UTC

WSP USA has appointed Patrick McGowan, former head of ITS World Congress 2011, as mobility operations director. Based in the company’s Virginia office, McGowan will oversee the marketing, management and development of mobility operations such as ITS and tolling. McGowan has three decades of experience in leading national programmes, teams and major initiatives in the ITS industry. He designed and led the operation of TransGuide – the Texas Department of Transportation’s advanced traffic management operat

Luxembourg is to become the first country in the world to allow free travel for everyone on public transport.

Waymo has launched a driverless taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona, where riders will be charged for the journeys they take. In a blog post, CEO John Krafcik says the commercial self-driving service – called Waymo One - is available to early riders who have already been using Waymo’s technology. The company hopes to make the service available to more members of the public as it adds more vehicles and drives in more places, he writes. “Self-driving technology is new to many, so we’re proceeding carefully wi

Israel-based cybersecurity firm SafeRide Technologies has joined the Genivi Alliance in a bid to secure connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs) from hacking threats. Genivi is a non-profit alliance focused on delivering open source, in-vehicle infotainment and connected software. Hilik Stein, chief technology officer at SafeRide, says the Vsentry cybersecurity software will be available on the Genivi development platform.

Keolis has launched an on-demand shared mobility service in Bordeaux, France, in a bid to reduce congestion and the impact on the local environment. The Ke’op service operates in a 50km2 area and provides connections to the public transport network of the metropole, including tram lines A and B. Jean-Pierre Farandou, executive chairman of Keolis, says the service should enable the company to meet the needs of transport authorities in areas where density does not justify the installation of major transpor

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) app Cowlines is to be rolled out across 62 North American cities following successful trials in Vancouver, Canada. The app, developed by Greenlines Technology, is expected to allow citizens to select the greenest, fastest and cheapest route by combining all modes of transportation. Riders can calculate the total cost of the trip, the length of the journey and its carbon footprint. Cowlines aggregates all transport options and measures the greenhouse gas emissions based on t

Columbus, Ohio has been named City of the Year in the Smart Cities Dive website’s awards for its work on transit and electrification. The US city won the US Department of Transportation’s inaugural Smart City Challenge two years ago – and is rolling out a variety of smart city-related programmes. Smart Cities Dive said the city’s “biggest area of progress this year” has been its increased reliance on electric vehicles (EVs), including in its bus fleet and other government vehicles. City authoritie

Mobility operator Transdev and bike-share company Mobike will offer ‘free floating’ bicycles to local authorities in France in a partnership to provide residents with a ‘clean’ last-mile solution. Transdev says 70% of local authorities in France consider the development of ‘soft’ transportation modes as a priority in the transition to clean energy. The companies aim to market the Mobike bicycles in more than ten authorities over the next year. Richard Dujardin, general manager of Transdev France, says:

The Pan-American Highway connects the US and Canada with Latin America, running for thousands of miles from Alaska in the north to Argentina in the south. Mauro Nogarin finds that one tunnel built underneath it is now providing relief for thousands of travellers each day On the Pan-American Highway, the lengthy series of roads which spans both American continents - from the US state of Alaska to the Latin American country of Argentina - ITS solutions are many and varied. One of these, in Peru’s capital

Public transit is a huge component of US transportation, insists Mary Scott Nabers, CEO of Strategic Partnerships – and infrastructure upgrades have the potential to create thousands of jobs When it comes to public transportation, the US lags far behind other countries. Governments in Europe, Asia and Canada invest heavily in public transportation because it is viewed as an essential public good. The US government, however, views public transit a little differently and funding has been inadequate for d