News

With drivers sometimes waiting up to several hours to cross the US-Mexico border, the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) is partnering with the city of El Paso to provide real-time traffic updates so drivers can plan accordingly and avoid long waits. Using Bluetooth and radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, wait times will be available to motorists and commercial shippers so they can modify travel plans as needed. As Bluetooth devices in passenger vehicles and RFID transponders in com

Speaking in a presentation at the annual Management Briefing Seminars of the Center for Automotive Research, held in Traverse City, Michigan, Kristin Kolodge, J.D. Power’s executive director of driver interaction claimed that in-car voice recognition systems work so poorly that automakers should give up trying to add new features and go back to the basics. According to the consulting firm’s annual Initial Quality Study of vehicle models sold in the United States, voice activation was identified as the mo

Australian video surveillance specialist DTI Group, with its French partner, Cibest, is to supply Santerne with 36 advanced video surveillance systems for the Marseille Metro. Santerne, a member of the Vinci group, is the leader of the consortium which holds the head contract with the Regie des Transports de Marseille (RTM), the operator of the Marseille Metro. The RTM operates 36 four-car trains on two metro lines as well as 578 buses and 26 trams. Over 500,000 journeys are taken on the RTM network ea

Germany's transportation minister, Alexander Dobrindt, has unveiled plans to introduce a toll on cars using the country's roads. However, it is not clear whether the proposal will meet with the approval of the EU. Germany has imposed a toll on trucks using its autobahns and other major thoroughfares since the start of 2005; the new toll would apply to all cars using all roads in Germany from the beginning of 2016 and could even extend to motorcycles. Dobrint said experts at the Transportation Ministry ha

The central European conference on eCall takes place in Berlin, Germany on 16-18 September, organised by ITS Niedersachsen. On 16 and 17 September, the conference will be held in English, and will give a Europe-wide overview of eCall deployment and implementation. The first day will see discussions on the current status of the upcoming implementation of eCall and third party services in Europe. Political representatives of the European Commission, HeERO 1 and 2 partners and other stakeholders will pre

The latest report from management consultants Arthur D. Little’s, Riding the Mobile Ticketing Wave, highlights the benefits of mobile ticketing technologies and outlines five strategic questions that a mobile ticketing partnership should address. These are: Who will have the leading role in the mobile ticketing partnership network; Is the transport operator ready to invest in spite of uncertain business case projections; Are new mobile ticketing systems future proof or will they be overtaken by another i

Q-Free has been awarded a frame agreement for ITS OBU610 tags from Interlink Roads in Australia. The three-year contract is valued at a minimum of US$2.5 million but has the potential to be increased. The fourth generation OBU610 combines more than 20 years’ of proven technology and experience to provide future-proof investment. The tag is easily attached to and removed from the vehicle windscreen and is designed to support all applicable 5.8GHz CEN DSRC protocols in the world of for automatic registrat

General Motors CEO Mary Barra will kick off the 21st ITS World Congress on Sunday, 7 September with an opening keynote speech that will address the changing transportation environment around the world as well as the rapidly evolving technology of connected, autonomous, and electric vehicles. “Connectivity may drive more positive change for customers than any other technological innovation our industry has produced in decades,” says Barra. “Anywhere in the world that we connect cars to cars, and cars to the

As visitors to the Q-Free booth at the ITS World Congress Detroit will see, the company has transformed its portfolio, shifting from a predominant focus on tolling to cover all aspects of road operations – financing, condition monitoring, real-time management and emerging cooperative ITS applications. With the event being staged in Detroit, it provides Q-Free with an opportunity to highlight its appreciable presence in the North American market. Recently it acquired Open Roads Consulting, a specialist i

GTT (Global Traffic Technologies) will be unveiling its pioneering detection technology during the ITS World Congress Detroit. The company says best in class reliability and flexibility, specifically designed to address the challenges traffic professionals face today, are at the core of the new Canoga 9000 Series Solutions design.

The Youth Connection Showcase at the ITS World Congress Detroit is presenting the Road Code challenge – a code-a-thon competition to inspire creative app development around transportation. College students, entrepreneurs, and tech start-ups, will be encouraged to think big and think creative; mobile connectivity, or safety, or convenience. Teams of coders will descend on Grand Circus, an inspirational learning facility in the heart of downtown Detroit on Friday, Sept. 5, 2014 at 7.00pm and kick off 24 hour