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Wireless transmission of data and control information is making smarter traffic management easier and cheaper to install. It has long been known that connectivity is the key to improving traffic management and many cost-benefit studies prove that investment in new technology can be justified in terms of reduced congestion, shorter travel times, improved safety and air quality. However, many authorities’ cap-ex budgets only cover urgent matters, not improvements, making it difficult, if not impossible to

Shem Oirere looks at plans to tackle chronic congestion in the Kenyan capital. Traffic jams in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, are estimated to cost the country $360 million a year in terms of lost man-hours, fuel and pollution. According to Wilfred Oginga, an engineer with the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA), the congestion has been exacerbated by poor regulation and enforcement of traffic rules, absence of adequate traffic management systems and poor utilisation of existing road facilities.

Momentum shift in prospect as authorities accelerate plans to rethink transport provision. TS International’s second, two-day international MaaS Market conference takes place on 20 and 21 February 2018. The Mobility as a Service (MaaS) event is ideal for all organisations exploring new ways of getting people to their destination and new methods for them to pay for transport services.

Cubic Transportation Systems and Transport for New South Wales have expanded the Opal smart card ticketing system on Sydney's Manly Fast Ferry Service to enable passengers to pay for trips on their Opal card. The Manly Fast Ferry will now have a wider range of ticketing options available and allow card holders to tap onto the service using the existing smart card ticketing installed on the fleet. Cubic’s open APIs allow other companies using their own terminals and equipment to connect to the Opal payment

Parking.Brussels (P.B) has launched a new app to help guide motorists to car parks by integrating data into existing route planning applications such as Google Maps, Apple Maps and Waze. Users in the region can also utilise a custom parking option for requirements such as charging stations for electric vehicles, bicycle parking or proximity to public transport. The application contains over 24,000 parking spaces, spread over 58 parking and can indicate whether certain car parks are free or full. Users can

Eric Raamot has been appointed chief technology officer of Econolite, where he will report to its president and chief operating officer Abbas Mohaddes. He will assume his position on 1 January 2018, following senior vice president and chief technology officer Gary Duncan who will remain in an executive advisory role. Raamot was previously Econoite's vice president of engineering since 2004, where he managed hardware and software operations, as well as many embedded products. Before that, he helped

Mott MacDonald (MM) has designed a Highways England scheme to smooth traffic flows, reduce queues and to combat eastbound congestion on the M62's junction 10 and 11 as well as traffic joining the motorway from the M6 northbound and southbound link roads. The project will operate during 2018 and be monitored to evaluate the benefits. Called The Motorway to Motorway (M2M) metering pilot scheme, it combines variable mandatory speed limits on the M62 and metering using traffic signals between the M6 to M62

Network Rail has contracted Siemens Rail Automation to install European Train Control System (ETCS) in-cab signalling on 750 of the UK's heaviest locomotives to improve safety and provide better use of the network with plans to retrofit the entire fleet in 2022. This technology forms part of the country's Digital Railway programme, and the government has invested £450m ($602m) as part of its National Productivity Fund. For the first phase, Siemens will install its Trainguard 200 (T200) ETCS on-board

Quebec's minister of energy and natural resources, Pierre Moreau, unveiled a new public universal fast-charge superstation for electric vehicles (EVs) from group partners Electric Circuit and Groupe Crevier, in Beloeil. It will be used as a real living laboratory to test new charging technologies as well as additional services, such as dynamic pricing.

Bombardier has signed a contract with Porterbook and C2c to supply 60 of its Aventra vehicles to be used on the C2c rail franchise from September 2021 with the intention of increasing capacity and improving journeys for commuters into London. The overall value of the rolling stock and maintenance and support services contract is valued £105m ($139m) and will run until November 2029.

Denso and Toyota Tsusho (TT) have joined forces in Thailand to process vehicle location and travel data in real-time from around 130,000 commercial vehicles using D-Wave Systems' quantum computer to process data from a traffic IoT platform. The test aims to advance research and development on technology for connected vehicles and transportation systems.

Frost & Sullivan and Isbak have released a white paper examining how intelligent transportation systems (ITS) used in Singapore, London, New York and Istanbul are being used on existing roadways to reduce congestion and emissions efficiently. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of transportation policies, implementation methods, best practices and challenges for key cities and how commuters, city management councils and the environment could benefit from ITS implementation.

Highways England (HE) has awarded the second National Roads Telecommunications Service (NRTS) contract, valued £450m ($602m), to Telent Technology Services. The project aims to keep road users as safe and informed as possible on the UK's motorways and will run for seven years from March 2018. In addition, this technology will also continue to support the smart motorway and expressway programmes.

Refinements in the data available from the US Federal Highway Administration will improve road management across America. David Crawford reports. In August 2017, the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) issued the first results from an upgraded version of its National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS). Developed to identify the locations and times of high congestion affecting traffic flows along America’s 259,000km (161,000 mile) national highway system, this is a key resource for sta

Pete Goldin discovers the state of play with connected vehicles trials in the US and the impact of Hurricane Irma on Tampa’s pilot. The US Department of Transportation’s (USDoT’s) connected vehicle (CV) pilot sites have moved into phase 2 of the deployment programme– design, build, test and, maybe most importantly, collaborate.

Having been the first US state to introduce the gas tax a century ago, Oregon is now blazing the road user charging trail. Colin Sowman looks at progress to date. For more than a decade, authorities in Oregon have known of the impending decline in fuels tax income and while revenue increased by more than 5% in 2016, that growth will slow considerably this year and income is projected to start declining in 2020.

As delegates head for the 2017 ITS World Congress in Montreal, we talk to Copenhagen mayor Morten Kabell about why his city is the ideal location for next year’s event. It may have been a long time coming but the ITS World Congress will be in Copenhagen in 2018 and there can be few more fitting places to host the event. By any number of metrics - interconnected transport, cycle commuting, safer streets, reduced pollution, sustainable energy and quality of life - the Danish capital has implemented what m

For some time, it has been evident that the quickening pace of technological advancement has been outpacing the ability of legislators to introduce new laws and amend existing legislation. One example was, apparently, UK legislation specifying that vehicles are fitted with filament lights which was drafted to outlaw acetylene lamps but a century later delayed the introduction of LED technology on vehicles.

FEV North America has integrated Eclypses’ MicroToken Exchange (MTE) technology into its Cyber Security Gateway in a partnership that aims to lock out cyber threats to smart vehicles and help accelerate deployment. MTE replaces a command with a MicroToken just before transmission and is said to be compatible with any communication protocol. Once the transmission packet has reached the receiver, it is then translated back into the original command by referencing a paired library. The technology will also

MEPs have called for the full application of existing rules and for the Commission to introduce new measures to reduce transport emissions and meet the Paris Agreement commitments, in a new resolution. It has also requested for them to set new carbon dioxide (CO2) standards for car fleets from 2025 onward, with the intention of phasing out new models of these vehicles.