News

Capita Symonds’ innovations team has won a contract to supply its web based road traffic accident analysis system (CIRTAS) to the Traffic and Accident Data Unit (TADU) at Tyne and Wear Council in the UK. The contract covers the Tyne and Wear five partner districts - the metropolitan boroughs of South Tyneside, North Tyneside, City of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and the City of Sunderland.

Russian company Tolltec is currently implementing ITS technology to optimise the high traffic volumes on the 115km-long St. Petersburg's ring motorway that stretches around the whole city. As part of this project, PTV software, including the company's TrafficCountManagement and VISSIM, is part of the ITS technology used for St. Petersburg's ring road.

BYD, manufacturer of the first long-range (300+ km), all-electric bus has been selected as the sole eBus provider for the 2011 International Universiade Games which will be held in Shenzhen, China. The company will deliver over 300 eBus-12 units by this coming August. After the Universiade Games, they will be will be incorporated into Shenzhen’s city bus fleet, creating the largest all-electric bus fleet in the world.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) have been expensive add-on technical features for luxury vehicles for over 10 years, but during 2011, or perhaps more accurately Model Year 2012, features such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, and low-speed collision mitigation will finally become available on higher-volume models such as the Ford Focus and Mercedes Benz C-Class.

Trimble has been awarded a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) by the US General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service for its fleet management solution. The BPA will be administered by GSA Fleet and gives fleet managers the option to implement Trimble's vehicle monitoring, maintenance, driver safety, and driver identification products and services.

Swarco has announced that its iTravel traffic data acquisition system has received approval from the Dutch National Data Warehouse Institute (NDW), created by 15 authorities, including the Dutch Highway Authority Rijkswaterstaat, to provide complete, reliable and up-to-the-minute information on the status of the Dutch road network - all motorways and major provincial and city roads - at all times.

Teledyne Dalsa has introduced the Genie TS series cameras which combine advancements in the company’s CMOS imaging sensor technology with a newly optimised camera series that delivers what the company claims is the widest, most powerful feature set ever in a GigE Vision camera. The Genie TS series will include VGA, 1.2, 1.4, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 12 megapixel formats, reach speeds up to 300 fps and be available in both monochrome and colour versions.

Sweden’s National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) is publishing a new report showing ways to improve road safety. Of note is the fact that the report does not recommend a ban on mobile phone use while driving. Instead, VTI believes that a package measures can train and support drivers to manage communications more safety. According to VTI, this will be more effective than a ban on the use of cell phones at the wheel. VTI claims that more information will enable drivers to understand when it is d

The US Department of Transportation has announced the six cities where it will hold Driver Acceptance Clinics for the connected vehicle programme. The first clinic will be held in Brooklyn, MI, near Detroit, in August, while the remaining clinics will be held in Minneapolis, Orlando, FL, Blacksburg, VA, Dallas and San Francisco.

TRL, the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory, and Road Safety Analysis (RSA) have announced they will combine capabilities and expertise to support road safety delivery in the UK. Working together, both organisations say they are planning a number of projects to provide new tools and make their joint expertise more accessible to professionals.

Truck operators have been invited to apply for a slice of US$15.34 million provided for industry trials of carbon-cutting trucks by the UK Department for Transport and the Technology Strategy Board. A competition opened yesterday for applications under the ‘Low carbon truck demonstration trial’ which will deliver fleets of low-emission heavy goods vehicles as well as supporting infrastructure such as fuelling stations and electric recharging hubs.

Activu Corporation, a leading provider of IP-based visualisation and collaboration solutions for mission-critical command and control centre environments, has announced that its solution has been selected by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDoT) for integrated traffic management operations across multiple fixed and mobile locations in District Two.

Ford has demonstrated its latest advancements in vehicle-to-vehicle communications at the final CoCarX (Co-operative Cars Extended) research project presentation, further highlighting the viability of improving road safety and traffic management through the use of intelligent vehicles.

Kapsch TrafficCom North America has issued a press statement applauding Help Incorporated's selection of 5.9 GHz DSRC. Through its partnership with Xerox, Help is the service provider of PrePass, the largest truck safety screening system in the US. "We believe 5.9 GHz DSRC is far-and-away the best technology for next generation commercial vehicle safety screening because of its performance, flexibility and ability to provide real-time vehicle health information to state enforcement personnel," said Chris Mu

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has released a Standardisation Roadmap for Electric Vehicles – Version 1.0, developed by the Institute's Electric Vehicles Standards Panel (EVSP). The roadmap assesses the standards, codes, and regulations, as well as conformance and training programmes, needed to facilitate the safe, mass deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure in the United States.