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The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide a funding contribution of US$292 million towards the completion of the motorway link between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The project includes the completion of the M8 motorway between Scotland’s two largest cities and major improvements to the M73 and M74 to reduce congestion and safety and improve travel times on one of Scotland’s busiest road networks. “The European Investment Bank is committed to supporting crucial investment in essential infrast

Swarco has been awarded a contract for a major traffic management project with various locations throughout Hungary, including several urban areas, by the Hungarian Public Road Non-Profit. Swarco will develop a new fault indication system specifically tailored to Hungarian needs and also adapt its service software to suit local requirements. The final system will provide an advanced traffic control system that provides harmonised and adaptive traffic control with remote control to help improve traffic f

Q-Free has been awarded orders to the value of value of US$4 million for the extension of six out of eleven previous contracts for the service and maintenance of Norway’s AutoPass system. The new contracts will take effect in the first quarter of 2014 and the remaining contracts are to be negotiated in the near future. Administered by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, the AutoPass system enables automatic collection of roads tolls via a DSRC-based radio transponder on the vehicle’s windscreen

Spanish company Indra has successfully completed the implementation of the Chengdu and Xian air control centres in China; between them, the two centres manage air traffic in more than eight regions in the country for a total of 4.2 million square kilometres. Chengdu is one of Asia's largest air control centres, more than 400 air controllers who are responsible for an area of 2.3 million square kilometres. Indra technology is used to control the upper airspace of five regions in the territory and the co

A recent analysis from Frost & Sullivan estimates the number of vehicles in car sharing fleets to stand at around 2,000 in 2013 and forecasts that by 2020 there could be between 75,000 and 100,000 of such vehicles in operation, as providers such as OEMs, leasing arms, rental companies, car sharing organisations (CSOs) and technology providers continually enter the market and expand geographically with competing solutions. With more than half of European automobile sales now accounted for by fleet sales, set

Metrolink, southern California’s regional commuter rail service, has launched positive train control (PTC) in revenue service demonstration (RSD) in cooperation with Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF). PTC is one of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) top ten most wanted transportation safety improvements. It involves a GPS-based technology capable of preventing train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, unauthorised incursion into work zones and train movement through switches le

Brazil has invested US$18.3bn in federal highway projects during phase two of its growth acceleration plan, PAC, according to the federal government's ninth balance report on PAC 2 works. The report, reviewing phase two's first three years (2011-13) of the four-year program, affirmed that work was carried out on 3,080 kilometres of highway stretches and highlighted various projects which were completed last year. Among them was BR-376 near southern Paraná state's Maringá city, BR-448 known as Rodovia

Traffic Management Products (TMP) has announced the appointment of a new managing director. Daniel Robinson will take on the role on 14th April 2014. Dan joins the company from the London Borough of Southwark, where he was the senior lighting engineer and former chairman of the Young Lighting Professionals. Speaking of Dan’s appointment, TMP chairman Richard Dewhurst said “I am delighted that Dan has decided to join TMP. He has excellent industry knowledge, is highly thought of by his peers and we

FTA Ireland has said it would like to see the proposed new traffic laws matched with an increased resource for roadside enforcement by the Gardai. The response from FTAI followed the announcement of the Road Traffic No.2 Act 2013, introduced to improve safety levels on Irish roads, outlined by Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport Leo Varadkar earlier this week. The new traffic laws will include roadside impairment tests for drug driving; higher penalty points for speeding, mobile phone use and not we

Almost everyone who got behind the wheel of a heavy goods vehicle at the London Bike Show said that the experience caused them to rethink the way they cycle. More than 850 cyclists took part in Exchanging Places run by Crossrail and the Metropolitan Police Service, which allows them to see the road from a lorry driver’s point of view and get a better understanding of what drivers can and cannot see. Most were unaware of the size of blind spots from inside the driver’s cab. Chief Superintendent Sultan

Although San Diego County may see a downturn new freeway infrastructure projects during 2014, many projects, from rail to highways and cycle paths, are still in the pipeline for 2014, according to the region's transportation planning agencies. Laurie Berman, district director for the regional office of the California Department of Transportation, said last week that Caltrans' focus is transitioning from general purpose lane expansions to more traffic management. The new direction is meant to provide trav

In a pilot project, Deutsche Telekom is to integrate a number of parking spaces within a sensor-based parking management system in Piazza Carrara in the historic centre of Pisa, Italy, just a few hundred metres from the town's landmark, the Leaning Tower. Sensors in the parking area will provide information on available parking spaces and forward this to a mobile app on the driver’s smartphone. Drivers can also pay parking fees via their smartphone. The cooperation also includes a big data service, w

Drivers on the Delhi-Mumbai highway are to benefit from electronic toll collection (ETC) from August this year. According to the highways ministry, ETC using RFID tags will be implemented on toll plazas across the golden quadrilateral (GQ), a highway network connecting many of the major industrial, agricultural and cultural centres of India. There are about 80 toll plazas on the entire GQ. Toll plazas on east-west and north-south corridors would be brought under the scheme by October. To begin with,

As part of its active participation in an EU-US Harmonisation Task Group (HTG) on the international deployment of Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS), Transport Certification Australia (TCA) will host a meeting of the group working on behalf of the European Commission and United States Department of Transportation in Melbourne during March 2014. “TCA is delighted to be hosting our fellow HTG delegates, focusing on the objective of working with stakeholders across regions to develop can

Mowasalat, which provides ground transportation services in Qatar, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Turkish public transport solutions provider Kentkart, to develop intelligent transport systems (ITS) in the country. The joint venture company will be responsible for analysing, commissioning, implementing and operating ITS projects and providing technical support and maintenance for customers. Kentkart will implement, maintain and commission intelligent solution systems for public tr

The UK’s transport research Laboratory (TRL) provided a rapid response when asked for help as part of the investigation of the recent appearance of a hole in the central reservation of the M2 between junctions 5 near Sittingbourne and 6, near Faversham. The hole that appeared is believed to be a dene hole; an historic man made hole which may have been used to mine for chalk hundreds of years ago. The hole was filled in when the M2 was constructed, but recent wet weather contributed to the destabilisati

Image Sensing Systems’ (ISS) Autoscope RTMS G4 radars are in use in Sochi, Russia to support traffic management at the 2014 Winter Olympics. The radars were provided by ISS’ regional partner Allied Global to the Olympic Games Transport Directorate, which is responsible for the operation of the traffic management system. Autoscope RTMS G4 is being used to monitor traffic conditions, display speed-map representation of the highway and determine travel time for commuters. The traffic management system inc

The Aimsun Online real-time decision support system for traffic management will take centre stage at the TSS-Transport Simulation Systems stand. Its dynamic, high-speed simulation of large areas allows traffic operators to accurately forecast the future network flow patterns that will result from a particular traffic management or information provision strategy.

The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) is urging motorists to beware of the perils of driving on autopilot following research which shows that one in ten drivers are often unable to remember their entire car journey. The poll of almost 1,500 drivers, carried out by Vision Critical on behalf of the IAM, also revealed that 54 per cent of drivers admitted to missing a turning because they were distracted. A further 14 per cent of drivers are quite often unable to recall any part of their journey in the

According to a study carried out by Santiago’s metropolitan transport department DTP Transantiago, the mass transport system operating in the Chilean capital has increased the number of buses operating and has improved frequency indicators in the last year. All seven companies operating different corridors within Santiago put more buses on the streets and exceeded the 90 per cent ratio set as the minimum to comply with regulations in the last three months of 2013 compared to the same period of 2012. Metb