Classification & Data Collection

Highways England has appointed a data specialist to advise the organisation, which manages England’s major roads. Janette Beinart, former interim chief information officer at investment business M&G Prudential, will join as a non-executive director. Colin Matthews, Highways England’s chairman, says: “Janette’s extensive knowledge and experience of applying big data and digitalisation to a changing business landscape will be tremendously valuable as we plan for the future and developments which can transfo

US data company Streetlight Data is adding bike and pedestrian analytics to its existing StreetLight InSight platform. The move is an industry first, the firm insists, and means the movements of vulnerable road users (VRUs) can be measured along with those of vehicles. The new information will be available with a Multi Mode subscription to the product. “It is critical to develop a granular analysis of bike and pedestrian traffic to better see a complete picture of today’s complex mobility landscape

Jenoptik’s average speed control system has received type approval to be used in an 18-month trial on a stretch of highway in Lower Saxony, Germany. Jenoptik’s TraffiSection, which is laser-based, has been approved by PTB (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt) and is supported by the Ministry of Interior of Lower Saxony. From mid-January, the system will obtain data on drivers who exceed the speed limit on a 2.2km stretch of Federal Highway 6, south of Hanover between Gleidingen and Laatzen. Jenop

London could reduce congestion by emulating New York when it comes to open data, claims technology firm Karhoo. New York has publicly-available anonymised TPEP/LPEP75 data which allowed Karhoo to assess the impact of taxi and private hire (PH) movements on traffic flow, congestion and pollution, the company says. It adds that if Transport for London (TfL) were to follow suit, it “would be quick and relatively low-cost given that almost every licenced vehicle is connected to tracking systems already”. Tf

A partnership between data and car-share providers has been formed in the US city of Seattle to help improve parking utilisation. Data solutions company Populus will receive real-time GPS data from Lime’s free-floating car-share fleet, LimePod, which launched last month in the city. The Populus platform will then deliver reports to the Seattle Department of Transportation in a bid to evaluate the use of curb space and develop parking strategies that will help reduce vehicle ownership. Populus says its

Mobility services are a potential gold mine for data-hungry tech companies. That being the case, Andrew Bunn asks: what exactly happens when giants such as Google and Amazon decide to get their teeth into MaaS? There are many different perspectives on Mobility as a Service (MaaS), with many different views on what the latest and future applications of technology are going to bring to transportation infrastructure. However, there is one question that does not seem to come up at all. Up to now, MaaS-relate

Several organisations are coming together in Detroit, US, to pilot a new tool to analyse mobility data for dockless bikes and scooters. The aim is to allow urban authorities which work with dockless mobility providers to share and analyse trip data, including trip origins and destinations, neighbourhood availability, travel times and usage. This should give them the chance to allocate street space to sustainable transportation, improve safety and provide more equal access to transport services. Detroit M

Julián Núñez, immediate past president of ASECAP, gets his teeth into the vision of a European strategy for toll roads. David Arminas reports from Madrid. Getting European politicians to agree to a long-term cross-border highway infrastructure programme for toll roads is extremely difficult. It’s a bit like pulling teeth: people want to avoid the pain. But pain is something that Spanish operators, including Abertis, OHL, ACS, FCC and Acciona, have been going through for the past decade. The country has