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The future of the California high speed rail project hangs in the balance as a result of two rulings handed down by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny on 25 November. "The judge's ruling will prevent the [California High-Speed Rail] Authority from spending bond measure funds for construction until the funding plan is brought into compliance," said Michael Brady, co- lead attorney on the case, but because that would require finding at least US$25 billion in extra funds, Brady believes complianc

India’s Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) has developed its Comprehensive Transportation Plan-2014 for Hyderabad Metropolitan Area and a draft Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Master Plan and is seeking public comments and suggestions. The Comprehensive Transportation Plan, prepared by consultants LEA Associates, envisages a total investment of US$35 billion over the next thirty years. It includes travel demand forecasts up to the year 2041 and proposes the expansion of Metro Rai

Taiwan’s 900 kilometres of toll roads will transition to all-electronic free flow operations early next year. The roads, which include three north-south routes with 22 toll points, carry out around 1.7 million transactions a day, generating some US$700 million of annual toll revenue. Private contractor Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Company (FETC), under contract to the National Freeway Bureau to collect the tolls, says that the IR-based toll system worked well and some 43 per cent of transactio

A consortium including Graham, Stantec, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Balfour Beatty and Hamon Constructors (GBBH) has been awarded a US$343 million contract by Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) to design and build the north metro rail line. The North Metro project, part of RTD’s sprawling FasTracks transit network, is a proposed 18.4 mile electrified commuter rail line that will connect Denver and Adams County by serving Commerce City, Northglenn and Thornton. Construction begins in 2014 and t

ITS and ticketing provider INIT is to equip French public transport company Transport en Commun de la Région d´Avignon (TCRA) in Greater Avignon with a new intermodal transport control system (ITCS) and TETRA digital radio system. The solution will replace the existing fleet management system and be operational by the end of 2014. In the first phase, around 138 public buses are to be integrated into the ITCS. Additionally, 24 trams running on the newly constructed tram lines are to be linked up to the s

The implementation of in-vehicle systems will require multilateral cooperation, as Honda’s Sue Bai explains to Colin Sowman. Vehicle manufacturers will shape the future direction of in-vehicle ITS systems, but they can’t do it on their own. So to find out what they see on the horizon, and the obstacles they face, ITS International spoke to Sue Bai, principal engineer in the Automobile Technology Research Department with Honda R&D Americas. Not only does she play an important role in Honda’s US-based ITS

Thomas Hallauer gives an overview of Usage Based Insurance (UBI), an industry that is putting telematic devices into more vehicles than fleet management ever did. The insurance market is going through a transformation phase never seen before. Insurers have not only started to track individual cars for Usage Based Insurance (UBI), they are also using the technology to enhance consumer services as more drivers join up to these schemes. Progressive Insurance in the US has 1.4 million customers signed up to

Toll consultant HNTB Corporation has expanded its national toll leadership team by naming a new vice chair of its toll practice and a new director of toll technology consulting and hiring a toll market practice leader, all to advance its clients’ programs as the importance of tolling in the United States grows as a proven funding option for infrastructure. Kevin Hoeflich, with more than 27 years’ industry experience, has joined HNTB as toll market practice leader, with primary focus on the east coast, fo

Romania will receive EU financing worth US$4.06bn for road infrastructure projects between 2014 and 2020, according to the Minister for Infrastructure Projects, Dan Sova., Several road projects are currently being developed including the Sibiu-Brasov, Brasov-Bacau and Sibiu-Pitesti motorways, a segment of the Bucharest ring road and the Craiova-Calafat national road. Romania's national road rehabilitation projects total 4,300 kilometres, 1,532 kilometres of which are being upgraded with financing fr

Serco’s transport solutions business will become a part of Cubic Transportation Systems following Cubic Corporation’s acquisition of the business for an enterprise value of US$70 million. Serco’s primarily a UK-based transport technology and services business and had revenues in the last calendar year of approximately $67 million.

