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The Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project, funded by the European Union, has completed initial test demonstrations of a multiple vehicle platoon. The test fleet included a lead truck followed by three cars driven entirely autonomously at speeds of up to 90 km/h (57mph) – with no more than 6m between the vehicles. The project is being driven by seven European partners and is the only one of its kind to focus on the development of technology that can be implemented on conventional highways in

Cofiroute USA, which introduced toll road automation on the 91 Express Lanes in Orange County, California, has installed a fully integrated back office system as part of a five year US$38.5 million contract awarded earlier this year. The system provides for transponder tracking, accounting, a web-based consumer interface and dynamic pricing capabilities. The company worked with its software partner TollPlus to meet the specific requirements of the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA). This include

UK consultant Roughton International, working on behalf of the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), has teamed up with Sky High and Traffic Technology to deploy traffic flow data collection equipment suitable for the Ugandan road network. In-road sensors were not suitable due to the probability of regular damage. Sky High therefore recommended Traffic Technology’s SDR radar traffic classifier to provide vehicle count, classification and speed data because it provides accurate data even on the uneven or b

Image Sensing Systems (ISS) has amended its agreement with long-time partner Econolite Control Products to expand the exclusive North American manufacturing and distribution agreement to include the RTMS radar product line. "This is the final stage in our RTMS (radar) acquisition integration process for North American sales and in conjunction with planned introduction of our hybrid product in the first quarter of 2012, aligns directly with one of our primary strategic goals; namely, a focus on organic sales

Horizon 2020, the European Commission proposal for a new Research & Innovation Framework Programme which comes into force in January 2014, will be the focus of attention at the TRA 2012 transport event being held in April in Athens. The transport component of Horizon 2020 is worth n7.7 billion. Delegates will be able to take part in a series of 13 strategic sessions covering all modes and tackling the entire spectrum of activities envisaged by the framework programme to achieve smart, green and integrated t

Peek, the Imtech Traffic & Infra mobility specialist, has won a contract to provide a new generation of technology for 365 road junctions in Copenhagen as part of a programme aimed at making the Danish capital the first in the world to be completely CO2 neutral by 2025. The order comprises upgrade, improvement and maintenance of all 365 road junctions in the city, including a traffic management system based on ITS. At present, traffic is responsible for 21% of the city’s overall CO2 emissions, but the aim

German company Vitronic has been selected by Thales Group to supply key components for all fixed enforcement gantries for the nationwide truck charging system to be implemented on 15,000km of French roads. The multi-million euro contract is part of the prestigious Ecotaxe project, a distance based charge for trucks. From mid-2013 onwards, all vehicles over 3.5 tons in weight will have to pay a tax on national roads with the fee being collected by means of an onboard GPS satellite system. Vitronic has been s

The Co-operative Insurance company in the UK says that new data shows that the introduction of telematics technology is leading to better driving behaviour from Britain's young road users. Intelligence gathered from the company’s 'smartbox' scheme shows that 35% are consistently showing 'excellent' driving while less than 5% demonstrate 'poor' driving habits. The Young Driver scheme, launched just over a year ago, measures driving behaviours including speed, braking and cornering. It then scores these from

Telvent GIT has been awarded a contract by Almabani General Contractors to implement the SmartMobility Road Suite solution on the extension of roads in Arriyadh Old Airport area. The project, led by the High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh, will extend the existing north-south and east-west highways for more than 11km including construction of three tunnels. Telvent’s SmartMobility Road Suite, based on the company’s control and data acquisition system (OASyS SCADA), will allow centralisation of

A new NFC Phone application developed by Vix is enabling a UK first for Stagecoach bus passengers in Cambridge. The innovative trial, which could lead to a nationwide roll out across select bus and rail services next year, is enabling the small cross section of participating bus users to receive, store and validate their bus tickets using their mobile phone.

A two-year study, ‘Speed cameras in an urban setting: a cost-benefit analysis’, which has been published online in ‘Injury Prevention’ claims that the deployment of speed cameras in urban areas saves vast amounts of money as well as lives. The authors (Joan Mendivil, Anna García-Altés, Katherine Pérez, Marc Marí-Dell'Olmo, and Aurelio Tobías) base their findings on the impact of speed cameras, which were first deployed on the major access routes in and out of Spanish city Barcelona in 2003.

The Mineta Transportation Institute has released a peer-reviewed research report, An Economic and Life Cycle Analysis of Regional Land Use and Transportation Plans. This study is the third in a series that applies a new form of spatial economic model to examine the economic effects, the distribution of those effects, and their implications for California's Assembly Bill (AB) 32 and Senate Bill (SB) 375 implementation. These bills are intended to significantly reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) and urban sprawl b

The European Commission's (EC's) second Marco Polo funding programme for projects which shift freight transport from the road to sea, rail and inland waterways, has launched a call for proposals to reduce road congestion and also the impact of freight transportation upon the environment. The call for proposals is worth US$82 million. Companies who are able to transfer their freight from the roads, and use alternative transportation methods such as by sea, rail and inland waterways will receive grants under

PIPS Technology has supplied and installed two Journey Time Measurement Systems (JTMS) in Gravesend and Tunbridge Wells for Kent Highway Services (KHS) in the UK. There are 21 different camera sites featuring a total of 34 PIPS P372 integrated Spike Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras spread across the two individual project locations, all of which are on single-lane carriageways. The cameras, linked via wireless communications to the JTMS software, read the number plate of every vehicle that

Meier Express, with headquarters in Bern, Switzerland, has opted for SmarTour from PTV for managing its fleet of vehicles. The transport company, which offers logistical transport services all over Europe, uses this high-end planning software to visualise complex transport processes, enable cooperative planning within the team of schedulers and joint scheduling of different types of transport in one single system.