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Research carried out by Emedia on 460 UK businesses operating vehicle fleets for TomTom suggests that almost half of UK businesses face resistance from drivers when attempting to introduce new technology to their vehicle fleet. The most frequent complaint made by drivers is that technology represents ‘big brother’, cited by 43 per cent of businesses as their staff’s primary concern.

OmniAir Certification Services (OCS) has accredited MET Laboratories as the first test lab in the 6C-for-Tolling Certification Programme. This scheme is designed to ensure tolling tag and reader interoperability (IOP) across equipment vendors and toll facilities that choose to deploy equipment certified as compliant to the 6C Requirements Document as defined by the 6C Toll Operators Committee. It is based on the ISO/IEC 18000-6 (Type C) RFID protocol.

A series of controls to enforce drink driving and drug driving regulations across Europe saw police conduct more than 900,000 breath tests in a seven-day period, of which nearly 18,000 were positive. Motorists were also checked for drugs in the operation, organised by the European Traffic Police Network (TISPOL), between 4 and 10 June. In total, 928,863 drivers were controlled. There were 17,970 alcohol offences and 2,773 drug offences detected.

Nearly 3,000 cars, trucks and buses equipped with connected Wi-Fi technology to enable vehicles and infrastructure to ‘talk’ to each other in real time to help avoid crashes and improve traffic flow, began traversing Ann Arbor's streets yesterday as part of a year-long safety pilot project by the US Department of Transportation. Ray LaHood, US Transportation Secretary, joined elected officials and industry and community leaders on the University of Michigan campus to launch the second phase of the Safety Pi

France-headquartered tolling system specialist CS has announced that it has received a binding offer from Sanef Group to acquire its ITS business unit. The deal would allow CS ITS, which employs some 220 people and registered € 31.4 million (US$38.96 million) revenues in 2011, to take full advantage of a growing tolling system market. The company says it will initiate consultation with its workers council representatives with a view to finalising the acquisition.

At a press conference yesterday with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, BMW Group board member Dr Ian Robertson announced the upcoming launch of ParkNow, an innovative mobile parking solution that is a joint venture with Urban Mobility, and provided new details about DriveNow, a premium car-sharing service which features a fleet of BMW ActiveE all-electric vehicles. San Francisco serves as the initial US market for each service.

The tremendous growth in the amount of available weather and road condition information—including devices that gather weather information, models and forecasting tools for predicting weather conditions, and electronic devices used by travellers — has led the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to develop effective and specific guidelines for communicating road weather information in a way that is consistent with what travellers need, want, and will use when making travel decisions.

According to a new market research report ‘Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Market - Trends, Adoption & Worldwide Forecasts (2012 – 2017)’ published by MarketsandMarkets, the total market is expected to reach US$24.75 billion by 2017, at a CAGR of 12 per cent from 2012 to 2017. . North America is the market leader in the overall ITS market; followed by Europe and APAC. In the rest of the world (ROW), the Middle East, and Africa are the largest contributors.

Qualcomm Enterprise Services (QES) has been named the leading commercial telematics service provider (TSP) in the latest competitive assessment released by ABI Research. The company’s global reach, dominant market share, and intuitive product range were all fundamental to securing the top spot. Telogis, Trimble, Masternaut, and Xata complete the top five.

The number of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) travelling through Carlisle’s city centre in the north east of England is estimated to have been reduced by more than a third since the US$276.5 million Carlisle Northern Development Route opened in February 2012. Information gathered from a network of 20 permanent and temporary traffic counters dotted around the city showing ‘before and after’ CNDR road usage is starting to build a more meaningful picture of the benefits the new road has brought to Carlisle.

The Kenyan Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology has joined forces with IBM to set up an information technology research lab in Nairobi. Scheduled to open shortly, the lab will focus on solving traffic congestion and automate other sectors of governance. The research lab is also expected to help people make better use of public sector services and allow the government to digitally store huge amounts of data.

TomTom has announced a 10-year partnership with VMZ Berlin, the operator of Berlin’s traffic information centre, to provide real-time traffic information for Berlin and for selected parts of the state of Brandenburg. “We chose TomTom because its traffic product offers coverage that extends beyond traditional methods of traffic detection, such as loops, cameras or infrared sensors,” said Reinhard Giehler, managing director VMZ Berlin. “We believe that traffic flow and road network utilisation in the region w

Aberdeen City Council in Scotland will be able to order ten hydrogen buses, after funding of US$5.17 million was confirmed by the government. An integrated so-called whole hydrogen system will be developed by Scottish and Southern Energy Power Distribution with the aim of producing and storing hydrogen by harnessing wind energy ans would fuel the buses. It is hoped that the first such buses in Scotland will be operational in under two years.

The Saudi Arabian government has approved plans to modernise the transport system in its holdy city of Mecca which will include four metro railway lines with 88 stations and a combined length of 182 kms. The transport plan, which will cost US$16.53 billion, also includes building a bus network in Mecca. Saudi Arabia is also spending billions on upgrading the transport system in the capital Riyadh and on a high-speed rail line connecting Mecca with the holy city of Medina.

Less than a year after it launched, CrashMap.co.uk has been updated with the all the latest UK government data on road traffic crashes and new features to help community groups and campaigners. The website uses data collected by the police about road traffic crashes occurring on British roads where someone is injured. This data is approved by the National Statistics Authority and reported on by the Department for Transport each year. The site uses data obtained directly from official sources but compiled in