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Richard Turnock, chief technology officer of Kapsch TrafficCom North America explains what advantages its newly-opened TDM protocol can offer as a US-wide standard for tolling interoperability. The electronic tolling industry across the United States is evolving. Historically it was characterised by clusters of interoperability where a motorist may be able to use the same transponder across a large area, such as the 15-State E-ZPass system, or be confined to a single State system. Now, however, the industry

The government in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has awarded three engineering and construction packages for its six-line metro project. The contracts, worth around US$22 billion, have been awarded to a consortium of the US's Bechtel, Germany's Siemens, the regional Consolidated Contractors Company and Saudi Arabia's Almabani; a consortium led by Italy's Ansaldo STS; Spain's Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), France's Alstom and South Korea's Samsung C&T.

Based on its recent analysis of the advanced commercial vehicle safety systems market, Frost & Sullivan has presented DriveCam with the 2013 North America Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement Award. With its commitment to meet customer needs and enhance customer value, DriveCam provides an innovative, predictive, analytics-based driver safety solution that effectively addresses key challenges faced by transportation businesses in driver safety, regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, and fuel

In response to the announcement that average speed cameras are to be introduced on a stretch of the A9 in Scotland, the Freight Transport Association (FTA) has said that any speed limit must be properly enforced. The decision to install the new average speed camera system which will run from Dunblane to Inverness follows an on-going review of evidence as well as careful consideration of the views of the A9 Safety Group – to which FTA has contributed on behalf of its members over the last year.

Q-Free has confirmed that a loan agreement has been signed between Export Credit Norway and PT Rin Indonesia Jaya, a subsidiary of PT Inovisi Infracom Tbk, for part financing of the contract signed in 2011 for an electronic law enforcement (ELE) project. As part of the financing agreement, PT Inovisi Infracom Tbk has signed a parent company guarantee for the loan. The loan will be released upon initial payment of US$6 million to Q-Free, which will also mark the start-up of the project. The loan from Expor

TrafficLand video support and distribution services will expand availability to traffic video imagery for Texas commuters, media and public agencies. TrafficLand, US distributor of live traffic video, has reached an agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for access to video images from the state’s traffic camera network. The agreement gives TrafficLand access to video images from more than 1,600 TxDOT traffic cameras located across Texas. TrafficLand will access the video through TxD

Jon Masters looks at a smartphone app which could be the ‘disruptive technology’ that eases the way to interoperability in tolling systems. Consumer demand may soon drive the biggest step change yet in tolling. In the United States a new start-up company, Geotoll, has launched a smartphone app for electronic toll payment. It is not beyond possibility that rapid growth of the market for smartphones will continue – an estimated 50% of US citizens and 80% of Europeans now have one – and that the Geotoll brand

Toll operators and Progeny trade claim and counter claim about the potential ramifications of operating in the 902-928MHz spectrum, as Jon Masters finds out. Two months after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) determined that Progeny can start commercial operation of its NextNav location finding service, the dust has begun to settle. The tolling industry has had a chance to reflect on how this may impact its operations, in the knowledge that NextNav will share the 902-928MHz frequency band with RFI

UK snack manufacturer Tayto has partnered with TomTom, supported by official TomTom partner Fleet Simplicity, to deploy Link tracking units and ecoPlus fuel management and diagnostics devices across its 117-strong vehicle fleet. This combined tracking, performance monitoring and fuel management system provides improved visibility and insights into its mobile teams of sales, management and distribution professionals. The system enables information on how vehicles are being driven, from speeding and idling t

With more than 300 people losing their lives in road accidents every year, the Millennium City in Haryana, India, desperately needs to improve its road infrastructure. Although successive governments in Haryana have gifted the city numerous expressways, making the roads safe and traffic flow smooth has not figured prominently in the political schemes of development. Traffic in the city and on the expressways, most significantly the Gurgaon-Delhi Expressway, has been mired by a range of problems, from a sca

