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Kapsch TrafficCom has won a contract with the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDoT) in the US to design and implement a statewide advanced traffic management system (ATMS). Tracy Bumpers, Kapsch executive VP, Solution Center – Traffic, says the high profile deal is valued at between $7m and $10m. Gridlock is a major issue in parts of the state. “Metro Atlanta has some of the worst traffic in the US,” he says. The project will be managed from Duluth, a suburb of Atlanta. “Our entire team is lo

A consortium led by FiveAI called StreetWise is carrying out commuter research trials for autonomous vehicles (AVs) on public roads in London. FiveAI says the trials will aim to gather insights into AV services, which it says could offer a greener alternative to urban commuter cars. The software company is working with insurance group Direct Line and safety organisation Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) to carry out the trials in the boroughs of Croydon and Bromley. As part of the project, FiveAI has

The US state of Virginia has radically changed which cars are eligible to use high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes.

The ITS industry is coming into an exciting new phase of genuine cooperation which will benefit users, says Econolite president and COO Abbas Mohaddes. “I feel we are now truly bringing people together in a collaborative approach to multimodal mobility,” he says. “This has been a dream since the inception of World Congress 25 years ago. We have these broad constituencies: mobility, communications, computer processing, machine learning and AI, connected and autonomous vehicles – all with the focus on t

With the Tokyo 2020 Olympics fast approaching, Toyota is adapting 20 of its e-Palette autonomous shuttles to move contestants around the athletes’ village. Adoption of the automated electric vehicles has been based in part on feedback from athletes from past games about their mobility needs. The 5.2m long e-Palette shuttles feature large doors, a low floor and electric ramps to allow up to 20 Olympians or four wheelchair Paralympians (plus additional standing passengers), to board quickly and easily.

Virgin Hyperloop One (VHO) is joining a network of companies which aim to accelerate the transition of businesses to a more sustainable economic model. VHO says it will commit to establishing methods to reuse decommissioned elements of its system and reducing its carbon output as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Circular Economy 100 (CE100) Network. The traditional ‘linear’ economy where products are made, used and then disposed of is challenged by the ‘circular’ economy, where re-use of a product

StreetLight Data has unveiled a tier of its InSight software which it says offers metrics to help transportation planners improve bike, scooter and pedestrian infrastructure.

Audi is working with Deutsche Telekom and the German city of Ingolstadt to use new 5G technology to improve urban mobility. The partners will seek to develop a digital transport infrastructure that will improve road safety and traffic flows and provide real-time digital services. Audi says 5G can be applied to connected traffic signals at road junctions that exchange anonymised movement data with cars and other road users via the network. This allows drivers to react more quickly to unforeseen movements,

Audi is working with Deutsche Telekom and the German city of Ingolstadt to use new 5G technology to improve urban mobility. The partners will seek to develop a digital transport infrastructure that will improve road safety and traffic flows and provide real-time digital services. Audi says 5G can be applied to connected traffic signals at road junctions that exchange anonymised movement data with cars and other road users via the network. This allows drivers to react more quickly to unforeseen movements,

ITS can bring great benefits – but the industry must be mindful of the potential downsides too. That was the candid message from Khaw Boon Wan, Singapore’s minister for transport, at the Opening Ceremony of ITS World Congress 2019. “The upsides of ITS are compelling,” he said. “But while technology can transform society, it can also be divisive.” For example, the growth of ride-hailing has brought advantages to many people, but has been disruptive for some; while new cybersecurity vulnerabilities can

Infrastructure software specialist Bentley Systems is continuing to expand its portfolio with its just-announced acquisition of Citilabs and Orbit Geospatial Technologies. Citilabs provides the global mobility solution CUBE and analytics package Streetlytics, while Orbit offers the Orbit GT software. Bentley CEO Greg Bentley did not reveal the size of the deal. The move will allow Streetlytics traffic data to become available through Bentley’s cloud services, to improve the quality of digital twin mod

The Nevada Highway Patrol (NHP) has used Waycare’s artificial intelligence-based platform to deploy five strategic traffic management sites (STMS) to help prevent speeding and crashes. NHP says the STMS locations provide the police with elevated platforms, which encourage drivers to slow down on the high-risk corridors of I-15 and US-95. NHP, in partnership with the Nevada Department of Transportation and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC), received a $200,000 federal grant f

MTA Bridges and Tunnels (TBTA) has asked TransCore to design and build toll system equipment for the Central Business District Tolling Program (CBDTP) in New York City.

New York’s authorities are to solicit proposals for re-signalling the city’s subways. The move comes hot on the heels of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s proposal to invest $51.5 billion in the city’s subways, buses and railroads over the next five years. Rachel Haot, executive director of the Transit Innovation Partnership, a public-private initiative between the MTA and the Partnership for New York City, says: “The MTA deserves credit for stabilising the system over the last year but tr

At the Institute of Transportation Engineers annual meeting, a clever student plan to reduce commute times in Detroit suggests the future of the ITS industry is in good hands, write Pete Spiller and Jarrod Cady A team of students from the University of Michigan won a national student Transportation Technology Tournament - sponsored by the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) and the US Department of Transportation - with a compelling presentation on reducing congestion. In an impressive d

In her address to this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting, congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, called for a ‘re-envisioning’ of transportation. Her speech is below – and ITS International asks a number of US experts what they would like to see ‘re-envisioned’…

I would like to welcome  ITS America to the nation’s capital.

The UK government has suggested that driverless cars could be on the roads by 2021. But designers and engineers are grappling with a number of difficult issues, muses Chris Hayhurst of MathWorks Earlier this year, the UK government made the bold statement that by 2021, driverless cars will be on the UK’s roads. But is this an achievable reality? Driverless technology already has its use cases on our roads, with levels of autonomy ranked on a scale. At one end of the spectrum, level 1 is defined by th

Tattile has launched an automatic system for determining the number of axles on a vehicle for tolling solutions. Axle Counter records the axles of any vehicle - driving at speeds up to 180km/h - in order to help toll operators allocate the correct charges.

Ertico – ITS Europe is calling for contributions to the ITS European Congress taking place in Lisbon next year. Authors of papers and organisers of proposed sessions will be asked during the online submission process to explain how their contribution aids sustainability and reflects the Congress’ overall theme of ITS: The Game Changer. The Portuguese capital has been chosen as European Green Capital for 2020. In a new development, the category Commercial Papers has been replaced by Business Presentations,

Ride-hailing company Waymo may be about to start operating fully-autonomous vehicles (AVs) to pick people up - without a safety driver. An email sent to users, which appeared on Reddit, said people in Phoenix, Arizona, who were matched with an AV will see a notification in the app that confirms the car will not have a trained driver. Users can tap a ‘What to Expect’ button within the app to learn more about the AVs. They can also communicate with a rider support agent at any part of the trip via the app o