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  • January 27, 2012 - Hands-free tech reduces driver distraction, study says -

    The VTTI study supports interactive voice applications using natural speech language for in-vehicle tasks rather than manual interaction and visual focus on the part of the driver, with the voice applications reducing those periods when hands are off the steering wheel and eyes are off the road,” Schalk said.
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  • January 27, 2012 - Why Big Data Won’t Make You Smart, Rich, Or Pretty -

    This year will be the year of Big Data. The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) reported that 90 percent of the IT professionals it surveyed said they were familiar with big data analytics. And 34 percent said they already applied analytics to Big Data. The vast hordes of data collection during e-commerce transactions, from loyalty programs, employment records, supply chain and ERP systems are, or are about to get, cozy. Uncomfortably cozy.

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  • January 27, 2012 - MOVEPGH Public Kick-Off Meeting -

    The City of Pittsburgh is launching the Transportation Component of PLANPGH–join us! We are pleased to inform you that the Public Kick-Off for MOVEPGH (the Multimodal Transportation Component of PLANPGH) will be held February 2, 2012 on the Carnegie Mellon campus from 6-8 PM in Porter Hall.
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  • January 27, 2012 - New Bus Time app makes traveling in NYC easier -

    Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority installed Bus Time tracking system for all Staten Island bus lines, allowing travelers to look up the location of their buses on computers and phones.
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  • January 27, 2012 - City eyes high-tech parking -

    Vancouver is carefully watching two ambitious high-tech pilot projects in San Francisco and Los Angeles where on-street parking rates are varied monthly depending upon demand.Those programs, which result in vast swings in metered parking rates by so much as a single block, are the newest efforts by transportation engineers to more accurately price on-street parking to account for congestion. In some cases two adjacent blocks can vary by as much as $3 to $4 per hour. The changes are also designed to encourage alter-native forms of transportation such as mass transit, bicycling and walking.
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  • January 27, 2012 - Technology Transportation Trends -

    This is all according to the AASHTO (American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials), www.transportation.org, Washington, D.C. The association also suggests new technologies and smarter management practices will play a role in helping states address the challenge of aging infrastructure without increasing funding. AASHTO says to specifically watch out for more vehicle-to-vehicle communications, greater use of intelligent transportation systems, accelerated bridge construction, new paving techniques, and practical design strategies.
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  • January 27, 2012 - Transit apps empower riders with information -

    If you’re in Iowa City and waiting for a bus, Iowa City Transit’s Bus on the Go app makes it easy to use your smartphone to find out when your bus will arrive. And if you’re waiting for one of Washington, DC’s terrific Circulator buses or Metro trains, you can use the “Where’s My Bus?” or “Next Train Arrival” app…

    But not all transit riders are so fortunate. In fact, a review of 276 transit agency systems revealed that only 45 of them provide some information on mobile devices. And of those 45 agencies, only 15 offered their riders the real-time information precise planning requires.

    We think we can do better for our nation’s transit riders. So last week, Deputy Secretary John Porcari and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra gathered a variety of stakeholders to see what we can do to help millions more transit riders get better access to information.

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  • January 27, 2012 - Copenhagen’s Green Sheen: It’s Not Just About The Bikes -

    Forbes
    For those who can’t bike to work (or who might want to avoid peddling through the worst of the winter slush and chill), Copenhagen is served by an integrated transportation network: a driverless, punctual Metro (with one of the best airport connections in the world), regional trains, and buses.
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  • January 27, 2012 - Open contactless payment system to be launched in New York 23 Jan 2012 -

    New York residents will be able to pay for trips on the city’s buses and subways with contactless-enabled bank cards, it has been revealed.
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  • January 24, 2012 - Collision in the Making Between Self-Driving Cars and How the World Works -

    New York Times
    Even as Google tests its small fleet of self-driving vehicles on California highways, legal scholars and government officials are warning that society has only begun wrestling with the changes that would be required in a system created a century ago to meet the challenge of horseless carriages.
    What happens if a police officer wants to pull one of these vehicles over? When it stops at a four-way intersection, would it be too polite to take its turn ahead of aggressive human drivers (or equally polite robots)? What sort of insurance would it need? These and other implications of what Google calls autonomous vehicles were debated by Silicon Valley technologists, legal scholars and government regulators last week at a daylong symposium sponsored by the Law Review and High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University.
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  • January 24, 2012 - Carnegie Mellon students wired to build on imaginations -

    Similar technology powers Mindnet, a thought-controlled car made with a Star Wars Force Trainer car that sells for about $30. The car is covered with an elaborate circuit board that takes data from an electroencephalography (EEG) headset, worn by Neil Abcouwer, 21, an electrical and computer engineering student. His thoughts controlled the car’s motion.

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  • January 24, 2012 - 7 Cities Vying for Intelligent Community of the Year -

    Can an American city break through in 2012 and win acclaim as the world’s Intelligent Community of the Year? Austin, Texas, and Riverside, Calif., will represent the nation’s prospects against an international field in pursuit of the Intelligent Community Forum’s annual prize, to be awarded at the think tank’s annual conference on June 8 in New York City. The other finalists, announced this week, are Oulu, Finland; Quebec City, Quebec; Saint John, New Brunswick; Stratford, Ontario; and Taichung City, Taiwan.Can an American city break through in 2012 and win acclaim as the world’s Intelligent Community of the Year?
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  • January 24, 2012 - Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here -

    Wired – The object, vaguely pink, sits on the shoulder of the freeway, slowly shimmering into view. Is it roadkill? A weird kind of sagebrush? No, wait, it’s … a puffy chunk of foam insulation! “The laser almost certainly got returns off of it,” says Chris Urmson, sitting behind the wheel of the Prius he is not driving. A note is made (FOD: foreign object or debris, lane 1) as we drive past, to help our computerized car understand the curious flotsam it has just seen.
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  • January 23, 2012 - Edmond gets $1.7 million for traffic system -

    Edmond has been approved for $1.7 million from the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments to install a citywide traffic and communication system. The project could cost between $8 million and $10 million.
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  • January 19, 2012 - Federal Money for Transpo Robot -

    Externally, the robot is pretty mundane. “It looks like a metal box, about the size of a large picnic cooler,” explained Thomas. The robot uses a number of techniques to test a bridge’s steel lattice core. One deploys sound waves to ferret out micro cracks, air pockets and splits. The grant will also help fund a smart phone app that excavators can use to create an underground map of wires, on the spot, before they dig.
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  • January 19, 2012 - GM explores interactive backseat windows -

    No, we’re not in a scene from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. This is simply the latest bit of R&D from General Motors. The automaker challenged researchers and students from the FUTURE LAB at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel to conceptualize new ways to enhance the experience of backseat passengers, children in particular.
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  • January 18, 2012 - Video: Ford’s Car Of The Future -

    This eight-minute video produced by Ford shows the Evos, their vision of the car of the future, which is connected to the internet and capable of adapting to your daily routine.
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  • January 18, 2012 - FY 2013 TCRP Research Problem Statements Sought -

    TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program has issued a request for problem statements identifying research needed for TCRP’s FY 2013 program. Research problem statements for the TCRP FY 2013 program are due June 15, 2012. These submittals form the basis for selection of the annual TCRP research program. The TCRP undertakes applied research and technical activities focusing on the needs of transit operating agencies. Research is conducted in all areas of public transportation, including operations, policy, planning, service configuration, engineering of vehicles and facilities, maintenance, human resources, and administration.
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  • January 18, 2012 - 2012 UTC Spotlight Conference on Sustainable Energy and Transportation: Strategies, Research, Data -

    TRB is sponsoring the 2012 UTC Spotlight Conference on Sustainable Energy and Transportation: Strategies, Research, Data on November 8-9, 2012, in Washington, D.C. The conference is designed to promote dialogue and coordination among University Transportation Centers (UTCs), federal agencies, industry, and state and local agencies on research to address the complex and challenging issues concerning sustainable energy and transportation.
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  • January 18, 2012 - An R&D Lab for Transit Tech Tools -

    Arlington County Commuter Services office… Since 2010, the office has built up a kind of R&D lab, which Fairchild directs, where a small group of programmers has been trying to figure out how to use technology to close that convenience gap between driving your car and using absolutely any other alternative. Mobility Lab, and its Transit Tech initiative, has a lean start-up philosophy that’s almost unrecognizable in a government bureaucracy.
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  • January 18, 2012 - The Top 10 Smart Cities On The Planet -

    Crunching a list of variables about innovation and sustainability, we rank the world’s smartest cities, from New York to Hong Kong (and with an unexpected winner).
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  • January 17, 2012 - CMU and Penn land $3.5M federal grant for transportation research center -

    With a $3.5 million grant from the Department of Transportation, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pennsylvania are establishing a transportation research center that will look at the future of how we get around. Though CMU does a lot of transportation-related research this is a new center, called Technologies for Safe and Efficient Transportation (T-SET) and it will mainly be housed on CMU’s campus.
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  • January 17, 2012 - Student entrepreneur Micah Toll pedaling in the right direction -

    Micah Toll is no stranger to entrepreneurship. With only five months left until graduation in April, Toll, 22, has spent his days at the University of Pittsburgh like every other student: Going to classes, becoming involved in clubs, hanging out with friends and, oh yeah, starting his own electric bike company called Pulse Motors. Pulse Motors is a Pittsburgh start up business designed to provide two-wheeled electric vehicles to the students and the public.
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  • January 17, 2012 - Climate Leadership Academy: Accelerating Bus Rapid Transit -

    March 26-28, 2012 Cleveland, OH
    The Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) invites teams of five senior officials and key stakeholders from up to 10 U.S. cities and metropolitan regions to participate in this free CLA workshop. The CLA is a peer-learning and training program to build the capacity of practitioners in U.S. cities and metropolitan regions to improve, scale-up, and accelerate their efforts to reduce climate pollution and strengthen resilience to the local impacts of global climate disruption. The deadline for applications to this workshop is January 31st, 2012.
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  • January 17, 2012 - Minnesota Traffic Observatory makes transportation smarter -

    To improve your daily commute, the Minnesota Traffic Observatory (MTO) plays a major role behind the scenes, studying everything from busy intersections to electronic toll lanes. Safety is the lab’s top priority. The observatory, which falls under the umbrella of the University of Minnesota’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Institute, is a high-tech transportation lab that develops tools for surveying, monitoring and managing traffic systems.
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  • January 17, 2012 - Irancell demonstrates NFC payments and ticketing -

    Irancell, Iran’s second largest mobile network operator, and technology provider Etick Pars Intelligent Technologies Development have teamed up with Bank Pasargad to demonstrate a suite of NFC services tailored to the Iranian market.
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  • January 17, 2012 - Dislike? Mercedes-Benz Wants to Put Facebook in Your Dashboard -

    Earlier this week, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mercedes-Benz USA unveiled “mbrace2,” an in-dashboard service that enables the use of Facebook, Yelp, and Google behind the wheel. The service will likely be available in all 2013 models.
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  • January 17, 2012 - Boston Launches App Challenge to Link Transit and Bike Share -

    When New York wanted to spur developers to create transit apps, it offered up $15,000 in prizes. Boston is dangling free lunch … and a lot of data. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and MassDOT launched a contest today looking for software applications and data visualizations that “show the power of Boston’s transportation options.” What that means is: apps that help riders merge their non-car transport, specifically connecting Boston’s New Balance Hubway Bike Sharing program with MBTA’s existing buses and trains.
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  • January 17, 2012 - New York plans to replace the MetroCard, pilots smart cards -

    A pilot program is in the works to replace the New York City MetroCard with a chip-enabled smart card, according to the New York Times. Unlike the current MetroCard, which use magnetic-stripe technology, smart cards are waved in front of a sensor, rather than swiped. This aims to eliminate any delays at the turnstiles, where riders are often held up by malfunctioning MetroCards.
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  • January 17, 2012 - Local gadgets at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show -

    Innovations born in the Steel City are making their global debut this week during the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Modular Robotics, a Boulder, Colo.-based Carnegie Mellon University startup, will demonstrate its robot construction kits for children during the show. The university’s Quality of Life Technology Foundry is exhibiting five new products developed by its startup companies that range from gaming products to a bus-tracking mobile phone app.
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  • January 12, 2012 - Smart Phone App Warns of Driving Danger -

    The iOnRoad app, made by the Israeli computer vision company Picitup, is intended to transform smart phones from a distraction into a lifesaving tool. The application uses a device’s built-in sensors and camera, which work when the smartphone is mounted above the dashboard. The free Android app maps objects ahead of the vehicle and calculates speeds in real time. When a collision seems likely, it warns the driver with visual and audio alerts.
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  • January 12, 2012 - Robot cars: fond memories from CES ’08 -

    Today, I thought I’d start with my most memorable CES experience, which was riding in a robot car at the 2008 show. The car, a GM SUV designed by Carnegie Mellon engineers, was tricked out with GPS, ladar (also known as laser radar and LIDAR) and a host of other sensors, all of which allowed it to drive itself. The Boss, as the vehicle was known, won the 2007 DARPA urban challenge, an open race held by the Pentagon’s mad science division in an effort to spur development of robotic vehicles.
    –Great Video—
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  • January 12, 2012 - IBM Grabs Top Patent Crown Again -

    The more than 6,000 patents IBMers received in 2011 represent a range of inventions that enable new innovations and add value to the company’s products, services, including smarter solutions for retail, banking, health care, transportation and other industries. The patented inventions also span a wide range of computing technologies to support a new generation of more cognitive, intelligent and insight-driven systems, processes and infrastructures for smarter commerce, shopping, medicine, transportation and more, IBM said.
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  • January 12, 2012 - DOT to explore mobile apps for public transit -

    Imagine an integrated public transit system that uses satellites to identify your location and spit out the fastest and most convenient route to your desired destination. It’s apparently among the goals of research from the Department of Transportation, which will hold a public meeting later this month to discuss the concept.
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  • January 12, 2012 - Daimler’s Dr. Zetsche talks about internet-connected electric cars at CES -