Officially launched in February 2013, tenders for the high-speed rail link project between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore will be received towards the end of 2014, Mohd Nur Kamal, the CEO of Malaysia's Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) has announced. Although the two governments continue to work on technical details and feasibility studies, various parties have already voiced an interest. The railway, which will connect the two countries at speeds exceeding 300 km/h, will reduce the journey time between t

International engineering firm Parsons Corp has unveiled its proposed US$3.5 billion project to ease traffic on Interstate 70 through the central mountains in Eagle County, Colorado. Parsons had submitted an unsolicited proposal to Colorado Department of Transportation in 2011. The three-phase project would include tolled express lanes and a bus rapid transit system and be completed as soon as 2021. The express lanes would be reversible to accommodate peak traffic flows to and from the mountains. The proje

New projections from US advocacy group the Electric Coalition indicate that the cost of owning an electric car is on its way to becoming competitive with petrol-powered cars. The coalition teamed with professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to calculate expected costs of several types of compact cars, pitting battery-electric against internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrids and hybrid vehicles. Including cost of purchase, fuel, maintenance, federal tax credits and residuals, the data sho

Weather-related problems can render cost-cutting counter productive, according to CommScope’s Philip Sorrells. When severe weather conditions make headlines every winter, motorists and travellers seem willing to accept the impact on the trains and roads and yet take for granted that the communications networks will continue uninterrupted. They often appear far more upset that the information system does not give them an update on road conditions, train services or bus arrival times than they are about the a

German motorists can look forward to receiving traffic information over a data channel with 400 times the capacity of traditional RDS-TMC services, thanks to a partnership between Mediamobile and TomTom on the first nationwide traffic service to be broadcast over Germany’s digital radio network, Mediamobile’s V-Traffic Premium DAB. TomTom will provide the traffic content for the V-Traffic service, which is regarded as important in establishing digital radio as a new traffic data delivery channel for the aut

The CNVETX1 video encoder/decoder from UK-based ComNet Europe is designed for those applications suffering or likely to experience extreme temperatures, vibration, shock or irregular voltage and where humidity with condensation are present, says the company. The all-new CNVETX1 is a single channel video encoder/decoder which has been ‘industrially hardened’ for use in the most extreme operating environments. It accepts an incoming baseband video signal with duplex audio and serial data for camera PTZ contro

The Axis Q1931-E thermal network camera is said to be a robust, affordable and solid bullet-style camera designed for outdoor surveillance in complete darkness and challenging conditions. It offers high contrast 384x288 resolution thermal images and is Axis’ first thermal camera offering its corridor format, which allows the camera to deliver a vertical field of view, perfect for situations such as the monitoring of long fences and other perimeters. With four lens alternatives, 384x288 resolution and advanc

The CNVETX1 video encoder/decoder from UK-based ComNet Europe is designed for those applications suffering or likely to experience extreme temperatures, vibration, shock or irregular voltage and where humidity with condensation are present, says the company. The all-new CNVETX1 is a single channel video encoder/decoder which has been ‘industrially hardened’ for use in the most extreme operating environments. It accepts an incoming baseband video signal with duplex audio and serial data for camera PTZ contro

A study of the impact of travel time information on driver behaviour has come to some interesting conclusions, as Dean Deeter of Athey Creek Consultants explains. For some time road operators have been using dynamic message signs (DMS) to keep drivers informed of current road conditions. While it is known that drivers welcome the additional information, little has been known about the effect this information has on driver behaviour - until now that is. A survey undertaken by ENTERPRISE (Evaluating New TEch

Eng. Zeina Nazer looks at what Qatar’s recently-announced investment in transport infrastructure will mean on the ground. Qatar is experiencing a rapid economic and industrial growth. This growth is characterised by a rapid population increase and by the urgent need towards the development of both infrastructure projects and major transport projects. In order to handle this rate of development within Qatar, Public Works Authority (Ashghal) is developing a fully-integrated multimodal transportation system in