Urban Traffic Control

A government announcement has revealed that the UK’s Highways Agency will be replaced with Highways England and will be a government-owned company from April 2015. In support of the changes, the Freight Transport Association (FTA) has said that “the new name reflects the importance of its new role.” In its first strategic business plan, Highways England sets out how the new body will deliver the Government’s US$23.5 billion road investment programme over the next five years. The plan envisages spend

The EU's TEN-T Programme is to provide function of over US$1 million for development studies of the Austrian port of Linz, an important intersection of continuously increasing international freight flows between inland water, rail and road transport. The project aims to increase the port's capacity to receive larger inland water, rail and road transport flows. The project features design studies for the expansion of the tri-modal terminal at the port to address its growing needs. It will deliver a maste

Flir's ThermiCam thermal sensors have been installed at a major signalised intersection with the Utrechtseweg (N237) and Wilhelminalaan in Utrecht in the Netherlands In a bid to smooth traffic flows while also taking account of the presence of cyclists. ThermiCam is an integrated thermal camera and detector for vehicle and cycle presence detection and counting at signalised intersections and provides an alternative to in-road loops. The sensor detects heat energy generated by cyclists and motorists and

An Arup-led consortium, UK Autodrive, has won the UK Government’s US$15.6 million ‘Introducing Driverless Cars’ competition. Other members of the consortium are Milton Keynes Council, Coventry Council, Jaguar Land Rover, Ford Motor Company, Tata Motors European Technical Centre, RDM Group, MIRA, Oxbotica, AXA, international law firm Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co, the Transport Systems Catapult, the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and the Open University. The aim of the project is to establis

The EU's TEN-T programme will invest almost US$4.3 million in studies preparing a European network of hydrogen infrastructure for transport. The network is expected to enhance the use of fuel cell vehicles in Europe leading to cuts in overall transport emissions. The uptake of fuel cell cars, zero emission vehicles that run on electricity powered by hydrogen, depends on the availability of refuelling infrastructure on the main European roads. This project is the second part of a larger action aiming

A European Parliament/Council deal on a life-saving automatic emergency call system for cars, agreed on Monday evening, was backed by Internal Market Committee MEPs on Thursday. The in-vehicle eCall system uses 112 emergency call technology to alert the emergency services to serious road accidents automatically. This enables them to decide immediately on the type and size of rescue operation needed, helping them to arrive faster, save lives, reduce the severity of injuries and cut the cost of traffic ja

Traffic management barriers developed by Belgian access control systems are being used on the Norra Länken motorway project in Sweden, supplied through its local partner Swarco. Built in cooperation with the city of Stockholm and co-financed by the European Union, Norra Länken is five kilometres long with four kilometres in tunnels and is said to be northern Europe’s largest road tunnel project. Two types of barrier have been installed on the project, the BL77 security barrier and the extra long BL52

The EU's TEN-T Programme is to provide around US$500,000 to support preparatory and design studies for a network of safe and secure parking areas for truck drivers in Campania, Calabria and Sicily. The drivers will be able to pre-book parking and get reliable online information with the help of an integrated information service. The studies will be carried out in two phases. A preparatory study will identify the existing parking areas with the capacity for easy upgrade and potential new sites, while the