The West Virginia Division of Highways (WVDOH) is to add truck parking guidance to its Open Roads advanced traffic management system (ATMS). Open Roads, as a sub consultant to ALL Construction and Davis H Elliot Company will be deploying the OpenTMS Parking Guidance module in partnership with TCS International, a Q-Free company. The parking guidance system will utilise wireless sensors to monitor parking space availability in rest areas and provide space availability information in real time to the WVDO

Congestion on some of Liverpool’s busiest roads is set to be eased, thanks to US$29 million improvement works. Transport Minister Baroness Kramer has given approval for work on the A5758 Broom’s Cross road scheme to start. The Department of Transport will provide a maximum of US$23 million towards the full scheme cost of US$29 million. Baroness Kramer said: “This scheme will ease congestion and cut pollution on some of Sefton’s busiest roads. The US$23 million we are putting into this project shows t

While The Netherlands already has some of the safest roads in the world it has ambitious plans to make them safer still, as Jon Masters discovers. In virtually all periodical studies and comparisons of countries’ road safety performance, the Netherlands is consistently in the top three and often leads the world, depending on how casualty figures are compared. According to the International Traffic Safety Data & Analysis Group (IRTAD) of the International Transport Forum, road deaths per capita have falle

New EU legislation allows authorities to collect fines from errant foreign motorists even after they have returned to their own country. New European Union legislation means drivers in many Member States can be prosecuted for breaking traffic laws when driving outside their home country. While not all the Member States will not be signing up to Directive 2011/82/EU facilitating the cross-border exchange of information on road safety related traffic offences, for those that do the deadline date to impleme

Do Advanced Driver Assistance Systems represent a positive step forward for safety, or something of a safety risk? Jason Barnes discusses the issue with leading industry figures. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are already common. Anti-lock brakes or electronic stability control are well understood and are either fitted as standard or frequently requested by new vehicle buyers. More advanced ADAS features are appearing on many top-end vehicles and the trickle-down has already started. Adaptive

Brazil's federal government will provide US$913 million for eight public transport projects in the cities of Fortaleza and Caucaia in Ceará state. The projects include the construction of Fortaleza metro's 18.2 kilometre western line, and improvement works on the southern line, as well as the construction of a 23.2 kilometre bus corridor in Fortaleza, the conclusion of a 6.5 kilometre bus rapid transport (BRT) lane and an additional 37.2 kilometres of bus lane throughout the city. Meanwhile, Caucaia will

China’s fifth annual Future Challenge earlier this month pitted eleven unmanned intelligent vehicles against each other on a course designed to test their capabilities in suburban and urban road tests, over a 23-kilometre course. All of the first eight cars to finish were equipped with Velodyne’s 3D Lidar vision technology which provides active sensing for crash avoidance, driving automation and mobile road survey and mapping. Velodyne HDL-64E and HDL-32E sensors deliver 360-degree views of the car’s env

US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx has announced a Transportation Infrastructure Finance Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan for US$275 million to build new reversible lanes along I-75 and I-575. The 29.7-mile-long project will relieve congestion along the heavily trafficked corridor during morning and evening peak periods. The loan will go toward the US$833.7 million total cost of the project. The corridor has long been recognised as one of the Atlanta region’s most congested travel corridors with over 4

Last month’s Economic Development Vitality Initiative forum, co-sponsored by IBM, identified strong infrastructure, including intelligent transportation systems (ITS) as highlighted by panellist Scott Belcher, CEO of ITS America, as essential. The key to ensuring the sustainability and resilience of our critical transportation infrastructure, in the end, comes down to encouraging the right choices. Data collected by industry, government and academia over the past several decades shows a clear correlation

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) solutions provider Open Roads Consulting is to deploy its automotive incident response module for West Virginia Division of Highways’ (WVDOH) advanced transportation management system (ATMS). Open Roads’ OpenTMS has been the backbone of the WVDOH state-wide ITS program since 2008. The modular and extensible architecture of the OpenTMS platform will seamlessly incorporate the automated incident response module into the core system. The automated incident managem