    This week the big deal in the automotive industry is not only the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, but the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Automobiles are increasingly a platform for infotainment systems putting the auto and electronics industries on a converging course.
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  • January 11, 2012 - Cities Extract Energy from Everyday Activities -

    That’s the idea in Roanoke, Va., where the city recently tested a roadway “rumble strip” that generates electricity when vehicles drive over it. The device — a portable speed bump that’s laid on the roadway surface — was placed at the Roanoke Civic Center on a busy Saturday in October. About 600 vehicles traveled over the strip, actuating a series of small hinged plates that produce power through a technique similar to regenerative braking used by electric and hybrid vehicles. Over the six-hour test, the strip produced enough electricity to power an average home for a day, according to its manufacturer, Maryland-based New Energy Technologies.
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  • January 11, 2012 - ITS Vienna 2012 Final Call for Papers -

    The Call for Papers for the 19th World Congress for Intelligent Transport Systems opened on 17 October 2011. We invite ITS experts to submit a technical/scientific paper or Special Interest Session for presentation at ITS Vienna 2012. We also strongly encourage women in ITS to hand in their contributions. The proposals must be received by Friday 13 January 2012.
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  • January 11, 2012 - Carnegie Mellon University’s Chris Hendrickson Appointed To Serve On Prestigious National Transportation Research Board Executive Committee -

    Carnegie Mellon University’s Chris T. Hendrickson has been appointed to the executive committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), which provides expert advice on national transportation policy and leadership in transportation innovation. “This is an opportunity for me to serve as the nation continues to face serious challenges to its aging infrastructure,” said Hendrickson the Duquesne Light Company Professor of Engineering and co-director of the Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon.
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  • January 10, 2012 - Cars’ Internet connections may change driving life -

    Coming soon to a garage near you is a car that will download your work schedule and trigger your alarm clock. By the time you get behind the wheel, the car will have analyzed the morning’s traffic and weather and calculated the best route to get you to the office on time. You won’t even have to touch the radio – it’s already playing the same station you were listening to in the house. And as you pull away, it will shut the garage door and turn off the lights.

    Those capabilities are built into Ford Motor Co.’s Internet-connected Evos, a so-called concept car making its North American debut at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show, the giant annual trade event that opens today in Las Vegas.

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  • January 10, 2012 - RITA – Research Program and Project Management Website -

    The U.S. Research and Innovative Technology Administration has launched a new website designed to allow the transportation research community to share and collaborate. The site is expected to become a repository of documents and work products that address the planning, funding, conducting, managing, and implementing of transportation research projects.
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  • January 10, 2012 - TR News November-December 2011: Charting Pathways into Nanotechnology -

    The November-December 2011 TR News assembles feature articles that explore the applications of nanotechnology in transportation, examine asset management for low-volume road systems, review the metamorphosis of traffic data from the Long-Term Pavement Performance studies, and more.
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  • January 10, 2012 - Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Now Accepting Funding Proposals -

    TRB’s Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) has released its annual program announcement that solicits funding proposals for the upcoming review cycles. The announcement explains the IDEA programs, describes the types of eligible projects and their funding structures, suggests general areas for which IDEA proposals can be submitted, and provides guidelines and forms for submitting proposals.
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  • January 9, 2012 - Mobile startup Drive Power creates digital driving coach using U of M IP -

    DriveScribe is the go to market product, which is anticipated to publicly launch in April. Using a smartphone accelerometer, GPS and gyroscope combined with GIS map data and SaaS dashboard, DriveScribe aims to be a digital driving coach.
    From a safety point of view, the app pauses incoming messages, communicates changes in speed limits, driving conditions, and tracks other nuances like location and sudden movements. It collects, compiles and synthesizes multiple data points into a real time web-based analytics dashboard for parental observation. The interesting twist of Drive Power is found in the way by which this individual behavior can be interpreted and leveraged.
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  • January 9, 2012 - Peirce: A high-tech revolution for world cities -

    What can high technology do to help cities confront their thorniest problems — from police strategies to water systems, traffic control to waste disposal? A group of high technology firms, led by IBM and Cisco, are plunging into the city management business. In varied forms, they offer super-efficient new-generation computerized information and control systems.
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  • January 9, 2012 - Ford cozies up to Silicon Valley with its first West coast research lab -

    Ford is moving its new Research Lab to Silicon Valley to work closer with technology companies as it aims to further develop with its Drive Innovation in Personal Mobility. Why is this important? This will be the company’s first-ever dedicated R&D office on the west coast that will open early this year in order to continue the development of its automotive technology and creating in-car personal mobility experiences for consumers. This is also a clear sign that car maker is serious about the inevitable future of its automobile with modern technology.

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  • January 9, 2012 - IBM and University of Guadalajara create Smarter Cities Exploration Center; transportation pilot seeks to reduce commuting time in city by 15% -

    Joint work between IBM and the University of Guadalajara will focus on research aimed at identifying ways to apply advances in technology to the high degrees of instrumentation and massive data volumes that comprise the core systems of a city such as transportation, healthcare, education, public safety, energy and water.
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  • January 9, 2012 - Carlsbad traffic signals to become state-of-the-art -

    The intelligent transportation system, and its central computer and communications system, Traffic Management Center, are the nuts and bolts behind the technology. Bilse said the wireless connections between the controller at the traffic signal and its Traffic Management Center feed real time information to staff managing the signals. “The new software will send out an automated alarm when the controller senses a problem with the signal operations,” he said. “By performing this work in the Traffic Management Center, not only are travel times reduced but maintenance costs go down as well.”
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  • January 9, 2012 - Flashing lights designed to prevent crashes -

    Minnesota – Beginning Dec. 28, yellow warning signs fitted with solar-powered flashing LED lights alerted motorists eastbound and westbound on Airport Road when vehicles approached north- or southbound on County Road 7. Traffic sensors on County Road 7 trigger the flashing lights. Similar “intelligent transportation systems” were installed at the intersections of county roads 2 and 3, and 3 and 15, north of Glencoe.
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  • January 9, 2012 - Experimental real-time transit screens come to Arlington, DC -

    If you go into the Java Shack coffee shop near Court House in Arlington, or walk past the Red Palace bar on H Street in DC, you will see a new experimental project from the Mobility Lab: Digital screens showing real-time transit arrivals and Capital Bikeshare availability…
    Outdoor screens, however, are expensive to install, which is why we created this indoor alternative at a fraction of the cost. For the past few months I have been working with Andy Chosak and David Alpert at the Mobility Lab in Arlington to bring this low-cost alternative to fruition.
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  • January 6, 2012 - ‘Green routing’ can cut car emissions without significantly slowing travel time -

    The path of least emissions may not always be the fastest way to drive somewhere. But according to new research from the University at Buffalo, it’s possible for drivers to cut their tailpipe emissions without significantly slowing travel time.
    In detailed, computer simulations of traffic in Upstate New York’s Buffalo Niagara region, UB researchers Adel Sadek and Liya Guo found that green routing could reduce overall emissions of carbon monoxide by 27 percent for area drivers, while increasing the length of trips by an average of just 11 percent.
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  • January 5, 2012 - Web on wheels to be standard soon? -

    For many Americans, car time is a necessary evil that gets them to and from the places responsible for their paychecks, but with some people delayed up to 74 hours a year in commuter traffic, the idea of being connected to the Web in the car — aside from their phones — could be one that gains traction to make the most of the time stuck in one’s vehicle. KPMG, an international network of audit/tax/advisory firms, recently surveyed auto execs and found that having the same amenities in a car as at home is a trend that is capturing the attention of the industry:
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  • January 5, 2012 - CMU Technology Featured at World-Famous Electronics Show -

    Carnegie Mellon professors and researchers will be among those discussing their research and products at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (Jan. 10-13), the world’s largest and most well-known technology tradeshow.

    CMU’s Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Foundry will feature five CMU start-ups and several other innovations and partner collaborations will be on display at booth #3011.
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  • January 4, 2012 - This Traffic Light Senses Bikes, Promotes Road Harmony -

    Cyclists have a new friend out there on the roads: microwaves. And the city of Pleasanton, California, is one of the first cities in the country to roll out this high-tech solution to help cars and bikes share the road.
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  • January 4, 2012 - Six features you should find in your new car in 2012 -

    Mark Phelan of USA TODAY and the Detroit Free Press compiled a list of five features to look for which we’ve expanded to six while adding the Torque News touch.
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  • January 4, 2012 - Officials propose ride sharing for military employees -

    But this isn’t just your grandma’s carpool. The new program, called real-time ridesharing, will allow commuters to find rides from wherever and whenever they need using a smart phone app. Riders under the new program would be allowed to ride five times for free. After that they would pay drivers $1 per pick-up and 20 cents per mile using a cashless, automated system.
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  • January 4, 2012 - Driving has lost its cool for young Americans -

    Amidst all the hand-wringing over distracted driving, a critical point is getting lost. The problem isn’t the texting — it’s the driving.
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  • January 4, 2012 - 20m Koreans to have NFC phones this year -

    Five million Koreans already have an NFC phone, says mobile network operator KT, and payments for bus, subway and taxi fares are the most popular NFC applications.
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  • January 4, 2012 - Your Connected Vehicle Is Arriving -

    As our cars become networked—to the Internet and to one another—new trends in technology and society will redefine transportation. What’s certain: tomorrow’s automobiles will provide experiences that go well beyond driving.
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  • January 4, 2012 - 5 Ways The Smart City Will Change How We Live In 2012 -

    Five predictions on how smarter buildings will impact daily life and efficiency of our cities, from IBM’s Smarter Buildings division.
    A city’s infrastructure is comprised of a number of systems, including transportation (e.g. roads, bridges, public transportation, etc.), sewage, utility (e.g. gas, electricity, water treatment and delivery), and public and private buildings. Urbanization and proliferation of these systems are key to quality of life, but also create a significant toll on the sustainability, energy efficiency and capacity level of a city.
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  • January 4, 2012 - Evaluating the Effectiveness of Red Light Running Camera Enforcement in Cedar Rapids -

    The Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University has released a report that assesses the safety effectiveness of the red light-running program that has been implemented in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
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  • January 4, 2012 - Ignition Magazine: News from TRB’s IDEA Programs Fall/Winter 2011 -

    The latest issue of Ignition, a periodic news magazine from TRB’s Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) programs, examines the automated computer-controlled image analysis systems and the asphalt binder cracking device that took the IDEA path to becoming American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials specifications, an innovative signal head vibration absorber, the transit data feeder, and more.
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  • January 3, 2012 - Snow Site Lets Chicago See if Plows Are Really in a Rut -

    But this year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration will announce on Tuesday, Chicagoans may test their theories about clout on their computers. Using GPS technology, a new city Web site, ChicagoShovels.org, will provide a map of Chicago’s approximately 300 snowplows, making their way in real time through the neighborhoods. Anyone will have a clear view of who gets what first, and whether plows really sweep more rapidly beside the homes of the mayor, powerful aldermen — or even just the neighbor everyone hates.
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  • January 3, 2012 - Megabus is accelerating growth for intercity buses -

    For the longest time, travelers going from one city to another turned up their noses at buses, using them only if all other options were impractical. Now, driven by low-cost curbside operators like Megabus.com, city-to-city bus service has had a resurgence…

    And many riders were pushed by a desire to use portable electronic devices like tablet computers, laptops and smartphones while traveling, which is not always possible when driving or flying. Ninety-one percent of riders surveyed said they intended to use portable electronic devices while on the bus; field observations revealed that at any given time, more than 40 percent were doing so.

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  • January 3, 2012 - Beijing Improving Road Network Environment with “Intelligent Transportation” -

    Recently, Beijing Municipal Public Security Traffic Command Center was completed and put into use. The Center integrated 36 real-time online technological systems, forming an urban “intelligent transportation”system with functions of traffic detection, traffic control, command and control, and information services, which can precisely estimate and effectively control urban traffic operation.
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  • January 2, 2012 - The 5 Most Intriguing Patent Applications of 2011 -

    #1 Google Patent #8,078,349: Transitioning a Mixed-Mode Vehicle to Autonomous Mode

    We are seeing quite a number of patents that could hint at autonomous vehicles, but there was one element of this patent that struck me and gives this invention substantial credibility. Besides the fact that Google has autonomous vehicles on California roads already, its inventors are particularly noteworthy. Among the listed inventors are Christopher Urmson and Nathaniel Fairfield, both who joined Google from Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute. Urmson is especially interesting because he was the technical leader of the Tartan racing team, which won the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge for the university.

