News

Road Expo, Scotland's largest traffic management and highway maintenance event, opens on 7– 8 November 2012 at the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh. Road Expo provides road professionals with the opportunity to see the latest technology and get to grips with the implications of legislative changes. The 2012 show will be packed with features offering visitors the opportunity to network with peers, exchange ideas and discover ways to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Over one hundred leading suppliers i

Public transport in the northern Indian state of Himachal will shortly benefit from safer travel and a more efficient service, when the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) installs a vehicle tracking system based on GPS on buses in the state. Jointly funded by HRTC and the Indian government, the system will be installed on a total of 2,000 buses and will send real-time information about the location and speed of the vehicle to a central server. This information will be integrated with the passenger

Greece has successfully completed the first tests of its automatic emergency call system, eCall, within the framework of the eCall pilot national research project, a European initiative intended to bring rapid assistance to motorists involved in a collision anywhere in the European Union. eCall uses a device installed in vehicles that will automatically dial 112 (the pre-assigned European emergency number) in the event of a road accident and wirelessly send airbag deployment, impact sensor information and G

UK company Ecotricity is to install a network of rapid charging points in motorway service stations around the country enabling an electric car to be recharged in around 15 minutes. Conventional charging points usually take several hours to provide enough power for modern electric cars. With a range of around 100 miles, this has meant the vehicles are largely used for short journeys in towns and cities, limiting their uptake by consumers.

An important workshop is being held prior to the ITS World Congress in Vienna, with the aim of promoting discussion between the ITS community and the EU Future Internet Public-Private Partnership programme (FI-PPP). Instant mobility is a two-year research project in the EU FI-PPP that is exploring the potential of future internet technologies to improve the mobility of people and goods, and the operation of transport networks and systems.

The Indonesian Transportation Ministry has allocated US$11.4 million for an ITS project to be implemented in 22 cities in the country. “The government has prepared US$0.5 million for each city,” said transportation deputy minister Bambang Susantono. Any additional funding will be provided by provincial governments and the private sector.

Nissan North America has selected Sirius XM Radio as the exclusive provider of a comprehensive suite of premium telematics services for Nissan branded vehicles. According to Trisha Jung, Director, Nissan Connected Services, the aim is to provide more than just innovations in driving performance, fuel efficiency and safety. "Being the first car company to launch these telematics services allows us to further enhance the whole customer driving experience by providing the finest audio entertainment and data s

In Northamptonshire, Kettering Borough Council has replaced its aging pay and display machines with new Metric Aura Elite pay and display meters as part of an updating programme to provide customers with the best available choice. The new solar powered meters are equipped with chip and pin and contactless credit/debit card facilities they also accept all UK coins including the new 5p and 10p coins and provide the Council with updated coin validators. Metric have also provided their WebASLAN back-office repo

Archives of sessions at the 2012 ITS America Annual Meeting and 2011 World Congress on-demand archives of sessions are now available. They offer many hours of recorded content for reference to sessions attended and those that you just didn’t get a chance to hear. Click on http://www.itsa.org/events/meeting-archives to view the full set of available recordings and instructions about how to download and purchase. Starting at the 2013 Annual Meeting in Nashville, ITS America will offer these audio synch-to-s

Clearview Traffic Group has been shortlisted in two different categories for the Highways Magazine Excellence Awards 2012, with two diverse road delineation projects. In the Road Marking Project of the Year category, the company has been chosen as a finalist for its dynamic delineation project for the Hindhead Tunnel in Surrey, UK, where Clearview installed 868 Astucia IRS2 hardwired bi-directional road studs in a project initiated by the Highways Agency (HA) in 2007 to remove a major source of congestion a

Siemens is to supply the traffic control system for the world’s fourth longest suspension bridge, to be built between Istanbul and Izmir in Turkey. Siemens will be responsible for the development, installation and commissioning of all components and systems for the traffic control technology, including the traffic control system, monitoring technology and components for the technical infrastructure such as communication and camera equipment, energy supply, lighting and ventilation. Siemens will also supply

In Leicestershire, UK, the first phase of a US$3.6 million bus smart card system has been rolled out to all concessionary users, in a scheme that the Council says will improve and modernise bus travel throughout the county. The new OneCard system is now in use by elderly and disabled bus passengers. Electronic chips fitted to OneCard passes can be swiped on scanners on First, Centrebus and Arriva buses to register journeys, meaning passes no longer have to be shown. Passengers top up their cards with cash w

Netherlands-based TomTom, supplier of in-car location and navigation products and services is to partner with US headquartered ParkMe, a leading provider of dynamic and real-time parking data. The partnership will provide TomTom with ParkMe’s parking data and location information for parking garages and lots, as well as contact information. Data for more than 16,000 parking facilities throughout the US is available. This information is integrated into TomTom map products as a Point of Interest (POI), allowi