News

UK company Electrosonic has provided extensive audio, video and data information support to the County of Santa Barbara’s new Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which houses a number of technology-enabled spaces designed to help the California county maintain a constant state of readiness. The new EOC facilitates the sharing of information from various internal and external sources, including news media, incident maps from geospatial services, live video streams from a county helicopter, and operational rep

Mayor of the City of Sao Paulo in Brazil, Gilberto Kassab has announced plans for electric buses from Chinese manufacturer BYD to run in the city by the end of the year. There are approximately 15,000 public buses in the city of Sao Paulo today; however fleet buses are responsible for more than 20% of total transportation emissions. BYD says its electric bus is not only zero-emissions but also economical. It is estimated that energy savings of US$246,000 could be saved during the life cycle of a San Paulo

Zurich Germany is to partner with TomTom fleet management to provide the telematics capability behind the company’s newly launched product Zurich Fleet Intelligence (ZFI). Launched in Germany, the integrated service is aimed at corporate fleets and combines vehicle telematics, reporting, driver development tools and risk engineering support. TomTom technology will be integral to the proposition, helping businesses to actively improve driver safety, reduce operational costs and minimise environmental impact

Toyota is to equip all of their Toyota Land Cruiser V8, Grand Prius+ Lounge version, Prius Solar Premium version cars sold in Belgium with traffic information for their in-car systems on DAB, powered by provider of traffic and mobility information, be-mobile, and using the RTBF DAB network in French-speaking Belgium and the VRT DAB network in Flanders. The company says DAB represents a major industry advancement for real time traffic information; larger traffic data volumes can be processed which in turn en

Canada headquartered Mentor Engineering has supplied the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA, with a comprehensive technology solution to improve operations for their fleet of city vehicles, including the Fayetteville Area System of Transit (FAST) and the police and fire departments. The city had a variety of challenges that required resolution; in the event of an emergency, the fire department, as the city’s first responders, wanted to be able to send the next available or closest unit to the scene t

US technology service provider, Drivewyze, is to supply its PreClear bypass service at four mobile inspection sites in key locations throughout Rhode Island. PreClear enables commercial vehicles to bypass weigh stations and temporary mobile inspection sites buy leveraging cellular networks and the internet to provide smartphones, tablet and select electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) with transponder-like functionality. The company says that, unlike other bypass programs, the cost-effective Drivewyze PreCl

US-based Xerox has been awarded a contract worth US$122 million to provide Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) with a contactless fare collection system. The system, which is to be installed on regional trains as well as buses, trolleys and subways, uses credit or debit cards to collect fares. Philadelphia is home to the USA's sixth largest urban transit network which clocks up 1.1 million journeys per day. Users of the network will soon be saying farewell to cash, metal tokens and

UK transport consultants WYG have successfully collaborated with Hertfordshire County Council in the UK to provide technical expertise for the county’s real-time public transport system. The roll-out of real time passenger information (RTPI) systems across Hertfordshire over the coming weeks is the first milestone in the project and is a key part of a wider transport improvement programme. The project presented numerous challenges, not least the need to deliver the project in partnership with private secto

French road sign manufacturer, Elan Cité, introduces their range of speed indicator displays, which were recently chosen by the French government in a bid to reduce speeding on the country’s roads. The company says their Evolis Compact and Matrice signs are not only the ideal solution for speed reduction programmes, they also provide important traffic management information and statistics, which is quickly downloaded using GPRS or Bluetooth.

Iteris, US-based supplier of intelligent traffic management solutions, has been selected to provide on-call task-order based services to the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Two contracts, for support services for the Office of Operations include: Operations and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), and Traffic Incident and Events Management will be released over a period of up to five years. Iteris will have the opportunity to compete, with a small group of other selected providers, on each t

The 1.1 million inhabitants of Adelaide, Australia, will shortly start reaping the benefits of a Xerox contactless ticketing system on the city’s network of 1000 buses, 26 trams and 130 railcars. In the test phase, seventy vehicles equipped with mixed ticketing consoles and validators are serving the Adelaide Hills area, where ticket office and retailer machines have already been installed. "This partial deployment represents less than 10% of the project equipment, but calls on almost all of the functions o

According to a study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, electric cars might pollute much more than petrol or diesel-powered cars. Researchers found greenhouse gas emissions rose dramatically if coal was used to produce the electricity. Electric car factories also emitted more toxic waste than conventional car factories, claims their report in the Journal of Industrial Energy. However, in some cases electric cars still made sense, the researchers said.

Qatar is in the final stages of its plan to develop a fully integrated multimodal transportation system, says Public Works Authority (Ashghal) president Nasser Ali al-Mawlawi. The aim is to develop a fully-integrated multimodal transportation system in line with Qatar National Vision 2030 and Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016, and the country is developing tailored solutions to meet the requirement of Qatar and learning from the experiences of others.

With a total area of over 380,000 square meters, the multi-storey West Kowloon rail terminus, the majority of it located underground, will be larger than most airport terminals, and capable of handling around 99,000 passengers per day. The first trains are expected to run from 2015. The Hong Kong section of the express rail link, operating at up to 200 km per hour, will connect Hong Kong with the capital Beijing over 2,000 kilometers away, passing via Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Wuhan.

Join the Ertico webinar at 1430 on 10 October and take a walk through the 19th ITS World Congress in Vienna. Eric Sampson, Senior Programme Adviser from ERTICO, will take you step by step through the exciting programme and tell what you’ll want to see and where you’ll want to be. Learn about the KongressNavigato app for iPhone, Android and mobile web, the first app to combine navigation through the city with guidance to the congress centre.