News

According to online automotive information resource Edmunds.com, Tennessee residents rank among the US's top consumers of electric vehicles, with 2.9 per cent of all new electric vehicles sold so far this year registered in the state. "This rate is more than one and a half times the state’s share of all new car registrations in the US, where Tennessee ranks 19th overall at 1.7 per cent," Edmunds officials said. Edmunds found that much of the state's enthusiasm is because of the Nissan Leaf; 93 percent of al

Belgian public transport operators De Lijn and TEC, and parking operator Interparking, have selected ASK, French provider of contactless technology, as the supplier of interoperable MoBIB contactless smart cards for transportation in Belgium. MoBIB is a multi-application and multimodal contactless card based on ASK’s TanGO CT 4018 EMV compliant contactless card, with embedded increased cryptography and triple DES security, allowing each operator and service provider to maintain and manage its own customer

Twelve European carmakers have agreed to step up cooperation to bring car-to-car communication to European roads through the use of a common deployment strategy. The companies, which cooperate in the Car 2 Car Communication Consortium, have said they want to have cooperative systems in place from 2015, taking account of EU technical specifications for message formats, security requirements and other requirements. According to the car manufacturers, “It is of great importance that all equipped vehicles are s

UK-headquartered Paragon Software Systems has developed a low bridge avoidance mapping option for all UK versions of its routing and scheduling optimisation software. The optional Navteq mapping functionality eliminates the need to enter bridge height data manually into Paragon, simplifying and streamlining the creation of cost-effective, feasible transport plans that enable high vehicles to avoid low bridges on British roads. Users can enter their own bridge height data if necessary, but with this new opti

The Dutch are planning a new generation of smart roads that glow in the dark, to be phased in next year. Developed by Studio Roosegaarde and infrastructure management group Heijmans, the Smart Highway by won Best Future Concept at the Dutch Design Awards, and features road markings painted with a luminescent powder that charges up in sunlight and shines through the night. The new surfaces also include markings that become visible at certain temperatures, such as a snowflake symbol that appears in freezing

Restarting city transportation systems following a natural disaster can take time. The impact of a storm cannot be predicted, but transportation systems and fleets of vehicles with embedded intelligence can provide the knowledge needed to get up and running faster. Machine to machine (M2M) technology can help collect and process information to better monitor and manage transportation systems on an ongoing basis. In the event of a disaster, technology could provide cities with critical data about bridges, r

According to a new analysis of the City of St. Louis' violator-funded red-light safety camera program carried out by safety camera supplier American Traffic Systems (ATS), drivers are adopting safer driving habits by stopping at red lights. As drivers comply with the law, the risk of dangerous red-light running collisions is reduced, and streets become safer for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. The study reviewed nearly 350,000 red-light running violations issued in the city from the time the program bega

Telematics Update is hosting a free webinar that will explore how the EETS Directive could provide inter-operable tolling services and seamless mobility across Europe’s boarders. The interactive event will be held on Wednesday 6 November 2012 at 10-11 CEST and is open to the entire fleet telematics community. Due to the different devices and data collection methods used throughout Europe for road user charging (RUC), driving across boarders can be problematic. Truck drivers at present have up to ten differe

A joint venture between Dominion University and Virginia Beach city planners, the Centre for Innovative Transportation Solutions, will soon be shaping the city’s transportation future using computer simulations. City planners envision that the centre can help answer all sorts of questions, including the best place to add lanes or build a new road, what the traffic from a sports arena would look like, or what contingencies are needed to prepare for an accident or natural disaster that shuts down a key road.

European and US experts in health, city planning, environment and transport recently met in Brussels at the Polis Environment & Health working group meeting to discuss integrating health aspects in transportation planning to improve urban mobility and gain substantial savings in public health. Brussels, Paris and London presented their policies and discussed the measures they had implemented, such as low emission zones, community travel plans, incentives for walking and cycling, awareness raising and promot

Europe’s Green eMotion project has announced the test phase of a project that will demonstrate Europe-wide roaming in an interoperable electromobility system and will provide access to new added-value services. Green eMotion will also support the promotion of cross-sector ICT standards for interoperability of electric vehicle (EV) services. Green eMotion is a major EU funded electromobility project; one of its objectives is to develop an IT system that defines the interfaces needed for pan-European electro

Drivers using the Windsor-Detroit tunnel linking Canada with the US will shortly be able to pay electronically on both sides of the border. Until now, electronic payment has only been available on the US side. Tunnel president Neal Belitsky said it’s part of a plan to eventually phase out tunnel tokens after 2013. “We’re going to be getting out of the token business,” Belitsky said. “It takes time to buy rolls of tokens. All that is going to disappear. If you look throughout the US or Canada, you can count