper mine, Chile. The system is the first stage of a planned traffic management system. Situated around 80km south of the capital city of Santiago de Chile in the Andes mountains, El Teniente is the world’s largest underground copper mine, operated by the state-owned mining company Codelco. More than 10,000 miners are transported to and from th

The New South Wales (NSW) Government will invest US$4.7 billion to build and maintain critical road and maritime infrastructure across the state in the 2013-2014 state budget, providing for new roads infrastructure, maintenance and road safety. Roads minister Duncan Gay says this new infrastructure fund, Restart NSW, will support the WestConnex Motorway, WestConnex enabling works in the Port Botany and Sydney Airport Precinct, the Pacific and Princes highways, Bridges for the Bush, and addressing congestion

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed by the Rio de Janeiro State Government and leaders from Brazil's public-private sectors to accelerate zero-emission transportation in Rio de Janeiro. The partners for this historic deal are Renault-Nissan Alliance, Petrobras Distribuidora, Light, Ampla and Rio Negocios.