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Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD and Rotterdam City yesterday entered into an agreement to deliver BYD's all-electric e6 vehicles as part of the Netherland's green transportation project "75-EV-RO" - the first e6's anywhere in Europe. The Netherland's Prince Maurits van Oranje, Vice Mayor of Rotterdam Mrs. A. van Huffelen, Chinese Ambassador Mr. Zhang Jun and BYD's Henry Li (Auto Division GM) were all present for the signing ceremony in Rotterdam City Hall.

Arcontia, a Swedish producer of contactless smart card readers and terminals, today announced that its embedded contactless smart card reader, designed for the Nautiz eTicket Pro PDA, is to be used by Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen - NS).

Electrification in vehicles is a key trend in the automotive industry. The increase in electric components within vehicles is boosting the market for traction motors and Frost & Sullivan says it anticipates the European traction motor market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50 per cent for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs). Permanent magnet motors are expected to dominate the market by virtue of their performance and efficiency. However, the growing concern over t

PTV and Ingenius Mobile have joined forces to serve the Romanian market with PTVs traffic and transport planning software systems, and in particular its leading product line, PTV Vision.

Bernhard Simon, chief executive of Dachser, a Germany-headquartered European logistic provider, says he believes that one in five truck journeys would not be necessary if superfluous packaging was avoided. This could reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by up to eight million tons he believes. In 2005 CO2 emissions from road cargo transport in Germany amounted to 36.7 million tons and the Federal Environment Agency has forecast emissions to rise to 44.4 million tons by 2020.

Wabco Holdings has entered into a long term agreement with Iveco to supply anti-lock braking technology for light- and medium-duty trucks produced in Brazil from 2013 onward. The company’s new agreement with Iveco is consistent with the Brazilian federal government’s mandate for compulsory anti-lock braking systems (ABS) on new trucks, buses and trailers to further increase vehicle and road safety. According to Brazilian legislation, 40 per cent of total commercial vehicles produced in Brazil in 2013 must b

Safety concerns have been raised over air pollution levels in Stockholm's 18km tunnel bypass. Data from the Swedish Transport Agency (Trafikverket) suggests that pollution in the Stockholm Bypass project (Förbifart Stockholm) could result in 20-30 fatalities/year due to the increased risk of triggering serious breathing disorders. The data suggests that high levels of dangerous particulate matter could pose a serious risk to users of the tunnel at peak periods. The new road will be paved with concrete rathe

TransLink, the regional transportation authority in Metro Vancouver, Canada, has launched Version 1.0 of its RTTI (real time transit information) system, which includes the long-awaited predicted departure of buses from the stop. This product provides passengers with the exact time a bus will leave a given stop. The bus location information and predicted departure times at stops comes from the Transit Management and Communication System (TMAC) that INIT provided through Mobile-ITCS and is accessible to Tran

ITS Canada has announced another capacity conference well in advance of the event. Some 40 exhibitors and 300 delegates will gather in Vancouver, British Columbia from 12-15 for ITS Canada's 14th Annual Conference and General Meeting.

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has formed a cross-sector Electric Vehicles Standards Panel (EVSP) and is seeking participants with relevant expertise and interest to begin the critical work of developing a standardisation roadmap to enable the safe, mass deployment of electric vehicles and associated infrastructure in the United States. The goal is to develop version one of the roadmap this year.

FedEx Express says it has made significant progress towards its goal to make its vehicle fleet 20 per cent more fuel efficient by 2020, and announced that its vehicle fleet is now 16.6 per cent more fuel efficient through FY2011 than it was in 2005. Twenty per cent of the FedEx Express diesel vehicle pickup and delivery fleet has already been converted to more efficient and cleaner emission models that comply with 2010 US Environmental Protection Agency diesel emission standards.

The new Richmond Airport connector link road is now open to traffic. The link provides a direct connection from the Pocahontas 895 highway to Richmond International Airport and cuts journey time on this route. This 2.5km road is an extension of the Pocahontas 895 highway and links directly to Airport Drive at Charles City Road. The new road can save drivers around 10 minutes or more on a trip to the airport, especially those coming from Chesterfield County and the Tri-Cities area. Customers using the Airpor

PTV AG has announced that it will be presenting the next generation of trip planning solutions at Transport Logistic 2011 being held next week in Munich, Germany (www.transportlogistic.de). According to the company, this high-end planning software visualises complex transport processes, enables cooperative planning within the team of schedulers and joint scheduling of different types of transport in one single system.

Led by the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London and involving a range of industrial partners, Concerto – which stands for Co-operative Networked Concept for Emission Responsive Traffic Operations – is a three-year research programme that aims to use the sophisticated test environment of the innovITS Advance city circuit to develop next-generation technologies that reduce motor vehicle emissions.