Location Based Systems

SiriusXM, which offers audio entertainment and data services in vehicles has acquired Automatic Labs, a San Francisco-based provider of connected vehicle services for consumers and enterprises. Automatic's Automatic Pro and Automatic Lite connected car adapters provide vehicle diagnostic alerts, emergency crash assistance, fuel monitoring, access to parking information, live vehicle location tracking and much more.

As part of the AECOM-led CAPRI (Connected & Autonomous POD on-Road Implementation) project, Spanish traffic modelling software specialist TSS is to provide impact assessment and assisting in the design of management strategies for the use of new autonomous and connected pods on-demand (PODs) at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. TSS will also be playing a role in the verification and validation of the POD control systems, allowing safety evaluation to be undertaken of in a safe and controlled virtu

Transport for London (TfL) has appointed the Centrica Consortium, BluepointLondon, Chargemaster, Electricity Supply Board (ESB) and Fastned to provide the rapid charging points that the capital needs for electric vehicles. They will fund, maintain, operate and install the network. The first charge points are expected to be operational within a few months and will power vehicles in close to 30 minutes, compared with the three to four hours when using a standard unit. The initial aim is to see 75 charging poi

TomTom Telematics and BP have joined forces to offer businesses a fuel and driver management solution, BP FleetMove, combining fuel transaction information from BP fuel cards with driver behavior data from the TomTom Telematics Service Platform in one, easy-to-use interface. This new collaboration uses the plug and play TomTom CURFER connected car product, an app working in conjunction with the TomTom LINK 100 dongle, which plugs into the vehicle’s OBD port to wirelessly connect car and smartphone. It is de

ITS (UK) has held its first forum on the topic of Mobility as a Service (MaaS), simultaneously launching a new interest group dedicated the subject. The organisation has identified MaaS as a key deliverable of ITS technologies and, although many of the concept’s constituent parts, such as connected vehicles, local authorities, road user charging and public transport, are covered by other working groups, ITS (UK) feels there is a demand for specific meetings to discuss and develop MaaS in the UK. The initial

A new report by MarketsandMarkets estimates that the Internet of Things (IoT) fleet management market will grow fromUS$3.16 billion in 2016 to US$8.28 billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 21.26 per cent. According to the report, the key factors driving the growth of the IoT fleet management market are increased demand for optimised business operations, real-time fleet monitoring and a growing number of government mandates for fleet safety. Routing management accounted for the largest share of the IoT fleet managem

Nominet, the Oxford-based internet company responsible for the smooth and secure running of the .UK internet, has announced its involvement in driverless car trials between London and Oxford. The project, run by the DRIVEN consortium and led by Oxbotica, is one of the first trials of Level 4 autonomous vehicles in the UK, where the driver does not need to watch the road or hold the steering wheel. The trial explores the real-time assessment frameworks essential for the legal and safe use of automated vehic

The StreetWise consortium, headed by UK artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), start-up has been awarded US$16.4 million (£12.8 million) in grant support for its US$29.5 million (£23 million) project. Awarded as part of the UK government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles CAV2 competition, the grant will enable the consortium to develop and demonstrate autonomous transport in London, with the aim of launching a supervised trial of an autonomous vehicle fleet in the third quarter

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is coordinating the 5G-Safe project, which is part of Tekes’ Challenge Finland competition. It is focused on the identification of local weather and road conditions on the basis of data collected from vehicles, and the sending of warnings to road users. In addition, real-time video and radar data will be exchanged between passing vehicles. Other issues being investigated include the use of data on local road weather conditions to improve the situational awareness of