News

Suffolk County Transit (SCT), based in Yaphank, New York, has chosen US ITS technology provider INIT to implement an intelligent transportation system (ITS) on more than 300 of their fixed-route and community transport vehicles. SCT provides public transport for over 1.5 million people over a service area of 900 square miles on Long Island. The contract includes an inter-modal fleet management system, onboard computers, driver terminals and onboard announcements. 10 percent of the fleet will be equipped wi

The City of Cologne, Germany, and IBM have completed a smarter traffic pilot to predict and manage traffic flow and road congestion in the city. The pilot demonstrates how the city of Cologne can anticipate, better manage, and in many cases, avoid traffic jams and trouble spots across the city using analytics technology. Germany’s fourth largest city, Cologne has a population of just over one million, is a retail centre, hub for trade shows and a cultural center with many museums and galleries. The increas

Iteris, US-based intelligent traffic management information solutions provider is to upgrade and operate the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) next generation 511 Traveler Information System. The company has been awarded a three-year contract, valued at approximately US$2.5 million, including two one-year options for ongoing operation and maintenance. Work on the project is planned to begin immediately. A component of the award includes IterisPeMS (iPeMS), a state-of-the-art system that a

Norwegian toll technology provider Q-Free has received a further order from Vespucio Norte Express in Chile for its OBU610 toll tags, valued at US$3.4 million. Delivery starts in May 2013. One of the first urban concessionaires in Santiago, Vespucio Norte Express is one of the most modern road connections worldwide. In operation since January 2006, the 29 km link is one of the busiest roads in the Chilean capital. It aims to reduce travel times, increase safety levels for users, contribute to urban develo

A new report from the International Transport Forum, a global transport policy platform with fifty-four member countries, entitled Sharing Road Safety states that governments can more effectively improve road safety by making better use of indicators that reliably quantify the reduction of crashes due to interventions in the road-traffic system. Almost 1.3 million people die in road crashes every year, and between 20 and 50 million are injured. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among youn

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) has released a report detailing US revenue estimates of eight ITS service packages, as defined by the National ITS Architecture and an analysis of the opportunities and challenges currently facing the ITS industry. The report, entitled The US Intelligent Transportation Systems Market: Revenues of Service, Opportunities and Challenges, is an update to the August 2011 report Sizing the US and North American Intelligent Transportation System Marke

The first V2X for Auto Safety & Mobility Conference, to be held in Frankfurt on 20-21 February, will bring together expert speakers from ITS UK, European Commission, BMW, Renault and Scania to devise a unified commercialisation and deployment strategy for vehicle and infrastructure technology to accelerate safety and mobility. Telematics Update, organisers of the conference, say that vehicle to vehicle communication will transform automotive safety, enabling deployment of effective active safety features fo

UK headquartered ticketing technology company Parkeon Transit is to provide the complete ticketing system for the Edinburgh tram project, including the supply and maintenance of the company’s latest Galexio-Plus ticket machines, Axio platform validators, and hand-held payment terminals. The system will be enabled to dual-read both ITSO cards and the Lothian Buses’ Ridacard, and will be linked to the existing Lothian Buses’ back office, with card holders sharing the benefits across both the tram and bus netw

TransCore and the New York City Department of Transportation have been presented with the prestigious International Road Federation (IRF) Global Road Achievement Award (GRAA) for deployment of the midtown in motion adaptive signal control system. The GRAA is a leading international competition to identify and honour excellence, innovation, and exceptional achievement. This year’s awards honoured ten projects from countries around the world, with NYCDOT and TransCore receiving the award for excellence in int

Independent research and development organisation Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and testing and inspection services provider TÜV Rheinland Mobility have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop functional standards for the performance of autonomous driving on public roadways. Following the lead of Florida, California and Nevada, which have all developed regulations enabling autonomous driving, SwRI and TÜV Rheinland Mobility will collaborate to establish standards and performance metrics that w

European technical services provider Royal Imtech (Imtech) has been awarded a series of contracts worth US$57.5 million to upgrade the current traffic infrastructure in Stockholm, Moscow, Dublin and Copenhagen, as well as providing the technical infrastructure in a double-deck tunnel in Maastricht, Holland. The company will implement a Motorway Traffic Management (MTM) system on the E18 motorway in Sweden, an important road link in the northern part of Stockholm, featuring two tunnels and used by 50,000 veh

The European vehicle safety system eCall has taken another step forward with the launch in Spain of the second phase of HeERO (Harmonised eCall European Pilot). HeERO is an international project, supported by the European Union, which aims to help EU member states to prepare pilot sites for the deployment of eCall in 2015. HeERO, which started in 2011 and will conclude in 2014, aims to prepare pilot sites in many EU member states for the deployment of the eCall system in 2015. In January 2011, the nine Euro

Traffic management systems company International Road Dynamics (IRD) is to implement and operate a commercial vehicle electronic screening system as part of New Jersey’s Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks (CVISN) program. The CVISN program is a collection of information systems and communication networks owned and operated by government, carriers and stakeholders that support commercial vehicle operations (CVO). As a result of this contract, IRD will provide e-screening services to commerc

Realising that rising fuel costs lead to more commuters taking to the streets on bicycles, creating an increased need for accurate bicycle detection at intersections, US traffic management information solutions provider Iteris has launched SmartCycle, a new product addition to its Vantage video detection product suite. According to Iteris, an intersection configured with SmartCycle can effectively differentiate between bicycles and other vehicles, enabling more efficient signalised intersections and maximis

In a bid to improve traffic flow, New York Department of Transportation (NYDOT) has installed Sensys Networks’ ACS Lite wireless traffic sensors on several streets in the city. ACS Lite is designed to provide adaptive technologies to arterial applications, calculating slight adjustments to timing patterns to optimise traffic through arterial flows. "The sensors will help with another system adapt to the times of the signal so they will change quicker and be more responsible to the current conditions," said