News

Mexico's transport and communications ministry (SCT) has launched a tender for construction of the Mexico City-Toluca passenger rail line. The project will be divided into a series of separate tenders, with the first open to Mexican companies only. The tender launched on 28 February is a public works contract for construction of the first 36km of railway. Subsequent tenders will relate to the acquisition of rolling stock and electromechanical works. The electric trains will travel at speeds of up to 1

Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) is planning to invest US$2 million in a new system aimed at decreasing the number of wrong-way drivers on the state’s highways. According to Robert Rocchio, managing engineer of traffic and safety at RIDOT, the state sees a minimum of one fatal crash per year due to drivers going the wrong way on the state's major highways. RIDOT hopes to begin installing intelligent transportation systems on highway off-ramps at twenty different locations across the s

UK business secretary Vince Cable has set out the latest steps the Government is taking to support ‘reshoring’, backing an encouraging trend of manufacturers bringing jobs and production back to the UK from low-cost countries in the East. He has announced the latest winners, including Clearview Traffic Group, GlaxoSmithKline, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and Cosworth, from a US$409 million government Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) which is helping to rebuild B

The Department of Transport (DoT) in Abu Dhabi has commenced work on a US$9 million adaptive traffic control central system project, which is expected to be completed by early 2015. The project will see the implementation of a new Scoot (Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique) adaptive traffic control system to improve traffic flow at the capital’s 125 main signalised junctions. Scoot, installed in more than 120 cities worldwide, is a tool for managing and controlling traffic signals in urban areas.

The Asset Standards Authority (ASA) of Transport for New South Wales (NSW), Australia, has recognised Parsons Brinckerhoff as an Authorised Engineering Organisation (AEO), making the company the first major consultancy firm in NSW to be authorised to undertake engineering works on behalf of Transport for NSW. Parsons Brinckerhoff says the authorisation is a significant achievement; the status requires engineering firms to demonstrate they have processes and procedures in place to assure the design, safet

New Zealand company ERoad is helping transport operators reduce speeds in high-risk areas with its new virtual speed camera. Operators are now able to pinpoint areas of risk and apply their own speed limits to those areas for their drivers. They may be the same as the posted speed limit for the zone, or set lower to encourage extra vigilance around areas such as schools. Operators are able to use virtual speed cameras to monitor the speed of any of their vehicles that have ERoad hardware devices inst

The integration of Mobileye’s collision avoidance system with Accel’s Voyager connected car smartphone allows remote monitoring of Mobileye alerts transmitted via the Voyager 3G cellular connection. The companies said integrating Mobileye collision avoidance systems with Voyager is an elegant solution that adds an additional layer of driver safety via remote monitoring of Mobileye alerts. It allows both the driver and third parties such as fleet managers, to receive alerts in real time and providing to re

Peek Traffic has expanded its distribution strategy to directly serve the states of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. All current, on-going and new projects will be supported by Peek Traffic Corporation and its affiliate companies. The company says this expansion demonstrates its ongoing commitment to provide high quality products and services and to build closer relationships with its clients.

Already a winner of the 2013 ITS America award for Best New Innovative Practices the the Interstate 15 integrated corridor management (ICM) demonstrator project in San Diego has recently completed a successful coordinated test plan with all members of the Interstate 15 integrated corridor management project team. This test, by project owner SANDAG (San Diego Association of Governments) involved all the agency partners who witnessed the first ever fully automated multi-modal corridor handling of a freeway

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that a new report on the state of America's transportation infrastructure, 2013 Status of the Nation's Highways, Bridges and Transit: Conditions and Performance, confirms that more investment is needed to maintain and improve the nation's highway and transit systems. Last month, Secretary Foxx highlighted the need for transportation investment in a speech that took aim at America’s infrastructure deficit and identified ways to use innovation and improv