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  • January 1, 2012 - Eye tracking may enable researchers to determine the cause of crashes -

    Researchers at Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute (Bozeman, MT, USA) are outfitting a new vehicle with eye-tracking sensors to help them understand why young drivers are unable to perceive road hazards.
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  • January 1, 2012 - Tourniquets to Robots, Iraq War Innovations Finding Wider Use -

    The ground robots whose technologies were adapted from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Grand Challenge program — it offered a $2 million prize for a vehicle to drive autonomously over 132 miles in the desert — may lead one day to autonomous cars, said Peter Singer, author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century” and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
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  • December 31, 2011 - Phila. ranked among best at social media -

    The list of award winners was released last week by GovFresh, a website that says it “works to inspire government-citizen collaboration” and features, among other things, “the ideas and technology that are changing how government works.”…
    ReRoute.it, which helps people make better transportation choices, was named the Best Transit App,…
    and Septa.mobi, for the Best Transit App award…
    All this activity allowed Philadelphia to tie Chicago as a runner up to New York for the City of the Year award and Williamson County, Texas, as a runner up to New York for the Best Use of Social Media award.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Social Innovation: Car Sharing will be Big News in the U.S. in 2012 -

    In 2012 car-sharing will become a popular social enterprise initiative in America as more states start to opt in – imagine a world with fewer cars, without traffic jams, and with less pollution. The actual concept of car-sharing is where members have access to a fleet of cars for short-term use throughout the day, which reduces the need for one or more personal vehicles. In California, which passed legislation last year, personal car-sharing is becoming very popular. Next to follow suit is Oregon, which will become the second place to let people rent out their cars.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Transportation Department introduces Map App (AUDIO) -

    The Traveler Information App, better known as the “map app” is now available from the State Transportation Department. They have developed it to give people an idea of how clear the larger roads in the state are as the weather gets bad this winter. Department Spokesman Matt Hiebert says the application gives a map of the state, with all the major roads highlighted. They’re color coded to indicate road conditions or construction.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Scott Belcher, Intelligent Transportation Systems America -

    Scott Belcher is the President and CEO, Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America). Belcher talks about ITS America and the transportation available in America. ITS America utilizes GPS, smartphones, connected vehicles to achieve intelligent means to make driving faster and safer. There are companies at ITS America that are creating different modes of transportation, on the road and in other means.
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  • December 29, 2011 - MTA Responds and Manhattan Beach Neighborhood Association Wants Red Light Cameras -

    This week, The Bay News reports on a bill in the Assembly in Albany, which would legalize red light cameras to catch speeders. The Manhattan Beach Neighborhood Association (MBNA) supports the legislation and, if passed, is ready to petition Albany to install the cameras along Oriental Boulevard to curb speeding, although Community Board 15 voted to reject cameras for the district earlier this year.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Ten Electric Cars Coming in 2012 -

    The year 2011 was a landmark year for EVs. We witnessed regional launches of the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt. These two plug-in cars were the start of a new era for electrified personal transportation. The current American car auto fleet, however, is enormous—and two models alone cannot create change on a large scale. During 2012, these two plug-in cars will have—depending how you look at it—either competition in the marketplace or help in the movement to electrify transportation.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Unzipped: Car sharing takes a bite out of Americans’ drive time -

    Kids these days — they don’t like cars. What’s up with that? A new survey by the car-sharing company Zipcar finds that Millennials just don’t see cars as the ticket to freedom that their parents did. According to the survey, 55 percent of Millennials have actively made an effort to drive less, while 78 percent say that the high costs of gas and maintenance make owning a car difficult. That’s good news for Zipcar: The company says that Millennials make up more than half of its members.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Faster forward: Imagining the future car of 2050 -

    We already know that Google has tested autonomous vehicles in northern California. In a widely reported incident, one of the Toyota Priuses was actually in a fender bender, although Google claims the car was being driven by a human at the time. The idea makes perfect sense, though: The computer in a car can react faster and use more diagnostic data than a human ever could. When a deer jumps out on the road, a Lexus GX 460 can use powerful forward-facing sensors to track the object, scan to see if you are paying attention (based on the angle of your face and by tracking your eyes and mouth), alert you with a chime, and even brake automatically in a split second – much faster than a human could.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Take tech route to track consignments -

    Mr Krishnan is a dealer in auto parts, based in Madurai. A few days ago, his distributor from Delhi had dispatched a critical auto part for one of his customers. Wanting to find out where his material had reached, he took out his laptop, logged onto the Web site of the transport company and entered the docket number. Immediately, he was made aware of the delivery status of his material; that it had left Bangalore and would reach him the next day.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Beijing to test new GPS system -

    Beijin: Beijing plans to test its new Global Positioning System that alerts drivers to real-time road congestion and shows the quickest way to a destination. Next year, 12,000 drivers in the Wangjing area of Beijing will have their cars fitted with a free GPS device, operated by Beijing Palmcity Science and Technology Co., for the experiment that will last till October.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Booz Allen wins eight task orders to expand support to intelligent transportation systems programme -

    Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE:BAH), a provider of management and technology consulting services, reported on Thursday that it has won task orders valued at USD8m over three years.
    The company has been awarded eight task orders to support the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) at the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA).
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  • December 29, 2011 - US DOT selects Battelle to develop transit DSRC safety retrofit package; interoperability with light-duty vehicle applications -

    The US Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) has selected the Battelle Memorial Institute to develop a new Transit Safety Retrofit Package (TRP) that will be used as part of the Safety Pilot model deployment. The effective date of the award is 1 January 2012.
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  • December 29, 2011 - Emergency services have plan for PGBT -

    The command center is staffed with TCLEOSE-certified telecommunicators and uses a multimillion dollar intelligent transportation system that focuses on mobility, safety, and security. “The goal of the center is to reduce response times to incidents and to get the roadways clear. Speed is money on NTTA,” Walling said.
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  • December 29, 2011 - NEW DOT ITS publications -

    The following ITS publications, published by the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO), were recently added to the National Transportation Library (NTL):

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  • December 26, 2011 - The Best Metro Data Releases of 2011 -

    Just about every city is strapped for cash these days. But where they’re lacking in money, metros all over the world have begun to tap into a new wealth: data. Inside the urban open-government revolution, do-gooding coders are joining forces with newly digitized municipal data sets, with the promise that we could design better bus routes, run city services more efficiently and restore faith in municipal government – all without huge outlays for new infrastructure or mega-projects.
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  • December 26, 2011 - THE INTELLIGENT VEHICLES SYMPOSIUM (IV’12) -

    is the premier annual forum sponsored by the IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS SOCIETY (ITSS). Researchers, academicians, practitioners, and students from universities, industry, and government agencies are invited to discuss research and applications for Intelligent Vehicles and Vehicle-Infrastructure Cooperation…
    Call for papers -Paper submission deadline: January 16th, 2012
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  • December 21, 2011 - The Rideshare Revolution -

    The good news is that several new technologies are reducing the hassles associated with ridesharing at the same time that rising oil prices, tolls, and parking rates are making the cost-sharing benefits more attractive than ever.
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    The good news is that several new technologies are reducing the hassles associated with ridesharing at the same time that rising oil prices, tolls, and parking rates are making the cost-sharing benefits more attractive than ever.

    Source: Planetsave (http://s.tt/14Xgv)

    The good news is that several new technologies are reducing the hassles associated with ridesharing at the same time that rising oil prices, tolls, and parking rates are making the cost-sharing benefits more attractive than ever.

    Source: Planetsave (http://s.tt/14Xgv)

  • December 21, 2011 - AUVSI Conference and Call for Papers -

    AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems North America 2012, being held 6-9 August in Las Vegas, Nevada, will highlight the most important technological research and advancements driving the dynamic unmanned systems community forward.
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  • December 21, 2011 - Siemens to install ETCS technology in Romania -

    Siemens is to install the European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 2 on the rail link between Chitila and Crivina in Romania. Romanian Railways has placed the order with a consortium made up of Siemens, Thales and Nokia Siemens Networks. The deal is worth around €35 million. Commissioning of the first ETCS Level 2 line in Romania is planned for 2014.
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  • December 21, 2011 - Businesses are increasingly turning to information and communications technology to reduce their carbon footprints -

    Another report _ “The Potential Global CO2 Reductions from ICT Use”, by Ecofys in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund _ listed 10 ICT measures that could reduce CO2 emissions by one billion tonnes, equal to more than a quarter of the EU’s total annual emissions. These measures are smart city planning, smart buildings, smart appliances or smart occupancy control, dematerialisation services, smart industry, i-optimisation, smart grids, integrated renewable solutions, smart work and intelligent transport.
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  • December 21, 2011 - Governments of Canada and Manitoba provide funding to study and implement intelligent transportation systems -

    CentrePort Canada will study ITS practices at other inland ports to determine whether they could be successfully implemented at CentrePort. There are two main objectives of this project: to reduce the time needed for secure cargo shipments originating from CentrePort to cross international borders; and to increase the security of cross-border freight shipments.
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  • December 20, 2011 - Smart Transportation Systems Still a Good Bet in Tough Times -

    For this report, Pike Research focused on some key emerging ITS applications that are tied into smart city growth…
    The intelligent transportation system (ITS) market looks to be reasonably “austerity proof.” That’s the top take-away from my new report, Smart Transportation Systems, which forecasts several key market sectors out to 2017. When I started the research for the report, it was not obvious this would be the case. After all, much smart transportation investment comes through governments – and governments throughout the developed world are undergoing some serious belt-tightening (or at least are talking about it). But the intelligent transportation market still looks relatively robust.
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  • December 20, 2011 - Cashless parking meters proving benefits worldwide -

    A number of new case studies from all over the world has demonstrated how cashless parking meters that use near field communication (NFC) are offering benefits to councils and motorists.
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  • December 20, 2011 - Mall of America lets shoppers find parking by phone -

    The website will appear in your browser as m.mallofamerica.com, which means it’s a mobile-only website. Click “directions and parking” for the map, then click “parking.” Green means spots are available, yellow means congested and red means the lot is busy. The mall can keep tabs on how full its lots are by electronically counting vehicles as they enter and leave the lots, and by getting visual updates from parking employees who scan the lots for signs of traffic congestion, Jewell said…
    The Wall Street Journal reported last week that “to keep potential shoppers from driving off, malls across the country are deploying technology to help shoppers find a desirable spot.” A mall outside of New York City uses overhead sensors and cameras to identify open parking spots inside a parking garage, the Journal said.
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  • December 20, 2011 - Pennsylvania turnpike plazas will all get DC fast charging stations for EVs -

    Ready to take your all-electric car on a road trip? If you’re headed along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, 2013 might just be your year. The plan is to install EV charging stations in all 17 of the service plazas along the highway by June 30 of that year.
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  • December 20, 2011 - Investigation into the Use of Point-to-Point Speed Cameras -

    The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has released a report that explores point-to-point (P2P) speed camera technology, the application of these devices in New Zealand, and the sites that may be suitable for these devices. According to NZTA, P2P cameras operate by photographing all vehicles passing both the start and end of a section of road under consideration. The photographs are time stamped which allows travel time to be derived. Computer software identifies the number plates of passing vehicles and matches the images taken.
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  • December 20, 2011 - Advanced Safety System Priorities -

    The United Kingdom’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has released a report that discusses which intelligent vehicle and advanced safety technologies have the greatest potential to help improve highway safety in Great Britain.
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  • December 20, 2011 - Western States One-Stop Shop for Rural Traveler Information: Research on Clarus System Data -

    Western States One-Stop Shop for Rural Traveler Information: Research on Clarus System Data.
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  • December 19, 2011 - Big Brother fears over cameras on motorways -

    Ireland -The number of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras will increase from 80 to 126, allowing transport chiefs to track individual vehicles between two points and calculate the flow speed of traffic in order to inform motorists in real time of delays ahead.However, the cameras deliberately supply an “encrypted” partial version of the number plates and only hold the data for a limited period of time so that individual cars are not monitored.The NRA was yesterday keen to stress that motorists would not be targeted.
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  • December 19, 2011 - NFC shopping zone opens in Seoul -

    An NFC shopping zone has been opened in Myeong-dong — the busiest shopping area in South Korea’s capital city, Seoul — by the Grand NFC Korea Alliance, an association formed in June by the country’s leading mobile network operators, phone and device manufacturers, card issuers and government agencies. During a three month pilot that runs until the end of January, shoppers in the NFC Zone can use their phones for a wide range of NFC applications including:::

    Bus timetable information and real-time service status, downloadable via NFC tags located at bus stops.

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  • December 19, 2011 - U.S. Department of Transportation releases the 2011 update to the Intelligent Transportation Systems Benefits, Costs, Deployment, and Lessons Learned -

    This new report presents information on the benefits, costs, deployment levels, and lessons learned regarding ITS deployment and operations obtained since the 2008 report.
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  • December 19, 2011 - Mississippi River bridges to get hi-tech improvements -

    Two bridges that link Arkansas to Mississippi will receive high-tech upgrades to improve highway flow between the states as well as barge traffic along the Mississippi River as part of a federal grant announced today.The federal Department of Transportation has awarded $9.8 million to deploy “Intelligent Transportation Systems” improvements to the Helena Bridge that carries U.S. 49 and the Greenville Bridge that carries U.S. 82, as well as two other Mississippi River bridges linking Louisiana and Mississippi.
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  • December 19, 2011 - Europe to investigate intelligent transportation -

    AMITRAN will attempt to develop a CO2 assessment methodology for information and communication technologies, including multi-modal passenger and freight transport taking into account everything from user behaviour to CO2 production. It will look to develop interfaces for models and simulation tools; validate the proposed methodology and its implementation with data from other projects and studies; and produce an online checklist and handbook…
    According to Gerdien Klunder, AMITRAN’s co-ordinator and a researcher at TNO, there is currently no consistent methodology that allows scientists to measure the potential CO2 emissions that these technologies could reduce.
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  • December 19, 2011 - From ‘bots to EVs–5 predictions for ’12 in cutting-edge tech -

    In the year ahead, we’re guaranteed more powerful supercomputers and smartphones from the tech industry’s basic building block–the microchip. But in a world where the amount of information doubles every year, computers’ ability to make sense of it has never been more vital, touching every field of scientific research from robotics to satellite imagery. Meanwhile, advances in very different fields–materials science and biotech–are paving the way for better batteries, biofuels, and cleaner sources of energy.
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  • December 19, 2011 - $20 million federal grant to help fund I-95 HOT lanes -

    A $20 million federal grant toward construction of high-occupancy toll lanes on Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia will help cement a tentative deal the state struck this month with a private contractor to build the $940 million project. Fluor-Transurban, the company currently building toll lanes on Virginia’s portion of the Capital Beltway, has agreed to build 29 miles of HOT lanes between Edsall Road in Fairfax County and Garrisonville Road in Stafford County. The deal calls for Fluor-Transurban to foot $843 million of the cost, while the state contributes $97 million.
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  • December 18, 2011 - Google Patents Transition To Autonomous Driving For Cars -

    We have heard quite a bit about Google’s autonomous cars driving around in California. A patent approved by the USPTO yesterday provides more detail on these cars and the technology they may use. The patent #8,078,349, filed on May 11 of this year, specifically refers to the event when a mixed-mode car is enabled to transition from a human driver to an autonomous mode…
    To develop this technology, Google employs some of the smartest minds in the industry. It is not really surprising to see Christopher Urmson and Nathaniel Fairfield listed among the inventors: Both joined Google from Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute. Urmson was the technical leader of the Tartan racing team, which won the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge: Their “Boss” vehicle, a heavily modified Chevy Tahoe, completed a 55 mile urban course in 4 hours and 10 minutes and won the $2 million prize of the competition. Also listed among the inventors is Nathan Fairfiled, also from Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, who worked on sonar data for navigation in 3D environments at the university.
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  • December 18, 2011 - Automotive Megatrends USA 2012 -

    31 January 2012 to 2 February 2012 The Henry
    Fairlane Plaza, 300 Town Center Drive, Dearborn, Michigan 48126, USA

    Leading industry speakers, in-depth panel discussions, cutting edge topics, and unrivalled networking opportunities will make Automotive Megatrends USA 2012 an unmissable event.

