UTC

Hundreds of thousands of rail passengers will suffer hours of delays and cancellations this month as figures for oversized lorries hitting low bridges (bridge-strikes) peaked in October/ November to around ten reported incidents every day, according to a new campaign by Network Rail. In addition, there are 2,000 bridge strikes every year costing the taxpayer some £23 million ($30 million) in damages and delays.

Up to 12 million driving license holders receive a penalty notice each year – the equivalent of one every 2.5 seconds; meaning as many as a third (30%) of Britain's 40 million drivers now receive a penalty notice annually. The findings come from the Automated Road Traffic Enforcement: Regulation, Governance and Use - for the RAC Foundation by Dr Adam Snow, a lecturer in criminology at Liverpool Hope University. The penalty notices include the Fixed Penalty Notice (a criminal penalty issued

74% of firms doubt infrastructure will improve over this Parliament and 76% the public doubt any improvement will occur, according to the CBI/AECOM Infrastructure survey 2017. The findings show that both business and the public are concerned about the pace of delivery and a record number of firms are dissatisfied with the state of infrastructure in the region. The report showed that 96% of the 727 businesses surveyed see infrastructure as important to the government’s agenda and 55% view it as critical.

To combat thousands of premature deaths caused by air pollution in London, up to 34, 000 polluting vehicles travelling into Central London every month may have to pay the T-Charge £10.00 ($13.00) which will operate on top of the Congestion Charge £11.50 ($15.00). Launched by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, the T -Charge applies to drivers of pre-Euro 4 vehicles that do not meet the PM and NOx emissions and has come into effect from 7.00am on 23 October 2017.

A new multi-purpose centre has opened in Bristol to house the council’s Emergency Control Centre, Traffic Control Centre and Community Safety (CCTV) Control Rooms into a single facility for major emergencies. These teams provide public safety services that use 700 CCTV cameras around the city with a large part of the centre dedicated to managing the city’s traffic network and monitoring the flow of traffic around Bristol.

With the United Nations aiming to halve the 1.3 million yearly deaths around the world caused by road crashes, international road safety experts met at the IRTAD conference, Morocco, and have adopted Marrakech Declaration: better safety data for better outcomes. The experts from more than 40 countries concluded from the declaration that improving road safety data is essential to reducing road deaths and injuries.

To tackle fatalities caused by red-light running, the city of Greenville, North Carolina, has implemented a red-light safety camera program that will issue a $100 (£75) fine to offenders, which it hopes will reduce both violations and collisions. A-red light running violation occurs when a motorist enters an intersection after the traffic signal has turned red, but this does not include drivers already in the intersection when the signal changes to red (drivers waiting to turn).

Highways England has awarded a £115 million ($152 million) asset support contract extension of 17 months to Balfour Beatty and Mott MacDonald to continue its service delivery for Area 10; covering Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester. The contract will run from November 2017 to March 2019. The current asset support contract delivers a range of service delivery and maintenance activities such as 24/7 incident response, to ensuring the safe operation of the 570km of the road network.

Life-saving vehicle technology such as emergency braking should be made mandatory for new cars, according to an own-initiative report from the European Parliament's Transport Committee. With the report, MEPs have made a statement in support of road safety and FIA Region I (FRI) has welcomed the decision and has urged the European Commission to legislate the installation of the technology into cars.