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From the roadside James Foster compiles some eye-catching news, deployments and product picks from the work zone

Kapsch's Dietrich Leihs talks about the true fundamentals of urban pricing. In some Italian and German towns and cities, the solution to congestion is an outright ban on certain types of vehicles. As far as Dietrich Leihs is concerned, any attempt to sweeten the pill that is congestion charging is only ever going to be a partial success at best.

China has joined the only two countries in the world – Germany and Japan - to have developed maglev (magnetic levitation) high-speed rail technology.

Verband kommunaler Unternehmen (VKU), the association of municipal companies in Germany, has announced that from 2012 more than 33 municipalities will set up a dense network of charging stations for electric cars.

This Metric Aura pay and display parking machine, located in a Stratford-on-Avon car park in the UK, has resisted an oxyacetylene attack.

The CrossingGuard school bus stop arm violation enforcement system, the latest innovation from American Traffic Solutions (ATS), consists of high resolution cameras mounted to the front and rear driver's side of a school bus. When the stop arm is extended, the system automatically detects if a vehicle passes the stopped school bus within the enforced zone. To allow the bus driver to stay focused on the road and the children on the bus, the CrossingGuard system automatically activates. High quality violation

Georgia’s State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) has selected ETC Corporation (ETC) as the tolling systems integrator for the implementation and maintenance of High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes on selected portions of Interstate 85 in north metropolitan Atlanta.

Sensys Networks has introduced MicroRadar which the company claims is the first battery powered bicycle detector. Due for release in mid 2012, the device accurately detects bicycles and differentiates between bicycles and vehicles, enabling traffic managers to meet the demands of detecting cyclists while maintaining intersection efficiency.

Genetec has announced the availability of Omnicast, its IP video surveillance system, for onboard mass transit applications.

Aldis has launched two new generations of its GridSmart product that employ new threedimensional omni-directional tracking technology for vehicle detection on intersections. In addition to a new look and more intuitive navigation, GridSmart 3.0 features a client/server architecture, SCATS-compatible system configuration, visual indicators for vehicle presence and light state, a software based pan-tilt-zoom of the entire intersection, as well as a customisable four panel live viewing capability.

The logic supporting a cross-border enforcement Directive for the European Union (EU) is both detailed and compelling. The White Paper on European transport policy published in 2001 included the ambitious objective of reducing by 50 per cent by 2010 the number of people killed on the roads of the EU. But since 2005 the reduction in the number of road deaths has been slowing down: overall, the period from 2001 until 2009 saw the number of fatalities decrease by 36 per cent. According to Community indicators,

Market driven requirements are behind the launch of the Elite version of the Aura, part of Metric Group's range of pay and display parking and payment machines.

Mikoh Corporation has been awarded an exclusive five-year partnership contract, with a five-year option, to implement a national EVR (Electronic Vehicle Registration) system in Thailand, the second-largest ASEAN economy.

TransCore has launched ROVR (real-time onboard vehicle reporting), a compact GPS device with GSM communications that allows infrastructure-free tolling and includes an optional driver safety monitoring feature. The company says the system is ideal for HOT lanes or greenfield tolling environments, both domestically and internationally, and can also easily facilitate mileage based user fee data.

Romec, one of the UK's largest facilities management companies, has improved the safety of its mobile workers after equipping 1,000 service vehicles with Masternaut satellite tracking.

Letty Aarts, senior researcher, SWOV institute for road safety research, the Netherlands, discusses how road design can act as a primary aid to speed enforcement

Transport for Buckinghamshire (TfB), part of Buckinghamshire County Council in the UK, has awarded a contract to leading traffic signal supplier Peek to replace all of its traditional tungsten halogen traffic lights with low-energy LED alternatives.

International Road Dynamics (IRD) has been awarded a contract, valued at over US$1 million, for a high-speed Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) system by New Brunswick Department of Transportation in Canada.

From an enforcement perspective at least, Toyota's recent recalls over problems with accelerator pedal assemblies had a positive outcome in that for the first time a major motor manufacturer outside of the US acknowledged publicly what many have known or suspected for quite a while: that the capability exists within certain car companies to extract data from a vehicle onboard unit which can be used to help ascertain, if not prove outright, just what was happening in the vital seconds up to an accident or cr

Chris Gibbard and Paul Drummond of Transport Direct on developments in Great Britain in the electronic transfer of bus service data. Great Britain has a dynamic bus market which permits a bus operator to initiate or alter commercial routes by giving a minimum of eight weeks' notice to a registrar (the Traffic Commissioner). A Local Transport Authority (LTA) neither specifies nor determines such services. In addition to commercial bus routes, an LTA will tender and contract for the operation of those additio