    Understand and debate existing and future passenger car safety (Day 1), connectivity (Day 2), and electrification (Day 3) technologies and trends by attending interactive presentations by experts from OEMs, suppliers, and other key auto industry stakeholders.

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  • December 18, 2011 - Finding the Route of Least Emissions -

    But no mainstream navigation service has yet mastered the holy grail of environmentally conscious travel – the route of least emissions. Researchers at a handful of universities across the country are at work on this concept, called green routing. The idea sounds pretty straight-forward: Instead of selecting the shortest route to the grocery store, you would be able to pick the path with the smallest carbon footprint. Researchers suspect that on the aggregate, if large numbers of us were adjusting our driving patterns like this every day, it would have a serious impact. A recent study from researchers at SUNY-Buffalo found that rerouting just a fifth of drivers in a computer simulation of traffic in the Buffalo area could reduce regional auto emissions by 20 percent.
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  • December 18, 2011 - WICHway.org offers travel information about Wichita highways -

    The Kansas Department of Transportation has launced a new website using up-to-the-minute information that will help drivers in Wichita efficiently navigate area highways. WICHway.org will share camera views on select routes and post messages that are helpful for drivers. “This is our way of gathering the info about an incident or congestion spot and feeding that information out to the public so that they can decide whether they want to go through that area or pick another route,” said Tom Hein KDOT Spokesman.The system includes 28 cameras, 21 message signs and 36 traffic sensors.
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  • December 16, 2011 - Federal Highway Administration Offers Additional Grants to Spur Innovation -

    The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is soliciting for proposals for a fourth round of grants under the Highways for LIFE Technology Partnerships Program.

    The focus of the 2012 Solicitation will be to work with the highway industry to accelerate the adoption of promising innovations that 1) have the potential to directly reduce crashes or crash severity or 2) innovations that significantly enhance decision-making relative to the deployment of treatments to reduce crashes, crash severity and the understanding of the effectiveness of the treatments. The program is intended to fund proven innovations that have been developed to a late-stage prototype with the proof of concept well established that require further development, testing, and evaluation in a real-world setting before they would be available for commercialization. The solicitation is posted in Grants.gov with two closings dates—January 26, 2012 and May 3, 2012. Each grant award may range from $250,000 to $1,000,000 for up to two years of performance. Subject to available funding, FHWA anticipates awarding up to $5 million through this solicitation.

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  • December 15, 2011 - AMITRAN project developing CO2 assessment methodology for intelligent transport systems -

    A new European project, AMITRAN, is developing a methodology to assess the impact of ICT (information and communication technologies) and ITS (intelligent transport systems) on CO2 emissions from the transport sector.
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  • December 15, 2011 - ‘Green routing’ can cut car emissions without significantly slowing travel time -

    In detailed, computer simulations of traffic in Upstate New York’s Buffalo Niagara region, UB researchers Adel Sadek and Liya Guo found that green routing could reduce overall emissions of carbon monoxide by 27 percent for area drivers, while increasing the length of trips by an average of just 11 percent. In many cases, simple changes yielded great gains.
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  • December 15, 2011 - Federal grant will help fund city’s smart traffic signal implementation -

    SEPTA, PennDOT, the City of Philadelphia and now the feds have all kicked in funding for the city’s new smart traffic signals. PlanPhilly reports a $10 million federal stimulus grant will help fund the installation signals that prioritize transit by giving buses and trolleys extended green lights.
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  • December 15, 2011 - With these autonomous cars, who needs you to drive? -

    Since 1978, when microprocessors were first installed in the trip odometer of a Cadillac Seville, the number of chips in the average automobile has grown such that cars now contain anywhere from 50 to 200 processors and a mile of wiring. The increasing prevalence of hybrid and electric cars is accelerating that trend; the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt, for example, requires 10 million lines of code, 2 million more than it takes to run a Boeing 787. So carmakers are coming to Silicon Valley, where code is king.
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  • December 15, 2011 - CMU’s Marcel Just Applauds NTSB’s Proposed Ban on Cell Phones While Driving -

    The National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) has called for a nationwide ban on the use of cell phones and text message devices while driving. Carnegie Mellon University‘s Marcel Just, a leading neuroscientist who has studied how using cell phones impairs driving ability, applauds NTSB’s proposal.
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  • December 15, 2011 - Study: Don’t Discount Operational Efficiency When Building Roads -

    A recent study published this summer in The International Journal of Sustainable Transportation showed how an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) resulted in 3 times greater fuel consumption savings, and a reduction of greenhouse gas and pollution, when compared against the sum of four sustainable construction-phase strategies.
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  • December 15, 2011 - Car sharing takes off in the U.S. -

    Personal car-sharing spreads from California to Oregon and, very soon, to a neighborhood near you. The concept of hiring out your own vehicle has proven wildly popular here and around the globe.

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  • December 15, 2011 - Integrated Database and Analysis System for the Evaluation of Freeway Corridors for Potential Ramp Signaling -

    The Florida Department of Transportation has released a report that identifies and evaluates the existing ramp signaling guidelines from 12 states in the United States, four other countries, and three independent research organizations. The report also recommends seven guidelines for incorporation into Florida’s guidelines for ramp metering.
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  • December 15, 2011 - 2012 UTC Spotlight Conference on Research Perspectives on Sustainable Energy and Transportation -

    TRB is sponsoring the 2012 UTC Spotlight Conference on Research Perspectives on Sustainable Energy and Transportation on November 8-9, 2012, in Washington, D.C. The conference is designed to promote dialogue and coordination among University Transportation Centers (UTCs), federal agencies, industry, and state and local agencies on research to address the complex and challenging issues concerning sustainable energy and transportation. The conference will focus on recently completed and ongoing research on sustainable energy and transportation being conducted by UTCs and others, and will identify existing knowledge gaps and promising developments for future research.
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  • December 15, 2011 - Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) Workforce Summit -

    TRB is cosponsoring the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) Workforce Summit on April 24-26, 2012, in Washington, D.C. The summit is designed to help foster a national dialogue on the needs for and development of the transportation workforce in the United States and to promote greater visibility for transportation careers in industry, government agencies, and academia. The summit will promote building upon and connecting with existing transportation workforce initiatives to take full advantage of recent accomplishments, experiences, and lessons learned. Such initiatives include those related to recruiting and retaining qualified personnel, filling current and future shortages in personnel, defining competencies needed for a high-performing workforce, and identifying and closing gaps in transportation workforce training and education.
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  • December 13, 2011 - Carnegie Mellon Releases Android Version of Smartphone Transit App -

    Users of the Android mobile interface in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County will now be able to contribute to a crowdsourced information sharing project. Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute has recently released its real-time bus schedules and seating information app, called Tiramasu, for Android phones.
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  • December 12, 2011 - Cranberry’s Traffic Lab: Where the Future Gets a Green Light -

    Since it opened a little more than a year ago, Cranberry’s Traffic Operations Center has emerged as the region’s showcase for state-of-the-art traffic control technologies. Walking past its wall of high-definition screens as they show real-time traffic information—as well as its clusters of computer monitors displaying signal-control system data—is like strolling the bridge on a spacecraft…
    It came as no surprise that several faculty members from Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic 21 research unit took an interest in the data the center generates. Also expressing interest was TrafficVision, a division of the South Carolina firm Omnibond Systems and a developer of traffic-monitoring technology.
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  • December 12, 2011 - VDOT will unveil new signs to alert motorists of travel time -

    STARTING TODAY, digital, overhead signs will alert Interstate 95 drivers about travel times. All of the new signs will be in Northern Virginia, with the sign in Lorton telling southbound drivers how long they can expect it to take to get to Fredericksburg. This kind of technology is only the tip of the iceberg for the push toward “smart traffic” technologies. Computer technology has changed people’s lives since the late part of the 20th century. Now it looks as if our driving experience will follow that lead. Take the GPS devices mounted on dashboards of so many cars nowadays. They are great, but in the not-too-distant future they’ll seem like transistor radios.
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  • December 12, 2011 - The National Transportation Library -

    The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) is home to the National Transportation Library (NTL). The NTL offers a great collection of reports on a variety of transportation topics, including Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).

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  • December 12, 2011 - 10 Government IT Predictions For 2012: IDC -

    6. Global investment in smart city technologies will hit $40.9 billion in 2012. Urban planners will look to intelligent technology solutions to better serve residents’ needs, as financial and natural resources are constrained.
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  • December 12, 2011 - Salt Lake City Roads Worse Than New York’s? Road Frustration Index Says Yes -

    Audi of America wants to be involved in conversations about America’s urban future and provide cars that fit into tomorrow’s tech-dominated cities. MIT’s SENSEable City Lab researches how to use data to implement intelligent city transportation.
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  • December 12, 2011 - When will cars get more apps? -

    Automakers are in the throes of figuring out the best way to safely give drivers access to a greater variety of mobile apps they want. Several car companies are expected to show off their latest ideas at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month — with many highlighting large, touch-screen displays in the console and the ability to use voice commands to control apps and other features.
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  • December 12, 2011 - The Future of Transit Fare Cards Is No Fare Card At All -

    Open payments is considered the next stage in the evolution of fare media – a step up from the advent of reloadable proprietary cards issued by transit agencies. By allowing riders to tap bank cards and eventually smart phones on contactless readers as they board vehicles or enter subway stations, transit agencies believe they can make life simpler for harried commuters.
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  • December 12, 2011 - ITS Program Advisory Committee (ITS PAC) Advisory Memo to U.S. DOT -

    Section 5305(h) of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU, P.L. 109-59) directs the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish an Advisory Committee to provide advice to the Secretary of Transportation on the scope and direction of the Department’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Program, by providing input into the development of the ITS aspects of the Department’s strategic plan and reviewing ITS research being considered for funding.
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  • December 12, 2011 - Car Or Internet? Toss-Up For Young Adults -

    When posed with the dilemma of choosing between access to your car and access to the internet, 46% of all 18-to-24-year-old drivers in the U.S. surveyed said they would choose the Internet and give up their cars.That’s according to a study by Gartner research to be released early next year.
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  • December 12, 2011 - How will self-driving cars change transportation? -

    Yesterday, I argued that we will start seeing autonomous vehicles operating on our roadways in 7-12 years. But whether self-driving cars hit the roads 5 years or 30 years from now, they will bring major changes in our transportation system and even our society.
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  • December 12, 2011 - Cities Have Their Moment — and the 2012 TED Prize -

    Bill Clinton, Bono, Jamie Oliver and … cities. Past winners of the TED Prize have been global celebrities, underexposed luminaries, and even an anonymous artist, but they’ve all been actual people. This year, TED is giving the prize — $100,000, a wish and brand cache — to an idea. And a nebulous idea at that: The City 2.0.
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  • December 12, 2011 - Cities awash in data are missing out on efficiency ‘gold’ -

    Cities are increasingly awash in “big data,” and the intelligence hidden in that information represents a vast, untapped resource that could help make life in communities better, cleaner and more efficient…
    A group effort published by The Climate Group, Accenture, Arup and Horizon Digital Economy Research at The University of Nottingham, the study identifies a number of ways in which metro areas could tap into the growing amounts of data they generate.
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  • December 12, 2011 - Huge investment in intelligent transportation predicted -

    Four key smart transportation sectors – traffic management systems; public transportation systems; smart charging for plug-in electric vehicles; and vehicle-to-vehicle systems – are set for a huge investment over the next five years. According to a report by Pike Research, there will be a global investment across these four areas of $13.2billion with annual spending to increase from just under $770million in 2011 to almost $3billion in 2017.
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  • December 8, 2011 - ‘City 2.0’: Where the TED conference just gave its $100,000 prize -

    It’s the city that transit planners dreamed about at the Rail~Volution transportation conference, the traffic system that includes smart technology that allows cars to talk to one another as the U.S. Department of Transportation is now testing, the city that can maintain a functioning Metro, a well-distributed and convenient bikeshare system, that has alternative fuels like autogas and electricity, that can balance a network of buses and Zipcars and streetcars skillfully and in a way that’s like ballet and not a train wreck of disorder.
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  • December 8, 2011 - The next black swan for transportation: self-driving cars -

    Whether we are prepared for it or not, the next revolution in transportation will be here soon, and it won’t be streetcars, monorails, segways, or electric vehicles. It will be self-driving cars, and the adoption of this technology will change everything we accept as a given in the field of transportation planning.
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  • December 7, 2011 - Development of an Integrated Adaptive Transit Signal Priority (ATSP) and Dynamic Passenger Information (DPI) System -

    The California Department of Transportation has released a report that discusses the development and implementation of an integrated adaptive transit signal priority system and a dynamic passenger information system.
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  • December 7, 2011 - Innovator: November/December 2011 -

    The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released the latest issue of its Innovator newsletter, which is designed to help advance widespread implementation of innovations and technologies in the highway community and help chronicle a nationwide movement to improve the way highways are built.

