News

The world's first pedestrian airbag fitted as standard on the all-new Volvo V40 is the next step which the company says will go some way to help further reduce the number of fatalities involving pedestrians, currently 14 per cent in Europe and 25 per cent in China. It was in 2008 that Volvo announced a unique goal in stating that ‘By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo'. To contribute towards that aim, it has fitted technology including pedestrian detection, city safety and the

OEM and aftermarket connected car systems in use are expected to grow from 66 million in 2012 to 356 million in 2017, according to a new report from ABI Research. While OEM solutions are gaining momentum rapidly across the globe in the US, Europe, Japan, and China, aftermarket solutions will continue to be used for applications such as stolen vehicle tracking, insurance telematics, infotainment, and road user charging.

Telogis and FleetCor Technologies have announced a global partnership for the integration of telematics and fuel card reporting that will assist in bringing greater visibility to a business' fuelling activities, improve reporting, and help reduce unauthorized fuel card use with the ultimate goal of driving down total fuel expense. The partnership includes the introduction of the Telogis Universal Premium Fleet Card powered by FleetCor and the launch of the next-generation fuel management module for Telogis

Iteris has launched what is being claimed as one of the most advanced 511 traveller information systems in the US for the Commonwealth of Virginia. The deployment is part of a contract awarded to the company last September by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDoT) under its Transportation Video & Data Services project. Iteris team for this project includes Open Road Consulting, Skyline Network Engineering, and Global-5 Communications. The deployment involved a new state-of-the-art traveller inform

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has awarded a US$54.5 million grant to the city of Fort Collins in Colorado for its MAX Bus Rapid Transit project. Nearly $3.9 million will also be given by the FTA for the project via its bus facilities and bus grant programme. That amounts the overall federal commitment to the project to some $69.4 million, 80 per cent of the project. The balance of funding is to come from the Colorado State University, Fort Collins, the Downtown Development Authority and the Colo

A new study by civil engineers at MIT shows that using stiffer pavements on America’s roads could reduce vehicle fuel consumption by as much as three per cent, that could add up to 273 million barrels of crude oil per year, or US$15.6 billion at today’s oil prices. This would result in an accompanying annual decrease in CO2 emissions of 46.5 million metric tons.

Inrix, a leading international provider of traffic information and intelligent driver services, has released its fifth Annual Inrix Traffic Scorecard revealing a startling 30 per cent drop in traffic congestion in the US in 2011. In the report, which also scores Europe, 70 of America’s top 100 most populated cities showed decreases in traffic congestion last year. The report concludes these results are indicative of a ‘stop-’n’-go economy’ where lack of employment combined with high fuel prices is keeping A

Austrian company Efkon has announced that its Efkon India subsidiary has won six prestigious ITS projects, worth a total of US$12.65 million, in the last five months. The Jaypee Group has awarded the company a follow-up contract for a turnkey solution for the expressway traffic management and speed enforcement systems for the Yamuna expressway in the south of New Delhi. Efkon is providing a single interface solution for all the sub-systems which enables information capture of all expressway activities and c

ComNet, a manufacturer of fiber optic transmission and networking equipment, is showcasing its latest five-port Ethernet switch on the showroom floor at ITS America. Designed to include proprietary self-managing technology, the switch requires no user intervention and is pre-programmed to avoid flooding the network.

On Tuesday ITS America honored the winners of its annual student essay competition sponsored by Southwest Research Institute. The winning essay authored by James Wong from the Georgia Institute of Technology investigates the integration challenges presented by real-time traveler information. Multi-modal transportation has always been a passion of Wong who hopes to one day head a public agency.

Coretec is showcasing its new video encoder and decoder device, allowing transportation agencies to easily share both high-resolution and internet-quality video. Launched in late 2011, the VCX-7401 single-channel video Codec has been deployed in Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

Uninterruptible power systems (UPS) specialist Clary reports strong sales since introduction of its SP1250LX product at the 2011 ITS World Congress in Orlando. The new equipment features a number of innovations introduced to complement previous models in Clary’s range of UPS units. Most notably, the SP1250LX features surface mount electronics in place of substantial wiring. The new units are therefore considerably less labour intensive to manufacture. They are also lighter and more compact, saving on space

Aldis has reduced the size of its GridSmart CPU in order to make it a better fit for traffic cabinets worldwide. The company has also released version 3.2 of the software which supports its video detection solution. Advanced tracking algorithms are combined with an enhanced, more user-friendly graphical user interface which features fully actuated intersection detection, traffic data collection, and a mini-TMC capability which uses digital pan/tilt/zoom capability for intersection surveillance.

Global Traffic Technologies’ new in-vehicle Opticom GPS system is said to allow integration with other on-board systems due to its many interface options. Plus, it’s easy to install, operate and troubleshoot, according to GTT, which has developed a very useful Opticom section on the company’s website.

It’s an accepted fact that 30 per cent of all road users in downtown areas are driving around looking for a place to park. If those drivers could go direct to parking spaces, there would be a significant reduction in congestion. But that requires an intelligent solution which can pull together real-time data on just where vehicles and parking availability are. SmartParking from Case Systems is exactly that.