News

People in the UK county of Buckinghamshire can now use an Apple iPhone to photograph and report a pothole, loose paving, broken bollard or faulty street light. Developed by Masternaut for Transport for Buckinghamshire (TfB), the app captures a digital image of the defect with its geolocation and transmits it back to highway maintenance teams. This gives highways managers important information direct from the scene, which helps with managing response levels and providing better service. "Using this app, i

The city of Oslo in Norway is constructing a new biogas facility which will convert food waste such as coffee grounds and banana peels into green fuel for buses beginning 2013. Local company, Cambi, is constructing the plant, which is to produce the energy equivalent of four million litres of diesel fuel per annum. The plant will use the thermal hydrolysis method. According to the Acting Plant Manager of the Oslo Municipality Waste-to-Energy Agency, Anna-Karin Eriksson, complete capacity for the biogas plan

A debate run on Tuesday June 21st by the International Bridge Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) will discuss funding problems for the US highway network. Portions of the interstate highway system are more than 50 years old. According to IBTTA, the interstate system is crumbling due to neglect, lack of maintenance, and inadequate funding. From an initial investment of US$129 billion the cost to first build the Interstate highway system, it will now cost the US from $1.3 trillion - $2.5 trillion to rebu

Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), and Magna E-Car Systems (Magna E-Car), a supplier of components and systems for hybrid and electric vehicles, have announced a joint venture named Mahy E-Cell as a platform to co-develop and grow a successful battery cell and battery pack business. Under the agreement, HHI and Magna E-Car will jointly conduct engineering, design, development and testing activities with the goal of preliminary validation of battery cell and battery pack technologies for electric and hybrid ele

Honda is taking a comprehensive approach to enhancing driver visibility and confidence on the road beginning with the widespread application of rear view cameras on 2013 models. Over 94 per cent of Honda's 2013 model line up will be equipped with rear view cameras, with 100 per cent of Honda's truck line up (Crosstour, CR-V, Odyssey, Pilot, Ridgeline) as well as CR-Z, Accord and Crosstour providing rear view cameras as standard equipment. "At Honda, we feel that this visibility feature will be important to

The European Transport Safety Commission (ETSC) is giving awards to Lithuania and Sweden for the efforts these countries have made in improving road safety. The ETSC is monitoring progress in reaching the EU target of reducing road deaths by 50% between 2001 and 2010 under its Road Safety PIN Programme. And because Lithuania and Sweden have been so successful in improving road safety, ETSC handed its 2011 PIN Award to these countries. The Road Safety PIN Report 2011 was presented at the ETSC conference in B

The authorities in Qatar are planning to launch a series of public tenders for major infrastructure projects. Details of the tenders and the scale of the contracts have yet to be released but these will involve major highway construction projects as well as other associated infrastructure works.

Collision-avoidance technologies which could help eliminate cyclist and pedestrian deaths caused by driver ‘blind-spots’ should be made mandatory for all UK buses and lorries by 2015, according to a new report published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The ‘Intelligent Transport Intelligent Society’ report also calls for eCall to be integrated into all new road vehicles within the next two years. “The alarming rise in cyclist deaths on British roads needs to be addressed urgently,” says Philippa

A study conducted by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland suggests that there is practically no difference between commercial petrol grades 95E10 and 98E5 sold in Finland with regard to fuel consumption during normal driving. The finding is based on driving tests conducted by VTT using six used cars of different make under laboratory conditions. It has been claimed in public that fuel consumption is higher with 95E10 petrol than with its predecessor 95E or the 98E5 petrol currently on the market. The su

Consultant Parsons Brinckerhoff will upgrade the fire fighting systems in the Mersey Tunnel in the UK. This move will improve the tunnel’s safety measures and bring it into line with stringent new requirements being introduced right across Europe. Under the terms of the deal international consultant Parsons Brinckerhoff has a contract to help Merseyside Integrated Transport Authority upgrade and modernise fire fighting systems in the Kingsway tunnels, which are two of the longest road tunnels in the UK. The

To support the rapid growth in vehicle production and airbag fitment rates in Asia, Autoliv has begun the construction of an airbag cushion manufacturing plant in Chonburi, near Bangkok. The company’s existing airbag cushion plant in Thailand opened just two years ago. The new facility will have capacity to produce 4.6 million cushions corresponding to 15 per cent of Autoliv’s global manufacturing capacity for 'cut & sewn' textile cushions for airbag systems. Autoliv also produces 20 million highly autom

TRW, a specialist in active and passive safety, says it has been awarded new business for its next-generation electric park brake (EPB) technology with two major North American based vehicle manufacturers. The system functions as a conventional hydraulic brake for standard service brake applications, and as an electric brake for parking and emergency braking. TRW launched the first integrated caliper EPB system in 2001 and is bringing the wide range of functional and ancillary benefits of EPB to the North A

Fontinalis Partners, a strategic investment firm, has invested in San Francisco-headquartered SQLstream Inc., which claims to be the first standards-based stream computing platform to enable companies to exploit and monetize their real-time service and sensor data.

Iteris has announced that it has delivered a milestone 100,000th Vantage vehicle detection camera to the traffic management industry and has been deployed by hundreds of agencies in North America, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. The Vantage sensor system can capture and analyse video images through sophisticated algorithms, providing traffic engineers accurate vehicle detection information. Iteris says the versatility of the product enables users to apply a wide range of detection applicat

UK company, Traffic Technology Limited will install ten pedestrian and cycle counters on behalf of local authorities in and around the town of UK town of Bicester, Oxfordshire, as part of the new Eco Bicester project.