  • December 7, 2011 - FHWA R&T Now – November 2011 -

    The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released the latest issue of its Research and Technology (R&T) Now news update. The update reports on research, technology, and development activities taking place within the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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  • December 7, 2011 - Google Transit Data Tool for Small Transit Agencies -

    TRB’s Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Final Report for Transit IDEA Project 58: Google Transit Data Tool for Small Transit Agencies discusses the process, results, and work effort carried out in creating a tool to have transit information such as routes, start and stop times, trips, fares, and schedules accessible online via Google Transit.
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  • December 7, 2011 - Innovations in Traffic Flow Theory, Highway Capacity, and Quality of Service Symposium -

    TRB is sponsoring the Innovations in Traffic Flow Theory, Highway Capacity, and Quality of Service Symposium on June 19-22, 2012, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The symposium will highlight the applications of traffic flow theory on current modeling practices; explore future developments in the field; examine real-time measurements of traffic performance; and look at expected contributions that remote sensing, vehicle probes, and similar devices will make to advancing the state of the practice. Individuals or groups wishing to present at the meeting must submit an abstract by January 15, 2012.
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  • December 6, 2011 - As Washington Drags Its Feet, States Take the Lead on Mileage Fees -

    Oregon, true to its history as the first state to implement a gas tax, was also the first state to consider getting rid of it — in exchange for adopting a mileage-based system for highway funding. And the Beaver state isn’t alone: A number of other states have done studies and introduced legislation to charge drivers for the distance they travel instead of the gasoline they consume…
    In the past decade, about two dozen states have examined the feasibility of such a system. Here are some of the more noteworthy initiatives:
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  • December 6, 2011 - UDOT introduces new traffic app -

    The Utah Department of Transportation announced Monday a free smart phone app that will allow users to access traffic, road conditions and road forecast information at any time.
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  • December 6, 2011 - Mobile Wallet Anyone? Sure, but Please Make Mine a Smart One -

    Forbes – According to recent surveys, consumers like the convenience of using their phone for a variety of purposes including transportation tickets, payment for goods, loyalty point management and couponing. This convenience is enhanced tremendously by NFC capability being introduced on devices, so it is no surprise that NFC-based mobile wallet users are expected to grow to 594 million by 2016.
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  • December 6, 2011 - Single smart card for different modes of transport launched -

    New Delhi: The national Common Mobility Card that will soon allow seamless and convenient public travel across different modes of transport, including trains and buses, was launched here Tuesday.
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  • December 6, 2011 - Offer ideas for 2012 ASCE Annual Conference presentations by Dec. 16 -

    ASCE’s 142nd Annual Civil Engineering Conference, coming to Montreal. With a theme of Civil Engineering in the New Global Economy, the conference is certain to include sessions and events that spark ideas for new solutions to worldwide challenges and emerging markets.
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  • December 6, 2011 - LightSquared Inks Agreement to Support Mobile Services for Cars -

    LightSquared, the emerging wholesale high-speed wireless operator, has announced an agreement with a new company that will offer mobile services supporting such data as vehicle maintenance diagnostics and location-sharing for automobiles.
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  • December 5, 2011 - A conversation with Zipcar’s CEO Scott Griffith -

    Zipcar’s CEO, Scott Griffith, has always had a passion for three things: cities, transportation, and technology. And he believes “Zipcar represents the most important innovation in transportation in a generation.” A bold claim, but the company has been a leader in the movement of collaborative consumption, or using the web to share “stuff.”
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  • December 5, 2011 - New Trends Predicted for Ultracapacitors in the Energy Storage Industry -

    Vehicles that use start/stop technology, known as micro hybrids, are able to save fuel and reduce emissions by shutting off the engine when the vehicle is stopped in traffic. Ultracapacitors provide the quick start needed to re-launch the engine as the vehicle moves out of traffic.
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  • December 5, 2011 - After Tolls Rise, Less Traffic and More Train Riders Into Manhattan -

    About 890,000 fewer cars and trucks used the crossings from Sept. 19 through Nov. 22 compared with the number that did in roughly the same period in 2010, a 4 percent drop. During that period, ridership on PATH, the Port Authority subway connecting Manhattan and New Jersey, rose by about 560,000, or 3.7 percent, the agency said…
    E-ZPass tolls during peak travel times rose to $9.50 from $8. By 2015, the cash toll will be $15 and the E-ZPass toll will be $12.50. About 3.5 percent more riders started using E-ZPass and, over all, the Port Authority received 20 percent more in toll revenue than it did the year before.
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  • December 5, 2011 - CMU’s public transit app expands to Android devices -

    Carnegie Mellon University has expanded a project that tracks the location of public transit vehicles using riders’ smartphones. The university has released an Android version of Tiramisu, the application that allows riders to tell other riders where and how full buses are…
    The project, announced in July with an iPhone app, has been growing steadily, with riders providing information about more than 11,500 trips. The Android release should further boost participation, said Aaron Steinfeld, a senior systems scientist in the university’s Robotics Institute.
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  • December 5, 2011 - Tampa area drivers may be able to pay to avoid congestion -

    Under the rubric of “Intelligent Transportation Systems,” which involve lower-cost alternatives to traditional highway construction, FDOT converted an ineffective high occupancy vehicle concept to 95 Express without a massive building project.
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  • December 4, 2011 - Open data events in Montreal in December -

    The demand for open data is picking up in a big way in our backyard. There are no less than three four events this month devoted to it. Without further ado, click on the links for more info.
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  • December 4, 2011 - T3 Webinar Overview – Systems Engineering for Adaptive Signal Control Technology -

    This webinar will provide an overview of Adaptive Signal Control Technology (ASCT) and the efforts of the FHWA Every Day Counts initiative to mainstream the implementation of this technology. Agency professionals will discuss their recent experiences with adaptive signal control projects and how systems engineering was used as a tool to inform decisions that affect technology selection, system operation, and procurement options. The webinar will also discuss how to apply the FHWA Model Systems Engineering Documents for ASCT to these types of projects.
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  • December 4, 2011 - How *Smart* is Your City? -

    Science-fiction books and movies have done much to feed our dreams about the future of cities. Flashing neon lights, digital and interactive advertisements, touch-screens and city-wide connectivity of information and networks, sky-trains and underground tubes were the stuff of fantasy. Not anymore.
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  • December 4, 2011 - Will Driverless Cars Become the New Road Rage? -

    It’s a late summer day, and I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of a BMW 3 Series at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, Calif. Sitting, not driving. When I lift my hands from the wheel at the beginning of this 2.2-mile course, the car accelerates to 75 mph almost instantly, pushing me and my passengers—BMW engineers and executives—into our leather seats. The car’s computer brain, using satellite signals to navigate the track, is in control.
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  • December 4, 2011 - Smart city evolves from concept to product -

    Amsterdam has a leading example of the smart city ideal: transportation, distribution, utilities, consumers, water sources and renewables working together to create a cleaner, greener urban utopia. They’ve been working on this concept for years, bringing in researchers, utility experts, consultants and even the common man to contribute to the cause.
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  • December 3, 2011 - Schneider Electric and Telvent Team Up for Smart Cities -

    Dubbed SmartCity, the platform combines Schneider Electric and Telvent services and targets all facets of city planning including energy and water management, transportation, building efficiency, public safety and government administration. The strategy includes collaborating with city officials to engage with developers and urban planners, private investors, vendors and service providers.
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  • December 3, 2011 - Tiramisu Bus App Now Available for Android -

    Four months after Carnegie Mellon University released an iPhone app to help riders locate their Port Authority buses, the school in Oakland built a similar app for Android smartphone users. The Android version of Tiramisu is now available for download by going to www.tiramisutransit.com…
    The app was developed by researchers in the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Accessible Public Transportation (RERC-APT), supported in part by CMU’s Traffic21 initiative.
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  • December 3, 2011 - MIT researchers developing algorithms to predict more accurately which cars are likeliest to run red lights -

    Researchers at MIT are devising algorithms for more accurately estimating driver behavior at road intersections—i.e., whether or not an oncoming car is likely to run a red light—and validating them using real traffic data.
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  • December 3, 2011 - QU Wireless Innovations Center to host international workshop on intelligent transport systems -

    The QU Wireless Innovations Center (QUWIC) at the Qatar Science Technology Park announces its official hosting of the 4th European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s Intelligent Transport Systems Technical Committee (ETSI TC ITS) workshop that will take place in the new Qatar Convention Center (QNCC) in Doha on February 7-9th, 2012.
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  • November 30, 2011 - Google’s maps go indoors with new mobile feature -

    An upgrade of Google’s mobile mapping service released Tuesday includes directions within stores, malls, airports and transit centers in the U.S. and Japan.
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  • November 29, 2011 - Self-Driving Vehicles Swarming to Future Roads -

    Influenced heavily by swarm robotics and artificial intelligence, Rattray’s omni-wheeled, self-driving Autonomos would travel in tight platoons while shifting their configurations to maintain an uninterrupted traffic flow. Microwave sensors would allow cars to travel a mere 7.8 inches apart, thus aerodynamically reducing vehicle drag and energy consumption, making tailgating actually a good thing.
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  • November 29, 2011 - Banks Stumble Along Tech Frontier -

    The main gripe about mobile payments is that the current technology doesn’t significantly improve upon the tried-and-true method of swiping a piece of plastic…
    “The lesson in all of this is that you need critical mass and you need something that works and works well,” said Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging-payments officer at MasterCard.
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  • November 29, 2011 - Feed your expiring meters by cell phone -

    In San Francisco, 45 cents soon could save $55. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency plans to launch a new service that sends drivers text alerts if their parking meters are about to expire. People also will be allowed to plug the meters remotely using their cell phones. Existing time restrictions won’t change. A 45-cent “convenience” fee will be charged for each pay-by-phone transaction. The service is voluntary.
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  • November 29, 2011 - State uses analytics to build roads faster, cheaper -

    North Carolina’s Transportation Department is using analytics software to build roads faster and for less money while minimizing environmental disruption. NCDOT is analyzing geographic data to help narrow the choices of possible road corridors and, at the same time, is able to reduce costly land surveys. The process can save $500,000 per project and shave 20 percent off the time needed to select and plan a road, according to North Carolina officials.
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  • November 29, 2011 - No Ads on Electronic Road Signs in Pennsylvania -

    To make up for a shortfall in transportation funding, the administration of former Governor Ed Rendell had applied to the federal government for permission to put paid advertisements on electronic road signs. Governor Tom Corbett’s administration determined that such signs might pose a hazard by distracting drivers, so the application was withdrawn in April.
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  • November 29, 2011 - Mobile Telephones and Other Communication Devices and Their Impact on Traffic Safety – A Review of the Literature -

    The Swedish National Road and Transportation Research Institute (VTI) has released a report that explores the use of mobile devices while operating vehicles and the impact it has on traffic safety. The report is written in English with a Swedish summary.
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  • November 29, 2011 - A Feasibility Study on Embedded Micro-Electromechanical Sensors and Systems (MEMS) for Monitoring Highway Structures -

    The Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University has released a report that explores the use of micro-electromechanical systems to monitor the health of highway structures.
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  • November 29, 2011 - 511 Travel Information Service: Development & Documentation -

    The New York State Department of Transportation has released a report that outlines the development and scope of the 511NY Travel Information Service.
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  • November 29, 2011 - FISMA 2011: Persistent Weaknesses in DOT’s Controls Challenge the Protection and Security of its Information Systems -

    The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Office of Inspector General has released a report on the results of an annual audit of DOT’s information security program and practices, as required by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002.
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  • November 29, 2011 - Travel Behavior 2011: Volume 2 -

    TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2231 consists of 15 papers that explore non-work travel behavior; applying sequence alignment methods to large activity–travel data sets; dynamic choice set generation; the impacts of information and communication technologies and virtual activities on activity and travel behavior in Cairo, Egypt; and empirical analysis of decision-making and tour formation processes.
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  • November 29, 2011 - Making Energy Efficient Streetlights a Reality -

    Pittsburgh is planning to convert its 40,000 streetlights to LEDs over the next five years. The city commissioned Carnegie Mellon’s Remaking Cities Institute (which I lead) to analyze the possible negative effects. We benchmarked best practices internationally, researched the newest LED technology, conducted field tests, interviewed stakeholders and ultimately made recommendations.
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  • November 28, 2011 - Car Safety Tech at the L.A. International Auto Show: Next Gen Safety -

    I think the most impressive vehicle safety innovations, show after show, come from Volvo. They have done an excellent job of meshing safety regulations with advanced technology to take it all a step further. They have a system in their vehicles called “city safety” which is a camera-based detection system that uses a laser-based radar to create a field of vision in front of the car to detect people. The system recognizes the difference between a person and, say, a shopping cart, and will stop the vehicle along with alerting the driver.
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  • November 28, 2011 - IEEE ITS Society Newsletter -

    Conferences
    2012 IEEE ITS Conference (ITSC12)
    Call for Papers 2012 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IVS12)
    Call for Papers 2012 IEEE International Conference on Vehicular Electronics and Safety (ICVES 2012)
    Call for Papers 2012 International Conference on ITS TelecommunicationsCall for Papers
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  • November 28, 2011 - ODOT leads the way in traffic data -

    Holiday shoppers will have several new tools to plot their travel strategy this season and more high-tech help is on the way. The Ohio Department of Transportation has installed 18 of 21 message boards planned for the Akron area. About 30 cameras of major traffic areas are working, with a total of 66 planned. A website that shows freeway speeds is already up and running.
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  • November 28, 2011 - WEBINAR Fourth Generation Wireless Infrastructure – Long Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced and Heterogenous Networks (HetNets) -

    Presenters: Dr. Eduardo Esteves, Vice President of R&D and Technology Marketing, QUALCOMM – Wednesday December 14, 2011 1p EST (click here to see more information) This is a webinar in the Technology Scan and Sssessment Webinar Series is a companion to ITS America newest report Fourth Generation Wireless Vehicle and Highway Gateways to the Cloud.
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  • November 28, 2011 - The Autonomous Electric Mail Truck of Tomorrow -

