News

More than 2.3 million drivers in 18 states ran a red light in 2011, according to the first-ever Safer Roads Report 2012: Trends in Red-Light Running from the National Coalition for Safer Roads (NCSR). The report examines red-light running trends across 18 states and is designed to help raise driver awareness of the dangers of red-light running. The risks of red-light running are clear: intersection-related vehicle accidents caused more than 8,500 causalities in 2001, according to the National Highway Traffi

Nissan has announced that a 100 per cent electric compact van, the e-NV200, will go into production at its Barcelona plant in Spain in the 2013 Financial Year. The new model will be based on the existing award-winning NV200 currently produced at the plant and will be an important and innovative addition to Nissan's global range of light commercial vehicles (LCV's).

Radwin, a specialist in backhaul and broadband wireless solutions, has launched what it claims is a ground-breaking solution that boosts broadband connectivity for vehicles in motion. The company’s Radwin 5000 Mobility solution delivers high capacity of 100 Mbps at speeds of up to 200 Km/h for video and internet connectivity. The solution comes with powerful base stations that enable connectivity to ruggedised mobile units that can be mounted on vehicles, trains and vessels. The device provides wide-area co

Spanish company Libelium has announced it has developed new sensing technology that can detect smartphones through their WiFi or Bluetooth interfaces and integrated it inside Meshlium Xtreme, the company's multiprotocol router. Applications of this new technology go from street activity measurement to vehicle traffic management. For instance, the company claims it is possible to monitor the number of people passing daily in a street, the average time they stop at landmarks, like shopping windows, and even d

Axion Power International, the developer of advanced lead-¬carbon PbC batteries and energy storage systems, has been awarded a US$150,000 grant from the US Department of Energy (DoE) to fund a commercialisation plan for the use of its PbC batteries in a low-cost, high-efficiency dual battery architecture for micro-hybrid vehicles.

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