Networking & Communication Systems

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile carrier, will use location data from its 61.5 million subscriber devices to build a platform that monitors traffic conditions across the country. DoCoMo said it will use its access to massive amounts of location data to build a cloud platform of traffic information on which services can be built. The company will target individual consumers with products like navigation and drive recording services, and corporate clients such as car insurance companies with traffic monitor

Spanish company Trafficnow and Isbak are working together to help in taming the congestion in Istanbul, one of Europe’s most congested cities. They are to install 250 DeepBlue Bluetrack sensors along all the major corridors and access points of the city, together with the DeepBlue core centralised system. The sensors use the signals emitted by Bluetooth-enabled devices such as GPS navigation systems and mobile phones to track vehicles and calculate travel times. With up to ten lanes of traffic, the city aut

Optimisation of traffic signals is often seen as a challenging and expensive task, requiring inductive loops, cameras or manual counting for traffic monitoring. However, a new development from Danish wireless technology company Blip Systems aims to change that. BlipTrack uses a combination of Bluetooth and wi-fi to constantly monitor and map traffic flow. The system detects all vehicles containing Bluetooth or wi-fi enabled devices to provide accurate traffic data, enabling real-time traffic monitoring a

US-based intelligent wireless solutions supplier Novatel Wireless has introduced an advanced an advanced mi-fi powered machine to machine (M2M) device that incorporates the industry leading mi-fi technology platform with customisations for multiple M2M vertical markets. The SA 2100 is designed for high bandwidth M2M applications across multiple vertical markets that up until now have required complex and fragmented application deployment. Designed for high bandwidth M2M applications, the SA 2100 makes it ea

Verizon has announced that its Networkfleet fleet-management solution will debut in the company’s US service fleet for improved monitoring, management and route optimisation capabilities. The Networkfleet telematics solution combines in-vehicle hardware and a web-based application to store, view and analyse data on specific vehicles as well as overall fleet performance. Vehicles are equipped with a GPS device that sends information to the Networkfleet data centre over a secure wireless network. Key feature

In an effort to reduce congestion and improve passenger flow at railway stations in the Netherlands, Danish software company Blip Systems and Dutch railway consultants NPC have teamed up to monitor passenger movements using Bluetooth and wi-fi tracking. In an eight-week study at Groningen railway station, Blip Systems has installed 22 of its BlipTrack sensors which anonymously detect wi-fi and Bluetooth-enabled devices such as mobile phones and laptops. The sensors will monitor passengers and transmit the

As part of a growing effort to use technology to manage traffic on roads and highways without building more roads, for the last six months Florida’s Palm Beach County has been using Bluetooth readers to determine how long it takes motorists to travel along its corridors. "We're adding more capacity through technology rather than asphalt," said Dan Weisberg, Palm Beach County's traffic engineer. "We can't build ourselves out of congestion. We need to be smarter about what we have and manage it." In collabor

Nettropolis and the MobiCloud consortium are to deploy innovative mobile cloud services for the Karlsruhe Public Transport Authority (Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe or VBK), as part of the MobiCloud project, an initiative funded by the European Commission under the ICT Policy Support Programme (PSP) Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme (CIP). The MobiCloud platform aims to make public transport greener, safer and more efficient by using standard smartphones and tablets to improve coordination betw

Accurate, timely information which eliminates the need to brake quickly when approaching a work zone or other road hazard could prevent crashes and save lives, according to research by the University of Minnesota. Thanks to research by the University of Minnesota, this vision is closer than ever to reality. “In the past fifty years we’ve made great strides in reducing traffic fatalities with technologies that save lives in crashes, like airbags and seat belts,” says M. Imram Hayee, electrical and computer e

In a five-year contract with the London Borough of Enfield, Adaptis Solutions has rolled out its Dash Park, its cashless parking solution across fourteen car parks throughout borough. The introduction of Dash Park now gives parking customers the option to make payments by phone, text, mobile, web or through a smartphone application. The system provides motorists a fast, simple, and dependable alternative to pay and display machines already in operation at Enfield’s car parks. Enfield Council’s head of parki