    In the future, electric mail trucks will follow postal carriers like well-trained puppies. Volkswagen, which already envisions a world where we drive super-sexy diesel hybrids that get 261 mpg, teamed up with Deutsche Post to reinvent the lowly mail truck.
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  • November 27, 2011 - Are Highways going to be Completely Automated in the Future? -

    In the future you might not have to deal with rude drivers and speeding cars because cars will be completely autonomous. Today’s congested highways have resulted in a rising number of car accidents. In Australia the number of fatalities due to car accidents has increased every year. In 2009 the road toll was 1509 people killed in Australian roads. Traditional methods of preventing car crashes have mostly relied on building better automobiles but perhaps it’s time to completely re-think the system.
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  • November 27, 2011 - Intelligent Transportation Systems for Commercial Vehicle Operations (ITS/CVO) -

    This case study shows how technology can be applied to reduce the cost of truck registration and inspection for motor carriers and federal and state agencies in case of cross-border transport. It shows that technology can help improve safety and productivity; that standards are key to success; that motor carries only participate if the system saves them money; and that Public-Private Partnerships can be used to deploy such a technology system.
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  • November 27, 2011 - MMDA to test iBus system -

    THE Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) said Thursday it will test an award winning Filipino invention designed to address endemic problems in bus transportation in urban areas like Metro Manila. MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino issued the statement after he met with Elma Arboleras, who presented her Intelligent Bus System or iBus system for the consideration of the agency’s use in addressing the problems brought by traffic congestion in the metropolis.
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  • November 23, 2011 - Free Florida 511 app makes holiday travel a little easier -

    The days before and after Thanksgiving are among the busiest of the year, and the Florida Department of Transportation knows how stressful holiday travel can be. That’s why it’s taking the time to remind Florida drivers: There’s an app for that. The Florida 511 app gives you access to maps, traffic cameras and travel times right from your smart phone.
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  • November 23, 2011 - The brains behind ?stanbul’s transporation wonder: the Metrobus -

    ?stanbul’s Metrobus network, on which hundreds of thousands of ?stanbulites travel every day, is controlled centrally from a command center that looks little like a space station. This station opened its doors for the first time ever to the press, namely to Today’s Zaman.
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  • November 23, 2011 - Phone away fines -

    Parking and Transportation Services hopes that offering commuters the chance to pay for parking with a smartphone is a smart choice. It is now possible to pay for parking through either an iPhone or Android smartphone. The combination of the new digital parking meters and the ability to pay via smartphone has reduced the number of parking violations given this year by 50 percent from last year, according to Mark Napier, the PTS associate director.
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  • November 23, 2011 - Leading the way on road to smart car revolution -

    AUSTRALIA could lead the world in the creation of new transport infrastructure, including cars that communicate with each other to avoid traffic jams and electric cars that power the grid. This is the view of American Professor Travis Waller, who has joined the University of NSW to head its new research centre for integrated transport innovation.
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  • November 23, 2011 - Electric Vehicles Have Great Potential -

    If there is one application that could someday bring M2M into every home in the country, it could be electric-vehicle charging.
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  • November 23, 2011 - Call for stringent steps to curb road crashes in UAE -

    “The ITS helps to develop safe and efficient road networks by understanding how the transportation and infrastructure master plan is integrated with ITS components,” said Al Harethi. He added that the application of ITS would reduce road accidents by 30-40 per cent yearly.
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  • November 22, 2011 - Connected Vehicle Core System Baseline Documentation -

    The Connected Vehicle Systems Engineering Research Program produced baseline documentation defining the Core System that will enable vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure, and vehicle-to- personal device communications. This documentation was developed in conjunction with interested stakeholders across the Country. The documentation provides a concept for the core system operations, and initiates a high-level design of the system defining what the system must accomplish. The documentation also identifies potential areas for new and updated standards, and identifies critical risks to system deployment.
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  • November 22, 2011 - CDOT developing smartphone traffic application -

    The Colorado Department of Transportation is developing a smartphone application to alert drivers to traffic conditions — and suggest pit stops for dining and killing time while waiting for the roads to clear…
    “What’s really unique about the app is that we hope to have more predictive information on it,” Stegman said. “In the past we’ve just been able to show you what’s going on real time.
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  • November 22, 2011 - Smartphones Shift Conventional Walking Patterns -

    Smartphones may be shifting conventional walking patterns by encouraging people to move outside their comfort zones. “Smartphones facilitate exploration,” said research scientist Andrew Mondschien. “They make it easier to explore, they make people more comfortable in their environments because they don’t feel like they’re going to be lost,” and decrease fear of crime, adding a sense of security.
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  • November 22, 2011 - Toyota to show autonomous Prius hybrid and home energy charging station at Tokyo Motor Show -

    One of the more interesting areas is certain to be the Toyota Smart Mobility Park exhibit which will feature the Toyota AVOS (Automatic Vehicle Operation System), a self-driving version of the Prius. Back-seat test drives will be available at the show, demonstrating first hand how the Prius can avoid obstacles, be summoned from a parking garage and park itself.
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  • November 22, 2011 - CCITT Newsletter: Fall 2011 -

    The Center for the Commercialization of Innovative Transportation Technologies, part of the Northwestern University Transportation Center, has released the latest version of its periodic newsletter that highlights research projects that push existing research outcomes closer to the point of adoption and implementation by public and private operators and users of all types in the transportation industry.

  • November 22, 2011 - Safety Compass Newsletter: Fall 2011 -

    The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released the latest issue of its Safety Compass newsletter. The newsletter covers program delivery, best practices, research, training, regulations, and legislation designed to help improve and establish a more productive national and local safety program.
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  • November 22, 2011 - 10th National Conference on Access Management* -

    TRB is cosponsoring the 10th National Conference on Access Management on July 17-19, 2012, in Dallas, Texas. The conference will draw together engineers, planners, consultants, land developers, and academics from across all fields of highway planning, design, operations, and engineering.
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  • November 22, 2011 - 20th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory* -

    TRB is cosponsoring the 20th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory on July 17-19, 2013, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The symposium will deal with scientific and operational aspects of transportation and traffic, spanning all modes of transport, and covering freight as well as private and public transport. Individuals or groups wishing to present at the symposium must submit an abstract by January 15, 2012.
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  • November 21, 2011 - Technology assists drivers but shouldn’t take over -

    Aaron Steinfeld works at the Quality of Life Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He is project lead on Safe Driving, a cluster of projects that develop intelligent vehicle technology for the elderly and disabled. One of these is Virtual Valet, a semi-autonomous parking system that allows drivers to get out of their vehicle and use video streaming on their smartphone to supervise the car as it parks itself. The vehicle keeps track of where it is, using lasers, cameras and inertial sensors.
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  • November 21, 2011 - Chicago, Philadelphia sign up for next-gen transit payment systems -

    Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s transit authority, SEPTA, on Thursday awarded Cubic rival ACS Transport Solutions a $129.5 million contract to deploy an open standards system that allows for bank cards as well as contact-less “smart cards” in its bus, subway, trolley and regional rail systems, doing away with the tokens, passes, tickets and cash used today.
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  • November 21, 2011 - Grant to give University of Utah transit buses of the future -

    A new federal grant aims to make the University of Utah home to first-in-the-nation transit buses of the future — electric shuttles that recharge without wires from underground pads while they wait for passengers.
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  • November 21, 2011 - Harnessing Residents’ Electronic Devices Will Yield Truly Smart Cities -

    The best way to harness a city’s potential for creativity and innovation is to jack people into the network and get out of the way.
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  • November 21, 2011 - New technology could transform road safety -

    China is now working on an Internet of cars (IoC), to increase the amount of immediate information about road conditions. It could offer many benefits to transport, and could also help cut down on accidents.
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  • November 21, 2011 - GE going big with Bay Area software initiative -

    Ruh, formerly vice president of systems technology at Cisco Systems, said much of the center’s focus will be on the company’s energy, health care, aviation and transportation customers and divisions…
    “Our goal is to develop a new generation of intelligent systems that can predict and respond to changes,” he said, likening the changes to an “Internet industrial revolution.” “As we do this, GE will look to be recognized as a great software company,” he said.
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  • November 21, 2011 - Automakers need to add more technology to stay on the minds of millennials, panelists agree -

    Automakers have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the millennial generation (those who were born between 1980 and 2000). Research indicates that today’s young people are more interested in handheld devices like the iPod and the iPhone than cars. Panelists at the first-ever Society of Automotive Analysts’ (SAA) Technology Outlook Conference said that carmakers will have to make it possible for millennials to update their social media pages from their vehicles. The challenge is that automakers need to add technology, but do it in a way that reduces driver distraction.
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  • November 21, 2011 - How cellphone signals will help York region ease gridlock -

    Traffic jams are not getting better, but they are getting smarter, thanks to the people stuck inside them. In January, the Regional Municipality of York is set to begin using a real-time traffic monitoring system built around cellphones.
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  • November 17, 2011 - NSF RFP – Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) -

    The NSF Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program is an umbrella for two complementary subprograms: one of which involves an earlier stage that focuses on building innovation capacity and the other involves a later stage that focuses on the acceleration of innovative research.
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  • November 17, 2011 - National Spotlight on Maricopa County Test Site for High-Tech Traffic Management Prototype -

    Maricopa County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) engineers and University of Arizona researchers are on the national forefront developing a system that will radically lower these statistics and make signalized intersections safer nationwide for emergency responders and the general public, according to Faisal Saleem, MCDOT ITS engineer, and UA Systems and Industrial Engineering researcher, Dr. Larry Head.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Carnegie Mellon University Students Win Global Cybersecurity Contests -

    In the last four weeks, the CMU CTF team has won two prestigious contests. On Oct. 24 they won the SecuInside CTF contest in South Korea, winning $30,000. Last week, they entered two teams at the Polytechnic Institute of New York (NYU-Poly) CSAW contest and took first- and second-place, netting another $1,750.
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  • November 17, 2011 - ITS Vienna 2012: Paper submission open -

    The Call for Papers for the 19th World Congress for Intelligent Transport Systems opened on 17 October 2011. We invite ITS experts to submit a technical/scientific paper or Special Interest Session for presentation at ITS Vienna 2012. We also strongly encourage women in ITS to hand in their contributions. The proposals must be received by Friday 13 January 2012.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Edmonton’s Cutting Edge Traffic Management – Video -

    The task was two-fold: create a video promoting Edmonton to an international audience of thousands, while at the same time explaining the most cutting-edge aspect of the City’s Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), to play repeatedly on a big screen at the 2011 ITS World Congress held in Orlando, Florida in September 2011.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Intelligent technologies to reduce accidents -

    Most of the traffic accidents caused due to driver error can be eliminated if existing intelligent transportation technologies are implemented in vehicles and roads, according to experts at Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
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  • November 17, 2011 - A Request for Proposals Released for the Multi-Modal Intelligent Traffic Signal System Project -

    The Cooperative Transportation Systems Pooled Fund Study, a group of 11 state and local transportation agencies and FHWA, is focused on research and application development to prepare agencies for the deployment of connected vehicle technology.
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  • November 17, 2011 - 4 Cities Using Tech to Alleviate Traffic -

    We’ve already shown you how apps and tools can make parking easier, but what about the actual act of driving? Perhaps unbeknownst to you, there’s a lot of tech in your city’s streets and traffic lights that make things run more smoothly. And so despite a growing population and a growing number of cars on the road, gas-guzzling congestion and dirty emissions just might cede, thanks to technology that’s improving traffic flow management.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Google X labs plan robot researchers to map the future -

    Google could release a fleet of autonomous data collection robots, supplanting its current Google Street View cars insiders suggest, using robotics and AI research from the search giant’s mysterious Google X incubator labs. The high-tech exploratory ‘bots – which would build on Google’s self-driving cars – are one of several outlandish projects currently underway among the company’s more prophetic engineers and developers, according to an NY Times piece on the clandestine R&D facility.
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  • November 17, 2011 - CARE ABOUT OUR AIR? JOIN THE BREATHE PROJECT! -

    Other initiatives will include a $287,000 study to determine the feasibility of converting Port Authority buses to natural gas fuel; a $120,000 pilot project by Carnegie Mellon University in East Liberty that will develop a light signal system that aids traffic flow; a large scale planting program to add 20,000 trees to city streets in the next three years; an analysis of the economic benefits of air quality improvements; and a “Mayors Summit” meeting to gather information from other cities that have successfully reduced air pollution.
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  • November 17, 2011 - T3 Webinar – Overview Introduction to Cyber Security Issues for Transportation -

    Date: December 7, 2011
    Time: 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM ET
    Cost: All T3 webinars are free of charge
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  • November 17, 2011 - The Clever Devices platform offers many operational and customer benefits, including automatic bus stop announcements, vehicle condition monitoring, p -

    The Clever Devices platform offers many operational and customer benefits, including automatic bus stop announcements, vehicle condition monitoring, passenger counting, and real-time location reporting. The technology, together with an upcoming procurement for a new radio system, will ultimately enable NJ Transit to deliver real-time bus location and arrival information to any web-enabled device, letting customers know when their bus is expected to arrive at their stop.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Field Testing and Evaluation of a Wireless-Based Transit Signal Priority System -

    The University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies has released a report that explores the effectiveness of a wireless-based transit signal priority strategy based upon bus schedule adherence, location and speed.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Use and Deployment of Mobile Device Technology for Real-Time Transit Information -

    TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 91: Use and Deployment of Mobile Device Technology for Real-Time Transit Information examines the use and deployment of real-time transit information on mobile devices.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Travel Behavior 2011: Volume 1 -

    TRB’s Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2230 consists of 15 papers that explores the role of social networks in start time and duration of activities, choices related to bicycle commuting, route choice behavior, continuous activity planning for continuous traffic simulation, large-scale single-day survey samples, and parametric hazard functions.
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  • November 17, 2011 - Announcement of FY 2012 TCRP Projects for Potential Contractors -

