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A new solar-powered, wireless automated rotary drum sign system, manufactured by Skyline Products Traffic Division and currently being deployed in Texas, is being hailed as one of the greenest, least expensive, most flexible means of managing traffic flow.

Teri England, Diamond Consulting Services Ltd, describes the E-470's switchover to all-electronic toll collection. In June 2007, the E-470 Public Highway Authority made the business decision to transition to an All-Electronic Toll Collection (AETC) system - in other words, become a cashless road.

In this third installment in a series of articles exploring the impact of the US economic stimulus programme on the ITS industry, Pete Goldin reports on the ongoing debate in Congress about American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A debate continues to rage in the US Congress and in the media about the effectiveness of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), and especially the timeliness of the ARRA payments. Some of the arguments seem somewhat partisan in origin while others point out fla

David Crawford picks up a new direction trend in traffic monitoring The surprise winner in the Traffic Management Centre (TMC) category of the recently-announced 2011 OSMOSE (Open Source for MObile and SustainablE city) Awards for European innovations in urban transport, is the Danish city of Aalborg - which doesn't have a TMC. Alternatively, one might consider its 'virtual' TMC as a signpost for the future in medium-sized cities.

The UK Highways Agency has announced the award of a new seven-year, US$93 million, contract to provide the National Traffic Information Service, to Network Information Services (NIS), a joint venture between Mouchel and Thales UK.

Travel information services are undergoing a step change as rapid increase in sales of smartphones brings ITS technology to consumers' fingertips. A virtuous circle of expanding capability is under way in traffic and travel information services, promising much for drivers and reduction of road congestion. A recent rapid rise in sales of smartphones has boosted numbers of vehicles carrying GPS enabled devices and so brought expansion of traffic data available for analysis and dissemination. Greater numbers o

McCain has won the NEMA traffic controller cabinet project award for the Sahara Bus Rapid Transit Project, which details the addition of dedicated bus-only lanes.

The UK Government has been advised by an internal inquiry that it should investigate examples of best practice in travel information services. So where might it look? Jon Masters reports. Publication of a UK Government report on road congestion this year has highlighted a need to look beyond home borders when searching out answers to pressing problems. With regard to issues of travel information in particular, UK transport professionals would do well to look overseas for solutions they can emulate.

Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD) has selected I/Incident Analyst from Intergraph to improve the safety of its roadways. Of the 32 billion vehicle miles travelled in Arkansas last year, 78 per cent occurred within the state highway system managed by AHTD.

Shelley Row, Director of the ITS Joint Program Office, US Department of Transportation, details the new five-year ITS Strategic Research Plan. Imagine a world where vehicles of all types can talk to each other in order to reduce or eliminate crashes, where vehicles can talk to traffic signals to eliminate unnecessary stops, where travellers can get accurate travel time information about all modes and route options, and where transportation managers have data which allows them to accurately assess multimodal

Toll system suppliers are considering service structures and technologies needed to address issues of social exclusion in open road tolling. Jason Barnes asked Telvent's Pat McGowan to explain moves to address the needs of all toll customers

Alexander Gerschenkron, the famous economic historian, once posited a benefit for those countries which come late to economic development: that they could introduce the latest technology and thus jump over some of the standard development paths followed by their predecessors . It is entirely possible to make the same observation of late-comers to ITS: that they can gain from the pains of those who went before and more easily implement best practice in ITS. As a consequence, it is entirely likely the Abu Dha

ASK ticket technology, used during the Beijing Olympic games, is being used in China again at another major international cultural event - Xi'an International Horticultural Exposition 2011 - which started on 28 April and will close on 22 October, 2011 and is expected to attract more than 10 million visitors.

Communication Networks (ComNet) has been approved by Code Blue to supply fibre optic media converters and EoVDSL modems (Ethernet over Very High Digital Subscriber Link) for use with its line of IP-compatible phones and emergency call boxes.

ITS Japan's Chairman Hiroyuki Watanabe talks to ITS International about his country's progress with cooperative infrastructures and how the experience gained to date can benefit similar initiatives elsewhere. Japan gave the rest of the world a taste of the cooperative infrastructure future when, in 1996, it went live with the Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS). Designed to provide real-time traffic information and alerts to in-vehicle navigation systems with the dual aims of increasing safe

TRL Software and Savoy Computing Services have released the Arcady 7 and AutoTrack Junctions Link, an innovative solution that links two market-leading products. By dynamically linking and combining the two operations, the time taken to produce efficient and robust roundabout designs is significantly reduced. The link is initiated automatically and the two programmes communicate seamlessly with each other. Arcady 7 provides results such as RFC, level of service and values of queues and delays which are all

AutoVu Sharp VGA from Genetec, a new Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) camera with onboard processing, is a lowercost, alternative version of the Sharp XGA, designed for applications where vehicles are moving at moderate speeds and the area where the vehicle plate will be seen is well defined, such as at a toll gate entrance. When integrated with Genetec's security centre platform, the camera can be used for access control, to open a gate to a parking facility when pre-registered vehicles arrive. It can also

France-headquartered Egis Projects has announced the acquisition of Dutch-based company Transpass which provides services to European heavy goods vehicle (HGV) fleets in electronic toll collection services on behalf of almost all concessionaires and operators in Europe (TollCollect in Germany, Asfinag in Austria, Autostrade in Italy, TIS-PL in France, etc.).

U-blox, the Swiss positioning and wireless chip and module company, has announced the official AT&T approval of LISA, the world's smallest surface-mount 3G module for use on AT&T's mobile broadband network. The device is targeted for use in M2M, telematics and other mobile devices for a wide variety of applications such as fleet management, emergency call, Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), asset tracking, security systems and remote metering. The unit also includes U-blox's proprietary CellLocate technology

CitySync has launched the latest version of the JetMate fully portable handheld ANPR device which the company claims speeds up the process of collecting number plates in the field by up to 30 times. The latest JetMate incorporates a new JetStream module that links a number of terminals to a central server, and an enhancement to the Hotlist module has been included to improve overall functionality of the handheld mobile solution. CitySync's JetMate software is now available on the Motorola range of handheld