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New figures from the UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) have revealed that motorists with up to 42 penalty points on their licence are still driving on Britain’s roads. Drivers can be banned from the road if they accumulate 12 points on their licence over a three-year period, but there are 8,000 drivers still getting behind the wheel despite having reached or exceeded that number.

Transport Minister Norman Baker has launched the UK government’s strategy, Driving the future today - a strategy for ultra low emission vehicles in the UK, to drive forward the ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs) industry. The new strategy signals a major change in the way vehicles will be powered in the future and reaffirms the government’s commitment to provide new opportunities for the motor industry to help grow the UK economy.

After years of delays and cost overruns, the newly built US$6.4 billion eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened with few problems other than the traffic snarls that were common around the toll plaza of the old span. The single pylon suspension span replaces a structure that was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It is designed to withstand the strongest earthquake estimated by seismologists to occur at the site over a 1,500-year period.

Thales has been awarded a contract by Hong Kong’s metro operator, MTR Corporation, to provide signalling technology for Shatin to Central Link Phase 1 segment of the Hong Kong metro using a communications-based train control (CBTC) system. To provide fully automatic train operation the contract includes the modernisation of the Ma On Shan Line and West Rail Line lines, where Thales previously installed its CBTC solution in 2003/04.

The European Commission’s second annual award for outstanding sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMP) has been launched with the theme of the ‘integration of economic, social, and environmental policy criteria.’ The winning regional or local authority will gain Europe-wide coverage for their plan and a prize of US$13,000. A sustainable urban mobility plan helps cities and local authorities meet the transport needs of their citizens and businesses in an effective and sustainable way. The award recognises

According to the Wall Street Journal, Siemens is to exit its electric vehicle (EV) charging points business, as demand and market development turned out weaker than expected. Despite a government plan to see one million registered electric cars on German roads by 2020, consumers haven't been keen about such vehicles. Last year for instance, only 4,157 e-cars were newly registered in Germany, bringing the total to 7,112.

One of the ten key projects launched in 2006 by Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport aims to build the world’s most intelligent highways. In a world where eighty per cent of traffic accidents on expressways are attributed to driver negligence, Korea records the lowest level of traffic safety among OECD member countries. The smart highway project aims to reduce the accident rate and encourage people to use expressways more conveniently by integrating information, automobile and road mana

Nokia Corporation has signed an agreement to sell substantially all of its devices and services business and licence its patents to Microsoft for US$7.1 billion in cash, payable at closing. Following the transaction, Nokia plans to focus on its three established businesses: NSN network infrastructure and services; Here mapping and location services; and Advanced Technologies technology development and licensing.

Australian express road freight company, Toll Group, has unveiled what it says is the country’s first all-electric truck. Toll will use the 10-tonne Smith Electric vehicle during an initial three-month trial that will look at how the vehicle performs in Australian conditions, and its operational cost. Toll will use data from on-board diagnostics that can be viewed online to monitor the vehicle’s performance in real-time. The truck has a range of up to 200 kilometres and a top speed of 95km/h. It uses

According to Frost & Sullivan, the parking industry has transformed dynamics in its operation with a different genre of participants including automotive OEMs exploring numerous opportunities in parking and expected to witness a major growth phase in this decade. Bundled services with apps are helping parking operators to ease their operations, business and positioning. Early stage growth opportunities will attract more than twenty new start-ups in the parking industry providing real-time parking applicatio

As part of Columbia’s new Biotaxis project, forty-five all-electric BYD e6 taxies have been put into service in the country’s capital, Bogota. The BYD e6 is a five-passenger, long-range, pure electric utility vehicle powered by an iron-phosphate battery. It is a crossover between a sedan and an SUV with a large interior space and additional 450 litre cargo space. The nominal range of e6 from a single charge is 300 kilometres. Using BYD’s internally-developed bi-directional charging and discharging techno

UK civil traffic enforcement solutions supplier Videalert is to supply the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames with a new digital CCTV system for the enforcement of parking, bus lane and other moving traffic offences. The first phase of the project will see the deployment of an attended enforcement system to upgrade a legacy parking and bus lane system. The Videalert system will enable the council to introduce unattended camera enforcement later this year for all types of moving traffic offences such

Siemens and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) have signed a contract worth around US$405 million for the automation and centralisation of rail traffic control of the 3,000km, 760 stop Swiss rail network. During the partnership, which will run until 2015, Siemens will continue the development of the Iltis control and information system, which enables a largely automated operational handling of rail traffic. The computer-based system, specially developed by Siemens for SBB, controls and monitors all train oper

Four major bridges over the lower Mississippi are to get intelligent transportation systems (ITS) upgrades, thanks to a US$10 million grant from the US Department of Transportation TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) fund. The project will expand existing ITS systems in each of the three states to complement previous state and private investments.

UK ticketing technology company Parkeon has partnered with information specialist Cloud Amber to develop a new way of using the in-built GPS/GPRS functionality of an electronic ticket machine to improve the scope and accuracy of real time information systems while reducing system cost, complexity and maintenance requirements. Newport Transport is to take advantage of the alliance to become one of the first bus operators in the country to take direct control of its real time information systems, using the te

UK ticketing technology company Parkeon has partnered with information specialist Cloud Amber to develop a new way of using the in-built GPS/GPRS functionality of an electronic ticket machine to improve the scope and accuracy of real time information systems while reducing system cost, complexity and maintenance requirements. Newport Transport is to take advantage of the alliance to become one of the first bus operators in the country to take direct control of its real time information systems, using the t

Bill Shuster, US Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman will join Barry Schoch, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, as Carnegie Mellon University’s driverless 2011 Cadillac SRX transports them from suburban Cranberry to Pittsburgh International Airport.

Nokia’ Here in-car navigation business has launched a complete connected driving offer, which it says is the only end-to-end driving solution on the market today, to help car makers and in-vehicle technology suppliers connect the car and the driver to the cloud. The offering includes Here Auto embedded in-car navigation, Here Auto Cloud always-on access to dynamic services such as real-time traffic updates, and Here Auto Companion, a customisable mobile and web application.

The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) has teamed up with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) and Smith Electric Vehicles Corporation to reduce vehicle emissions from delivery trucks in the region. As part of a US Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored effort, local fleets will replace existing diesel delivery vehicles with thirty all-electric medium and heavy-duty Smith Newton trucks for daily operations in the Houston-Galveston area.

The UK government is investing US$4.4 million into a trial of paperless ticketing as it starts its multi-million pound push to deliver smart card technology to rail passengers across the south east, Transport Minister Norman Baker has announced. Train operator c2c, which operates between London and the Essex coast, will upgrade ticketing systems at all of its stations outside London, paving the way for passengers to start using smart cards in the region. This will be rolled out on services outside London fr