    The research projects to be undertaken by TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) as part of its Fiscal Year 2012 activities have been identified and are now available for review. Requests for Proposals related to the individual projects are expected to be issued starting in March 2012.
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  • November 14, 2011 - Transforming the Twin Cities into a robotics hub (w/ video) -

    People always ask robotics expert Matt Mason of Carnegie Mellon University, “When is a robot going to change my life?” “I say, ‘It already has,’ ” he said. Robotic manufacturing is commonplace in the auto industry, Mason points out, and now you can buy cars that brake for you in emergencies, stay in the lane automatically or even park themselves. But few people consider those cars “robots.” A robot car may not be that far off. In an episode that sounds like science fiction, Google revealed in May that it had sent seven self-driving cars a combined total of more than 140,000 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles without anyone noticing.
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  • November 14, 2011 - MIT Study Suggests “Smart” Safety Systems May Lead to “Stupid” Accidents -

    Active safety systems are becoming more and more common in modern cars. Features such as lane departure warning or blind spot information systems are meant to let the car’s onboard “clever” electronics help you avoid dangerous situations – and in extreme cases, take over automatically apply full force to the braking system. However, a recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on driver distraction suggests that there can be too much of a good thing, even in safety-related systems.
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  • November 14, 2011 - Public transport info on Google Maps to ease travel in Dubai -

    DUBAI: Information on Dubai’s integrated mass transport network comprising the Metro, public buses, water bus and water taxi is now fully uploaded on digital Google Maps. This service enables users of various types of public transport in Dubai Emirate to plan their daily travels in a smooth and easy manner at any time they wish, through the Google Maps’ portal (www.maps.google.com) downloadable on their computers or smart phones.
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  • November 14, 2011 - Nokia Indoor Positioning Technology May Find Lost Car Keys -

    The technology can pinpoint objects with attached transmitters within a 20-centimeter (7.9-inch) range, Fabio Belloni, Principal Researcher at the Nokia Research Center, said today. It could also be used to help travelers find gates in airports and locate merchandise in stores, he said.
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  • November 14, 2011 - The Car is the 3rd Fastest Growing Wireless Gadget -

    The race we are now seeing to connect smartphones to car radios is just an interim step, say analysts. The real goal is building 3 or 4G right into the radio, without the need of a connected smartphone. And this shift will happen so quickly that in 3-4 years ALL cars will offer embedded wireless, says AT&T’s Glenn Lurie.
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    Link

  • November 14, 2011 - This robot guide dog takes the blind for a walk -

    Most elderly or disabled people rely upon wheelchairs, Seeing Eye dogs and nursing assistants to get them through the day. Soon they may also get a robotic walker that channels the sensing abilities of a friendly guide dog to navigate rooms, streets and even stairs.
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  • November 14, 2011 - Android radar app aims to prevent collisions -

    The app allows the phone to map objects in front of the driver in real time, calculating the user’s current speed using native sensors. As the vehicle approaches danger, an audio-visual warning pops up to warn the driver of a possible collision, allowing them to brake in time.
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  • November 14, 2011 - New technologies could prevent wrong-way drivers -

    MILWAUKEE – It happens more often than you think. Drivers take a wrong turn and end up driving the wrong-way on the highway. The most recent case ended with two people killed.
    Can wrong-way driving be prevented? Wrong-way sensors have worked in North Texas.
    “We had a 44% percent reduction in wrong-way crashes and a 100% reduction in fatal wrong way crashes,” said Marty Leje of the North Texas Toll Authority.
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  • November 14, 2011 - ‘Waze’ helps Silicon Valley commuters fight traffic -

    Getting around town in heavy traffic is almost fun if you’re using a crowd-sourced traffic app called Waze. The app, which brings social networking to commuting, has taken off in the Bay Area since its launch here two years ago. Last month, it introduced a redesigned interface.
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  • November 14, 2011 - City testing traffic tracker website -

    The Chicago Department of Transportation is building a new website that offers an array of traffic information about 300 miles of arterial streets citywide. A test version of the Chicago Traffic Tracker map is at chicagotraffictracker.com.
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  • November 14, 2011 - Peer-to-peer car sharing gains investors, users -

    USA Today
    Thousands of drivers are borrowing cars from newfound friends for an hourly fee — and companies, both big and small, want in on the trend.
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  • November 14, 2011 - Transportation and economic development: Why Smarter Transport is good for jobs and growth -

    IBM Institute Study
    Transport contributes directly to economic activity and employment through bus, rail, road, air and maritime services. It also has a large indirect impact via all the other sectors and activities in the economy that depend on and use these various modes of transport to move people and goods around, nationally and internationally, in an efficient and safe manner.
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  • November 14, 2011 - Intelligent Transportation Systems: Your Road to the Future -Video -

    A new video produced by the University of Minnesota ITS Institute offers a snapshot of the rewarding career opportunities in the field of transportation technology, or intelligent transportation systems (ITS).
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  • November 14, 2011 - ITS America Summary of the Senate Transportation Reauthorization Bill -

    The bipartisan proposal would maintain overall surface transportation funding at current levels plus inflation (roughly $109 billion) over the two-year timeframe covered by the bill. However, the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Baucus, must still identify the additional $12 billion needed to fully fund the bill, and the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Commerce Committee must still provide transit, safety, and freight provisions.
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  • November 10, 2011 - Home / Saudi Arabia / Makkah to become smart city in 6 years, says governor Makkah to become smart city in 6 years, says governor -

    “We will employ all kinds of modern technology to make Makkah smarter than any other smart city,” Prince Khaled told a press conference in Mina on Tuesday, the penultimate day of Haj 2011.
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  • November 10, 2011 - FTA initiative will connect America’s veterans and their families to the opportunities they deserve -

    These projects will make it possible for veterans to check bus and van schedules online or over the phone and to schedule rides with vanpools or private transportation companies. Better coordination means better service, for everyone.
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  • November 10, 2011 - Honda’s ASIMO Robot Gets Smarter, More Autonomous -

    Perhaps even more importantly, Honda’s little droid has been upgraded in the AI department as well, enabling it to (autonomously) respond to movement and surrounding situations. It can recognize a face or a voice — even when multiple people are speaking simultaneously — and react to the intention of the other party. It can also predict the direction a person will walk within a few seconds, and take an alternate path to avoid collision.
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  • November 10, 2011 - Kia Rio restyled, Soul refreshed, and both offer stop-start option -

    Although Rio and Accent share a platform, there are technical differences. Kia is the first mainstream-priced car line in the U.S. (BMW and Porsche the higher-end exceptions) to offer an idle stop-start system on a 12-V car, making it available as a $400 option on the Rio ordered with a “convenience package.”
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  • November 10, 2011 - Midstate firm to design $8M La. highway-incident system -

    East Pennsboro Township-based Gannett Fleming Inc. has been chosen as the lead engineer of an $8 million design-build transportation project for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
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  • November 10, 2011 - City modernizing traffic controls -

    Pittsburgh – The city’s goals are not only to increase public safety, but to improve traffic flow and ease congestion. Workers will be able to operate traffic lights remotely, so timing can be changed in advance of sporting events or adjusted on the fly if accidents, construction, snow storms or other factors warrant.
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  • November 10, 2011 - New mobility -

    Last week I began a new series of columns on the transportation challenges of Metro Manila, proposing a change of paradigm from understanding our current problem to be one from traffic to a transportation, or better still a mobility, perspective.
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  • November 10, 2011 - NYC DOT to Roll Out Smart Parking Tech in 2012 -

    New York City is moving forward with plans to use sensors to improve parking management, along the lines of San Francisco’s pioneering SFPark system. The program will be unveiled next year, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced at a conference on transportation and technology held last Friday at Columbia University.
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  • November 10, 2011 - KT, Cisco Working on Smart Cities -

    Korean telecommunications giant KT will partner Cisco, the global communications equipment and systems provider, to realize technologically-advanced metropolitan environments as seen in science-fiction movies…
    The smart city service includes building up IT infrastructure within an urban center and setting up an integrated control center, as well as managing and controlling transportation, safety, electricity, firefighting, and public facilities through IT.
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  • November 9, 2011 - Volpe Highlights: October 2011 -

    The U.S. Research and Innovative Technology Administration’s Volpe National Transportation Systems Center has released the latest issue of its monthly newsletter that highlights work taking place at the center as well as information of interest to the transportation research community.
    More>>Link

  • November 9, 2011 - SHRP 2 Project Brief: Improving Travel Time Reliability -

    TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has released a project brief that highlights new tools being developed through SHRP 2’s Reliability focus area to improve reliable travel times by helping to change business processes to support travel time reliability, monitor travel time reliability and usefully preserve the data, evolve the institutional arrangements of agencies, improve traffic incident scene management, and improve overall systems operations and management.
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  • November 9, 2011 - A SHRP 2 Program Update for 2011: Can You See Us Now? -

    TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has released a project brief that provides a snapshot of SHRP 2 progress. Since it’s authorization in 2005 50 pilot tests and field demonstrations have been undertaken in 24 states, 35 documents are published, data are being collected from nearly 1000 cars in the naturalistic driving study, and five invitational work sessions have been held to help prepare for implementation of SHRP 2 products.
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  • November 9, 2011 - Smart Rivers 2011: Conference Presentations Available -

    Presentations made during the Smart Rivers 2011 Conference in September 2011 in New Orleans, Louisiana are available for download. The conference, which was cosponsored by TRB, explored topics such as “smart” service design and innovation, system/technology, public policy/finance, environmental management, flood protection/mitigation, port and landside economic development, and more.
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  • November 8, 2011 - Call for Papers THE INTELLIGENT VEHICLES SYMPOSIUM -

    THE INTELLIGENT VEHICLES SYMPOSIUM (IV’12) is the premier annual forum sponsored by the IEEE INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS SOCIETY (ITSS). Researchers, academicians, practitioners, and students from universities, industry, and government agencies are invited to discuss research and applications for Intelligent Vehicles and Vehicle-Infrastructure Cooperation.
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  • November 8, 2011 - County Intelligent Transportation System earns award -

    Traffic engineer Keith Bryant brought home the ITS Florida’s Outstanding Achievement Award, given for leadership and innovations toward advancing ITS and incident management, and Siemens Outstanding ITS Deployment Award in recognition of outstanding and exemplary vision and innovation in the design and implementation of ITS.
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  • November 8, 2011 - Prof. Allen Biehler, Former Secretary of PA DOT to talk about Smart Growth -

    Allen Biehler, the former Secretary of PA DOT will talk with Paula and Becca about his smart Transportation Initiatives in Pennsylvania and nationwide. Listen at WRCT.org or at 88.3 fm from 5-5:30 pm on Thursday 11/7/2011
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  • November 8, 2011 - Eaton Corporation to Install 45 EV Charging Stations along Pennsylvania Interstate -

    Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation today announced the deployment of 45 new electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along Interstate 376, a major auxiliary route of the Pennsylvania Interstate Highway System, made possible by a $238,467 Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities (PRCC) grant received from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and a private investment of approximately $400,000, for the development of EV infrastructure in the state.
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  • November 8, 2011 - Request For Information (RFI) “Every Day Counts Innovation Initiatives” -

    The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) hereby requests information from all sources regarding innovations that have the potential to transform the way we do business by shortening project delivery, enhancing the safety of our roadways, and protecting the environment. The purpose of this RFI is to hear from our state, local, and industry partners regarding ideas for accelerated deployment of proven processes or technologies that have the potential to provide efficiencies at all levels of the transportation system.
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  • November 8, 2011 - New Traffic Cameras Offer On-line View of Reno Freeway Travel Conditions -

    More than 20 cameras stationed along Interstate 80 and U.S. 395 through the heart of Reno provide nearly up-to-the-second views of travel conditions. To view, users simply log onto www.nevadadot.com and select “Traffic Cameras” under traveler information.
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  • November 4, 2011 - U of M Start-Up Hopes to Reduce Traffic Congestion -

    The traffic management system can calculate the length of vehicle queues at intersections with traffic signals, according to a university news release. The system, which includes a device that can be installed inside controller cabinets at street corners, collects data such as vehicle queue length—each time the light is red—and the time it takes to get through the intersection. It then transmits the information to a server in real-time using an Ethernet connection.
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  • November 4, 2011 - Can IT Make Cities Better? -

    The aim of Cisco’s $12 million Clinton Global Initiative investment was to “demonstrate how to reduce carbon emissions by introducing fundamental improvements in the efficiency of urban infrastructure through information and communications technology (ICT).”
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  • November 4, 2011 - Supreme Court set to hear landmark GPS tracking case -

    “If the Supreme Court were to rule against warrants for GPS tracking, the state of Pennsylvania could, for example, decide tomorrow that all license plates would be issued with a GPS monitor,” warned Norman Sadeh, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, in a statement of the university’s home page.
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  • November 3, 2011 - Awards for Technology Moving People and Goods Faster, Safer, Cleaner -

    Best New Innovative Products, Services, or Applications
    This award recognizes “innovative projects that provide transportation solutions to users in the areas of public safety, security, surface transportation efficiency and the reduction of carbon emissions.

