News

Finland-headquartered RFID technology specialist Confidex has opened an office in São Paulo, Brazil, to be closer to the Latin American market where the company has already built up an extensive partner network and is engaged with key players in the industry to provide solutions for large deployments across the continent. Confidex centralises its R&D activities in Finland and already has offices across Western Europe, the US, India and China.

General Motors and LG Group will jointly design and engineer future Electric Vehicles (EVs), expanding a relationship built on LG’s work as the battery cell supplier for the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera extended-range EVs. Teams of LG and GM engineers will work on key components, as well as vehicle structures and architectures. Vehicles resulting from the partnership will be sold in many countries. Timing of the launch of the first vehicles resulting from the partnership will be announced closer to market

Hong Kong MTR has awarded Thales a contract to supply an Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) and security access management system for West Island Line (WIL), South Island Line (SIL(E)) and Kwun Tong Line Extension (KTE), which are all new extensions, currently under construction, of the existing MTR rail network. The WIL, consisting of three stations, will add another 3km to the Island Line; SIL(E), with five stations, is a new 7km section; while KTE is a 2.6 km extension of the current Kwun Tong Line with two

International consulting group Sweco has acquired the ITS consulting firm Inmind, which has offices in in Gothenburg and Stockholm, Sweden. “Inmind’s core expertise in ITS will strengthen our offering to clients in this area and together we will be market-leading in ITS at both the regional and national level,” says Johan Dozzi, President of Sweco Infrastructure in Sweden.

The city council for Madrid in Spain is to spend US$34.6 million by the end of 2013 on retrofitting 600 traffic lights in the city to new LED lights, which will bring about energy savings of 80 per cent. A contract to replace half the current incandescent bulbs has been approved by the city council and it also includes maintenance work to ensure efficient operation of the traffic light network

Community committees from eight local areas in the UK town of Salford have deployed 3M Driver Feedback Signs (DFS) to gather information on average vehicle speeds and encourage drivers to observe the speed limits. Urban Vision, a partnership with Salford City Council and Capita Symonds to manage the local highways on behalf of the council, has so far installed 50 DFS 700 units.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has awarded a contract, valued at approximately $88 million, to Electronic Transaction Consultants Corporation (ETC Corporation) to provide a facility-wide replacement toll collection and audit system as well as related system maintenance services. Under the contract, ETC will implement its latest-generation Rite solution on the Port Authority’s toll facilities to deliver a number of advanced system features including a sophisticated toll data warehouse, an adva

Q-Free has been awarded an order, valued at US$6.27, million for tolling tags from Centro Gestao Meios de Pagto (CGMP) in Brazil. This order is the third call-off from the earlier announced frame agreement of US$38million which was announced last October.

Alta Bicycle Share has been chosen to operate a bicycle-sharing scheme in New York City. The company operates similar programmes in Washington, DC, Boston, Massachusetts, and also in Melbourne, Australia. It is expected that the New York scheme, which will roll out next summer, will be the biggest bicycle sharing initiative in the US with the establishment of 600 bike stations and 10,000 bicycles deployed. The scheme, which will cost US$50 million to operate, will not be funded from the public purse. Inste

Fugro Roadware has won a twoyear, US$3 million, contract from the US SHRP 2 (Strategic Highway Research Programme 2), for the collection of roadway data at highway speed, using ARANs (Automatic Road Analysers) on selected roads, within the six SHRP 2 naturalistic driving study sites.

The Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority (PRHTA), working with TransCore, has converted two of its busiest and most essential AutoExpreso roadways to all-electronic toll collection as part of a US$26 million conversion project that is expected to be completed across all AutoExpreso roadways by next summer. The PR-52 north to south arterial highway, which includes five toll plazas, and PR-53 linking the south and east coasts of the island, with three toll plazas, were part of Phase I of the proje

Econolite has announced that Newport Beach has become the ninth city in Orange County, California, to deploy the company’s Centracs advanced transportation management system. According to Ron Keith, Principal Traffic Engineer of Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), “As part of the strategies and solutions to address our evolving travel demands, OCTA is implementing signal synchronisation to 750 miles [1,200km] of road arterials, which includes more than 2,000 intersections. This synchronization p

Kyocera Corporation has supplied its high-performance solar modules for a carport roofing installation in southern Germany which provides power for a charging station for electric cars and bikes. The system, designed and installed by the German solar power company, the Blue Group, can produce an output of 53.32kW.