News

A consortium led by Prodata Mobility Systems has won a US$147 million contract to equip the buses and the trams of the Belgian transport company Vlaamse Vervoersmaatschappij De Lijn with an onboard computer and validators for the transport company’s new Mobib chip card.

Nissan has teamed up with leading European utility and Electrical Vehicle (EV) supply equipment companies to speed development of cheaper, smaller, quick chargers for EV batteries, and accelerate the installation of publicly available Quick Charge (QC) points right across Europe. This agreement between Nissan, Circutor, DBT, Efacec, Endesa and Siemens is expected to result in a dramatic reduction in the price of the units – by over half to under €10,000 (US$13,668) – paving the way for businesses such as se

Ertico – ITS Europe held its annual General Assembly in Brussels yesterday and over 60 representatives from the different sectors represented by Ertico (service providers, public authorities, vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, users, research, mobile network operators, and traffic and transport industry) focused on the organisation's activities and policy positions as well as discussing the next important milestones such as the 19th ITS World Congress organised by Ertico, in close cooperation with the Austr

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan predicts that electrified transmissions will experience increased penetration in both European and North American regions due to the increased focus on hybrid vehicles and their positive impact on emissions and fuel economy. However, end-user preference for automatic transmissions (AT) in North America and for manual transmissions (MT) in Europe will dictate the market penetration of the type of transmission technology with integrated electric motors.

The Netherland’s city of Helmond has decided to continue the cooperative mobility services piloted in the successful European Union co-funded Urban Freight Energy Efficiency Pilot (Freilot) project. Based on the positive results of the pilot, the partners involved (the Helmond Fire Brigade, the Municipality, Van den Broek Logistics and Imtech/Peek) are in talks to work out the details of a commercial agreement. These talks mark the end phase of Freilot, and a beginning for the commercial operation of cooper

The European Council for Automotive R&D (Eucar) has called for a number of priority automotive research and innovation (R&I) initiatives in Horizon 2020 to support competitive and sustainable road transport and for these initiatives to be supported by a substantial budget that reflects the sector’s social and economic contribution to Europe. Rémi Bastien, chairman of Eucar, set out the association’s recommendations on Horizon 2020 to an audience of MEPs and stakeholders at a seminar in the European Parliame

Eight of the world’s largest multilateral development banks (MDBs) banks yesterday pledged to invest US$175 billion over the next 10 years to support sustainable transport in developing countries. The pledge was made at the UN Sustainable Development Conference in Rio de Janeiro (Rio+20) by the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, CAF- Development Bank of Latin America, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Islamic Developme

Vitronic Machine Vision Middle East and its Qatar partner Itqan Holding have announced an order for 26 PoliScan systems, 16 of which will be employed for speed enforcement, while ten will operate as combined solutions for speed and red light enforcement. The Doha airport’s operating company Qatar Civil Aviation Authority is Vitronic’s end customer in Qatar and the new systems will be used primarily for enforcement on the Airport Road, built last year.

International car sharing network Zipcar has announced it is the lead investor in a US$13.7 million Series A round of funding for Wheelz, which claims to be the first peer-to-peer (P2P) car sharing company targeting college campus communities. “Based on our analysis and primary research, we believe P2P could expand the total addressable market for car sharing,” said Zipcar chairman and CEO Scott Griffith, who added he believes Wheelz has the right leadership, technology and business model to succeed in the

Innovative vehicle and infrastructure technology being developed in the European Intersafe-2 research project is targeting known issues of road safety at intersections, with the aim of improving safety at intersections by up to 80 per cent. Four systems giving assistance to drivers for right turns, left turns, intersections and addressing give way situations could make major reductions in accidents. Sensor technology installed in vehicles and at intersections relay messages and help boost safety. Finnish re

Dubai Metro has won another Guinness World Record for having the longest driverless Metro network in the world with a combined length of 74.695km, covering both Green and Red Lines. Meanwhile, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is planning to extend Dubai Metro’s Green Line to cover Academic City, International City and Lagoons within the next five years. According to the CEO of the Rail Agency at RTA, Adnan Al Hammadi, a community consisting 30,000 students will benefit from the proposed extension

The Kenyan Government is planning to invest US$4.82 billion in a major multi-modal infrastructure project to reduce Nairobi’s traffic congestion. The Nairobi Metropolitan Mass Rapid Transport System (MRTS) will include a new rail transport network, and a public road of 167km linking the city with key neighbouring towns and municipalities. The MRTS project will be managed by Nairobi Metropolitan Transport Authority and the government plans to finance the project through a private public partnership (PPP). Ke

Hi-Tech Solutions (HTS), a specialist in the optical character recognition and computer vision systems market, has sold 120 licence plate recognition (LPR) systems for integration into an automatic parking system in Hong Kong. The systems were sold to HTS’s partner Access Control Systems (ACS), and will be integrated into the entire parking solution it is providing to Imperial Parking of Hong Kong, one of the leading parking operators who operate hundreds of car parks in Hong Kong. By using the vehicle lice

South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has received a bailout of over US$770 million from the government for its Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP). The cash injection is a bailout for the electronic toll system which cost an estimated US$2.66 billion, much of it which still has to be paid for. The cash injection will enable tolls to pay for over 25 per cent of the cost of the project and enable the planned toll charges, due to be introduced on highways on 30 April, 2012 to be reduced by 25 pe

The UQM Technologies’powerphase Select 145 electric propulsion system has been selected by eV engineering to power its proof-of-concept fleet of Australian-built eV commodore electric vehicles (eV). The project is converting a fleet of locally manufactured Holden commodore passenger cars to proof-of-concept fully-electric vehicles by june 2012, to demonstrate the technical viability and attractiveness to customers of a full-size electric car if successful, technologies used in the project could be considere