News

A new multi-purpose centre has opened in Bristol to house the council’s Emergency Control Centre, Traffic Control Centre and Community Safety (CCTV) Control Rooms into a single facility for major emergencies. These teams provide public safety services that use 700 CCTV cameras around the city with a large part of the centre dedicated to managing the city’s traffic network and monitoring the flow of traffic around Bristol.

A £680 million ($897million) order for new trains has been welcomed by West Midlands Rail (WMR), a consortium of 16 local councils set up to manage the regions rail services. The order, made up of 413 carriages, comes from West Midlands Trains (WMT) who will run local services on behalf of WMR and Department of Transport (D0T) from December onwards to help increase capacity and improve journey times. WMT will operate local services until March 2026.

The International Association of Transportation Regulators (IATR) has announced Alliance for Transportation Innovation (ATI21) CEO and president Paul Brubaker has joined its advisory board. The appointment helps strengthen the relationship between both organizations. Last month, Brubaker urged delegates at IATR’s annual conference in Austin, Texas, to embrace a broad view when considering rules for emerging technologies, such as Autonomous Vehicles (AVs).

Twelve major Chinese car brands have announced a decision to fit all new models with lifesaving anti-skid technology, electronic stability control (ESC), from January 2018, at this year’s Stop the Crash China event in Shanghai. The announcement came from Besturn, Changan, Dongfeng Fengshen, Geely, Haval, Hongqi, Lynk & Co, MG, Trumpchi, Roewe, Senova, and Wey, who collectively represent 85% of the Chinese manufacturer market.

Motorway services and large petrol retailers will have to install charge points for electric vehicles (EVs), under the UK Government's Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, presented by transport minister John Hayes. In addition, official research estimates that the market for driverless vehicles will be worth £50 billion ($66 billion) by 2035. The bill will increase the access and availability of charge points for EVs, which will have to be ‘smart,' meaning that they can interact with the grid to manage

Companies reducing their emissions through operational or technological innovation have been selected for the inaugural Clean Vehicles Partnership (CVP) awards ceremony 2017. The partnership is coordinated on behalf of Heathrow by environmental and sustainable transport consultancy, Ricardo. The CVP Improver, Innovator and Leader Awards will be attended by representatives of winning and shortlisted companies, alongside senior leadership from Heathrow Airport. A panel of experts will also name the first CVP

Swarco will showcase two new innovations, Profectus and Zephyr, at Road Expo Scotland that are designed with the intention of providing local authorities with control of school warning signs and control over traffic assets and strategy. Profectus is a central processing board that allows school signs and vehicle activated signs to be monitored and programmed to make the surrounding area safe during term time.

Mobility service app UbiGo will be relaunched and will pilot in Stockholm, 2018, to speed up the deployment of Mobility-as-a-Service in Sweden — with its technical implementation designed by Austrian IT supplier Fluidtime. The trial, part of the Horizon 2020 CiViTAS Eccentric project, will provide households with access to public transport, car sharing, car rental taxi, city bike system and 24/7 transport.

Transport company Gruppo Torinese Trasporti (GTT) has chosen Papercast’s solar solar-powered e-paper bus stop display system, which uses E-ink technology, to replace the current LCD based passenger information system in Turin, Italy. The programme is part of a City-wide programme to improve the quality of information provided to passengers at bus stops with a self-sustainable solution.