News

Iteris has been awarded a US$1.4 million ITS integration services contract from the city of Oxnard, in California, for deployment of the city’s ITS Master Plan. Since 2006, the company has been providing ITS services to Oxnard which is the 19th most populous city in California and the most populous in Ventura County. The six-year partnership began with the development of the city’s ITS Master Plan, followed by detailed design of the citywide ITS, and now its integration and deployment.

Installation of automatic braking systems in buses is being considered by Japan’s Transport Ministry. The advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) will be activated upon the detection of the risk of a crash and is one of a number of high-tech safety advancements being reviewed by the ministry to be mandated for buses.

The Mineta Transportation Institute has released its newest peer-reviewed research report, A Framework for Developing and Integrating Effective Routing Strategies within the Emergency Management Decision-Support System. It describes the modelling, calibration, and validation of a multi-modal traffic-flow simulation of the San Jose, California, downtown network. It also examines various evacuation scenarios and first-responder routings to assess strategies that would be effective during a no-notice disaster.

Pitney Bowes Business Insight has announced that Balfour Beatty WorkPlace has chosen Confirm OnDemand – PBBI’s on-demand-based infrastructure asset maintenance and management system – to support its US$158 million Highways Services Partnership with Southampton City Council in the UK. Southampton City Council had previously been using Confirm as an on-premise application to manage its highways maintenance programme. Through integration with PBBI’s MapInfo Professional location intelligence GIS software, the

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro) has retired the last diesel bus in its fleet, becoming the world's first major transit agency to operate only clean fuel buses - nearly 100 per cent of which operate on compressed natural gas (CNG). According to Metro, compared with diesel buses, its CNG fleet reduces cancer-causing particulate matter by more than 80 per cent. And, because of the switch from diesel to CNG, Metro avoids emitting nearly 300,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per da

Last week at the Qatar Motor Show saw the world debut of Volkswagen’s XL1, a diesel-electric hybrid two-seater that can do 313mpg (0.9 l/100 km) and an announcement that the vehicle will enter limited production for the UK and German markets in 2013. If it proves popular, VW says it plans to increase production and sell in other countries.

More than 400 new fixed speed cameras, including 25 radar sections and 90 cameras that can tell the difference between HGV vehicles and cars, will be installed in accident zones in France this year, the French interior minister Brice Hortefeux has said. The police force will be equipped with 326 devices for automatic number plate reading in 2011, and in the first part of the year there will also be a development programme for mounted, mobile radars that can control speed in traffic flow. The French governme

The Mayor of Budapest, Istvan Tarlos, has announced that he is planning to introduce congestion charges in the Hungarian capital. The extra funds raised through the measure would be spent on the improvement of public transport services and on providing financial support for the city's public transport firm BKV.

Four highway operators in Japan - Metropolitan Expressway, Central Nippon Expressway, East Nippon Expressway and West Nippon Expressway - have announced that a new firm will be jointly established by the four firms by the end of this year. The new company will market their expertise on highway management and planning in emerging economies in Asia such as India and Vietnam.

Audi has selected Inrix’s XD Traffic to help further the company's Audi Connect strategy with real-time traffic information for its navigation systems starting with the mid-2011 model year. At a launch event today for the 2011 Audi A6, the automaker demonstrated how Audi vehicles connected to the Internet via Audi Online Services will use XD Traffic to provide motorists with real-time traffic information, traffic-influenced turn-by-turn directions and alerts to accidents and other incidents along their rout

Sebury Technology and Switzerland-based Legic Identsystems have announced a licence partnership that will result in cutting-edge access control solutions and biometric readers for the Chinese market. Sebury is one of the market leaders in providing security and access control equipment for China. The Legic partnership agreement will enable it to extend its product portfolio with a leading contactless smart card technology.

USA Truck has chosen Gemini GLS400 mobile terminals plus cargo sensors from SkyBitz for its trailer tracking technology. The technology is expected to be installed on more than 6,000 trailers beginning during the first quarter of 2011. This technology is designed to provide managers the ability to view trailer assets in real-time and run customisable management and operational reports for each trailer in their fleet. USA Truck expects to be able to automatically download all of the positioning data into its

Hella Aglaia Mobile Vision, a subsidiary of Hella KGaA Hueck & Co., and Autoliv have agreed to cooperate and further develop their automotive forward-looking vision systems together. As part of the agreement that bundles the competencies of both companies, Hella Aglaia is selling an exclusive license on monovision based algorithms for traffic sign recognition (TSR), lane detection and light source recognition to Autoliv. By monitoring traffic signs, TSR helps the driver to keep the correct speed and follow

Delegates at National Harbor this week have opportunity to gain first hand experience of a national connected vehicle program Vehicles of the test fleet of an extensive research program are being put through their paces each day of this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting. With the key objective of showing how vehicles from different manufacturers can communicate and understand each other, technology of the US DOT Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot Program is being demonstrated at National Harbor.

The International Institute for Information Design (IIID) has issued a call for speakers for the 6th IIID Expert Forum Traffic & Transport Information Systems, being held on 8-9 September, 2011, in Vienna Austria. This year's event is focused on Traffic, Transport and Social Media, and in addition to the main conference, Innovations in traffic & transport information is a special session focused on innovative projects and results beyond real time information. The session is geared to the interests of inform