News

Electric vehicle charging company, POD Point, has launched the UK’s first nationwide Pay As You Go network for electric vehicle charging. The POD Point Pay As You Go (PP PAYG) network is free to join, has no monthly fee and only requires a refundable £10 balance for account activation. Based on London’s Oyster model, the PP PAYG network will use SMS text to access charging points and stop and start charging cycles, providing electric and hybrid vehicle drivers with the first nationwide, card-less charging

The European commission has launched the first EU award to encourage the adoption of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) by local and regional authorities. Under the inaugural theme ‘stakeholder and citizen participation’, local and regional authorities can submit their applications for the award of EUR 10 000 (US$12,606) on www.dotherightmix.eu.

The city of Hyderabad has announced an ambitious 12-month plan to install a new city-wide traffic signal system called the Hyderabad Traffic Integrated Management System (HTRIMS). The US $12 million contract, which was awarded to Bharath Electronics Limited (BEL) earlier this month, aims to upgrade traffic signals at 180 existing junctions across the busy city and bring a further 41 new junctions into the system.

Traffic Technology Ltd. has revealed its involvement over the last three years with Transport for London (TfL) in developing and deploying monitoring systems for the London Olympics 2012 games walking and cycling routes. The company supplied its Eco Multi pedestrian and cycle monitoring systems which have been installed in four locations on the eight designated ‘2012 Games Walking & Cycling Routes’. Traffic Technology says the unique ‘click and lock’ modular system of the Eco Multi enables several units to

With Britain’s busy roads accounting for 90 per cent of motorised travel in the UK for business and leisure purposes, the UK’s Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) is calling on the Government to speed up its development of a proper high level strategy and funding package for Britain’s strategic roads network. Steve Agg, chief executive of CILT, said: ‘The strategic road network is vital to the efficiency of transport and its contribution to economic growth. Developing a long-term strateg

Kapsch TraffiCom Australia is to install a new open road tolling system on Sydney’s M5 south west motorway. The contract, worth over US$10.5 million has been awarded by Australia’s Interlink Roads, who, in partnership with the New South Wales Government, have developed a programme of enhancements to the motorway to provide three lanes in each direction between Camden Valley Way and King Georges Road.

Satellite navigation provider Garmin, is teaming with Inrix, leaders in the field of traffic intelligence technology to provide up-to-the-minute traffic information across the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast) network. By leveraging the latest breakthroughs in DAB technology, Inrix will help Garmin deliver better, more detailed live traffic data, updated more frequently and without an internet connection. Garmin says this new generation of “Garmin 3D Traffic Live” will provide their customers access to fully

Vialis and Nedap are to join forces to improve traffic flow in Dutch cities and make parking easier. Vialis, a subsidiary of VolkerWessels, will integrate its Vivaldi dynamic traffic management system with the Nedap Sensit wireless parking space detection system. A large number of municipalities in the Netherlands already use Vivaldi to optimise traffic flow via traffic control systems and signs; Sensit wirelessly detects vacant parking spaces.

The government of New Zealand aims to improve road safety in the country by installing more speed cameras nationwide. Currently, the ratio of speed cameras per 0.1 million people stands at 1.3 compared to 2.5 and 4.8 in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria respectively. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is to be allocated US$8.05mn to increase the number of speed cameras from the existing 55 units to 100 or more by 2015.

A third round of funding for low-carbon buses has been announced by the Scottish government. A total of £3 million (US£4.7 million) will be available to bus operators under the Green Bus Fund 3 scheme. Keith Brown, Scottish transport minister, said the first two rounds helped nine operators introduce 74 new eco-friendly buses. Lothian Buses, which secured funds in an earlier round, said its new ADL Enviro 400H hybrids are 56.7% more fuel efficient than the old buses they replaced.

Kapsch TrafficCom IVHS is to supply the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) with their IDS 2.0 integrated incident detection system (IDS) for the Washburn Tunnel in Houston, Texas, the south’s largest and first toll-free vehicular tunnel. The non-invasive detection system will be linked to 14 fixed roadway cameras for incident direction for two-way traffic in the vehicular tunnel and up to six infrared intrusion detection cameras in the ventilation tunnel, enabling tunnel operators to provide cost-e

California's Bay Area Climate Collaborative (BACC) and Swarco Traffic Americas are to collaborate to advance the market for energy efficient, adaptive lighting technologies through the Bay Area Next Generation Streetlight Initiative, a region-wide project to upgrade 200,000+ municipal street lights to advanced light-emitting diode (LED) technology.

Zenith Hygiene Group is saving almost 600 tonnes of CO2 a year with TomTom fleet management technology, enabled by Vodafone, according to independent research. Zenith’s estimated 597-tonne saving was achieved with TomTom’s tracking, navigation and ecoPlus devices installed across its vehicle fleet. The vehicles use Vodafone’s global machine-to-machine services which enable businesses to connect, monitor and manage devices across the world.