    1st: Houston TranStar for “Cost Effective Arterial Network Travel Times”

    2nd: Carnegie Mellon University’s “Tiramisu Transit”

    3rd: Florida Department of Transportation District 4 “Maintenance Inventory Management System”

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  • November 3, 2011 - ITS America’s 22nd Annual Meeting & Exposition – call for papers -

    Gaylord National Convention Center – National Harbor, Maryland
    May 21 – May 23, 2012 Deadline for Submission is December 1, 2011
    The ITS America Annual Meeting Program Committee is proud to announce a change in the process of submitting a topic for presentation at the ITS America Annual Meeting. New this year, we will augment our traditional ‘Call for Papers’ approach with presentation-only submissions.
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  • November 2, 2011 - Smartphone’s Next Role: Reducing Highway Fatalities -

    Automotive researchers have been earnestly studying the V2V idea for years, but the cellphone aspect of it is new. Grimm demonstrated the smartphone technology at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Orlando on October 17.”Someone could start up their V2V application on the phone and put it in a pocket or purse, while it decides if it needs to send warning to other vehicles in the area,” Grimm said. “All of that would be seamlessly communicated over a wireless link through your vehicle’s audio system.”
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  • November 2, 2011 - Traffic cameras give live view of conditions on I-80, 395 through Reno -

    More than 20 cameras have been installed, part of NDOT’s statewide network of Intelligent Transportation Systems, which includes freeway digital message signs, Highway Advisory Radio, freeway ramp meters and more than 100 Las Vegas traffic cameras hosted in partnership with local cities and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.
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  • November 1, 2011 - ITS and Locational Privacy: Suggestions for Peaceful Coexistence -

    The Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota has released a report that reviews from legal and political perspectives several cases where implementation of transportation technologies has raised concerns about civil liberties.
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  • November 1, 2011 - DARPA to Engage Non-Traditional Participants in Adaptive Vehicle Make Program -

    With the goal of significantly reducing the timeline and increasing the efficiency of the development and build process for complex defense systems, DARPA is pioneering new methods for correct-by-construction fab-less design and a digitally programmable foundry-like manufacturing capability to break the traditional systems engineering paradigm and replace it with one that eliminates multiple iterations of the design-build-test-redesign cycle.
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  • November 1, 2011 - PennDOT electronic message boards to warn drivers of trouble -

    The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is adding three electronic message boards this week to its expanding network of “intelligent transportation” infrastructure, all intended to help drivers avoid traffic congestion.
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  • October 31, 2011 - Talking Transit -

    Improving transportation infrastructure means more than building roads and bridges. Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) use technology to maximize the capacity of existing highway and transit infrastructure to improve traffic flow, decrease delays, and give riders up–to-the-minute system information for a relatively low cost. At a 9:1 cost benefit ratio, ITS have a greater return when compared to traditional transportation projects, which have a benefit-cost ratio of 2.7:1.
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  • October 31, 2011 - Now Accepting Papers! -

    The Industry Studies Association is now accepting papers for the 2012 Conference. If you are interested in submitting a paper or an organized session, please visit our Abstract Submission page. Deadline for submission is December 12, 2011.
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  • October 31, 2011 - ODOT crews get ready for winter with new technology -

    ODOT’s Intelligent Transportation System or ITS allows viewers to see any one of 18 message boards and more than 60 cameras aimed at Interstates 77 and 76, U.S. Routes 62, 30 and 224 and state Route 8 in the Canton and Akron areas.
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  • October 31, 2011 - Despite warnings, Pa. Senate votes to expand red-light camera program -

    State and local governments should be wary of red-light camera systems because they can be used primarily as revenue schemes, not safety devices, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said Thursday. The report was issued as Pennsylvania considers expanding its red-light camera program beyond Philadelphia amid questions about the program’s effectiveness here. A bill to allow 19 smaller Pennsylvania cities to install red-light cameras passed the state Senate on Tuesday.
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  • October 31, 2011 - Could wireless networking in vehicles be the answer to gridlocked roads? -

    A major transport project is investigating introducing wireless networking to vehicles as a way of drastically reducing congestion and the environmental impact of traffic. Experts at Nottingham Trent University are involved in the €3m European project, which is looking at incorporating ad-hoc wireless technology to vehicles to enable them to automatically gather traffic information and relay it to other commuters.
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  • October 30, 2011 - Corbett asks Legislature for bill that bans texting while driving Read more: Corbett asks Legislature for bill that bans texting while driving -

    HARRISBURG — After signing a bill adding restrictions for teen drivers, Gov. Tom Corbett on Tuesday took the unusual step of asking the Legislature to send him a bill to ban texting while driving.
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  • October 26, 2011 - Technology’s Role In Moving People & Goods Quicker, Safer, Cleaner -

    Making transportation safer, efficient and cleaner was the focus of a recent conference attended by about 8,000 public and private sector transportation experts from more than 65 countries: the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) World Congress.
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  • October 26, 2011 - MTA app due by year’s end will let riders keep tabs on buses -

    The $6.9 million pilot program will allow straphangers to access information from the bus stop, their home, office or anywhere they carry their smart phones to get up-to-the minute information on when that (insert adjective here) bus is going to arrive.
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  • October 26, 2011 - Leadership Fellows Program -

    Great transportation job opportunity for upcoming graduates.
    The Port Authority’s Leadership Fellows Program is a distinguished program for leadership and public service in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan region. This two-year, fast-track, rotational program offers Port Authority Fellows invaluable on-the-job experience in planning, financial and facility operations functions. Each assignment is designed to build a strong foundation of business acumen and knowledge of Port Authority operations…
    The application period for the 2012 Leadership Fellows Program will open on Monday, September 19, 2011 and close on Monday, November 28, 2011.
    More>>Link

  • October 26, 2011 - mo: Flexible Bike Share and Urban Mobility System -

    The mo system, at it’s heart, is a fully integrated share model which connects existing public transportation options with rental vehicles: bicycle and cargo bikes, electric bikes and cars. The fleet is spontaneously accessible allowing citizens to transport bulky goods or speed off for a quick breath of country air. A smart phone app allows users to book a vehicle, use location-based services to locate a hub, organize group meetings and access user information.
    More>>Link

  • October 26, 2011 - What Is Your Driving Style? -

    The U.K.-based telematics supplier provides the Quartix vehicle-tracking system, which uses GPS satellites to allow operators to locate vehicles in realtime from any PC, which ensures position and vehicle-log data are constantly updated…
    This technology will allow operators to track driving style. If behavior is spotted, a driver can be required to adopt a more fuel-efficient, economical driving style. The system is not linked to the can bus—meaning there are no vehicle-manufacturer warranty issues, and driving style can be determined across different vehicle types.
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  • October 26, 2011 - Single chip makes light work of image analysis -

    Because the single-chip solution can be integrated into HD Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, it could be used in a variety of intelligent transportation applications to detect accidents, count vehicles, or stopped traffic and vehicles moving in the wrong direction.
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  • October 26, 2011 - IBM Tackles ‘Big Data’ With New Software -

    IBM has announced new software to deliver “big data” analytics to users on a variety of devices and platforms. At its Information on Demand (IoD) 2011 conference in Las Vegas on Oct. 24, IBM unveiled new offerings that span a wide variety of big data and business analytics technologies across multiple platforms from mobile devices to the data center to IBM’s SmartCloud.
    More>>

    Link

  • October 26, 2011 - Singapore awards national NFC infrastructure contract -

    Singapore’s IDA has awarded the contract for a national NFC infrastructure to a consortium including mobile network operator StarHub, DBS Bank, public transportation card issuer EZ-Link and NFC technology provider Gemalto. Commercial services are due to go live in mid-2012.
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  • October 26, 2011 - Daimler’s Car2Go Car Share Company Plans Two-Continent Expansion -

    Car2go will launch in San Diego next week, and just a few days ago, Daimler announced a a partnership with a European car rental car company to reach 40 to 50 cities. The companies did not set a timeline for the expansion in the release. The one-way car sharing company works a little differently than its more well known rivals like ZipCar. Created in 2008, Daimler it has 1,100 vehicles in the four programs nationwide. By comparison, ZipCar has 2,100 vehicles just in the New York City area alone.
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  • October 26, 2011 - JTA names date for e-payment system, STAR smart card -

    The Jacksonville Transportation Authority said it will launch a new electronic payment system and the STAR “Simply Tap and Ride” smart payment card on Jan. 30, 2012.
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  • October 26, 2011 - Pa. House and Senate still at odds on distracted-driving bills -

    Notably absent from the calendar is finalized legislation that would ban texting while driving, something more than 30 states have enacted and which has overwhelming public support in Pennsylvania – even from cell-phone providers.
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  • October 25, 2011 - With BMW ConnectedRide, Bikers Will Never Ride Alone -

    Adapting technology they’ve developed in the automotive realm, BMW is now testing ConnectedRide, an intelligent transportation system that for the first time integrates motorcycles into a vehicle-to-vehicle communication network. Not only does the technology alert drivers that a motorcycle might be in their blind spot or approaching an intersection, but it can also “see” around blind corners and alert riders to inclement weather or road obstacles up ahead.
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  • October 25, 2011 - ITS road system aims to help ease Yellowhead congestion -

    EDMONTON — A new traffic monitoring system that has never been tried in North America aims to reduce drivers’ troubles on Yellowhead Trail…
    Sensors embedded in the roadway will record the volume and speed of vehicles that pass overhead. They will determine exactly how many people are on the road and how well traffic is flowing…
    The software runs the sensor input through its program and then sends its results to tools called Adaptive Signal Controllers that will cycle the traffic lights at various intersections to maintain the best possible traffic flow.
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  • October 25, 2011 - Winning signage employs digital technology to gauge drive time -

    You may not know it, but your cell phone is part of the electronic wizardry helping you and other motorists gauge how long it will take you to reach your destination.Drivers headed west on Chandler Boulevard near Interstate 10 pass under digital overhead signs that have the ability to pick up signals emanating from an assortment of Bluetooth-enabled devices.
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  • October 25, 2011 - National Park Foundation 2012 Transportation Scholars Program -

    The Transportation Scholar program gives National Park sites the opportunity to receive expert assistance from transportation professionals on projects such as transportation planning, alternative transportation, analysis, coordination with local communities, environmental and traffic studies, and other transportation related tasks. This program is in partnership with the National Park Foundation, National Park Service, Eno Transportation Foundation, Federal Highway Administration, and the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit in Parks Technical Assistance Center.
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  • October 25, 2011 - San Francisco’s City CarShare Celebrates 10 Years -

    Secretary LaHood on Carsharing
    When it comes to transportation, people want options. Everywhere I go, I hear the same message. Many Americans love their cars, but still prefer to ride transit for certain trips. Others are committed transit riders, but keep a car around for when they need to get somewhere that lacks transit access. Still others simply can’t afford to own a car, but like the freedom cars offer.
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  • October 25, 2011 - IBM opens Smarter Cities Challenge for entries -

    IBM has opened the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant program to new applications for 2012. The three-year, 100-city, $50 million grant Smart Cities Challenge program sees IBM’s top technical experts and consultants provide actionable advice to urban centres.

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  • October 25, 2011 - How Vehicle Automation Will Cut Fuel Consumption -

    Several automakers are developing technology to let cars drive themselves, mainly as a way to make driving more convenient and improve safety. But it could also significantly reduce gasoline consumption, says Nady Boules, the director of GM’s Electrical and Controls Integration Lab…
    Automakers have been working on vehicle automation for decades, but the work recently got a boost from a DARPA-sponsored contest to develop vehicles that can navigate a simulated urban environment on their own. A team that included GM and Carnegie Mellon University won that contest.
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  • October 25, 2011 - An EBay For Parking Spots -

    What is a parking spot worth?
    A small fortune, nothing, and everything in between. It all depends on the time of the day and how desperate you happen to be at the moment, according to Zia Yusuf, president and CEO of Streetline, which has created a system for tracking, and ultimately auctioning, open parking spaces in urban centers.
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  • October 25, 2011 - ITS World Congress showcases game-changing, job-creating technologies -

    Secretary LaHood at ITS World Congress
    This is the world of Intelligent Transportation Systems, and, based on what I saw at last week’s ITS World Congress in Orlando, that world is just around the corner. I’m excited about ITS technology for two important reasons: safety and jobs.
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  • October 25, 2011 - NHI Webinar Regional Concept for Transportation Operations: Practitioner Experiences -

    A regional concept for transportation operations (RCTO) is a management tool that assists in planning and implementing management and operations strategies in a collaborative and sustained manner. Several regions in the U.S. have developed RCTOs to advance regional initiatives such as traffic incident management, traveler information, and traffic signal programs.
    More

  • October 22, 2011 - U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Says Intelligent Transportation’s Safety Technology will Put People Back to Work -

    Today in Orlando, FL, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood addressed delegates at the 18th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, boldly speaking of the importance of putting Americans back to work by rebuilding the nation’s transportation infrastructure and implementing intelligent transportation. Noting that many of the country’s roads and bridges are in need of refurbishing, LaHood said “Our transportation systems are overburdened and fast becoming obsolete.”
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  • October 22, 2011 - An Honor for Minnesota’s Smart Roads -

    That was underscored this month when the state Department of Transportation received a “Smart Solution Spotlight” award from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America for innovations ranging from real-time electronic freeway traffic advisories to vehicle detection devices that help drivers cross rural highways more safely.
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  • October 22, 2011 - Users say I-GO offers convenient, inexpensive alternative to car ownership -

    It was the first partnership between a public transit agency and a car sharing service in the U.S.
    The costs of auto ownership – monthly payments, gas, insurance, maintenance and parking – is expensive. Chicagoans who participate in car sharing can generate savings as much as $5,000 a year in reduced transportation costs.
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  • October 22, 2011 - State Transportation Statistics 2010 -

    The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), today released State Transportation Statistics 2010 (STS) – a web-only reference guide to transportation data by state.
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  • October 22, 2011 - Microsoft turns walls, cars and even your hand into a touchscreen -

    Applications could include anything that we currently use a computer for – checking email, surfing the web or possibly talking to friends on Skype. Currently the camera and the laser are rather chunky but Microsoft and a team from the Carnegie Mellon University, which developed OmniTouch together, say it could one day be ‘the size of a matchbox and as easy to wear as a pendant or a watch’.
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  • October 22, 2011 - Tiramisu Cited by Intelligent Transportation Society of America -

    Tiramisu Transit, an iPhone app developed by Carnegie Mellon that uses crowdsourcing to help transit riders know when their bus will arrive, won second place in the Best New Innovative Products, Services, or Applications category of the 2011 Best of ITS Awards.
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  • October 22, 2011 - IBM brings intelligent operations to improve services to citizens -

    The Intelligent Operations Center is designed to optimize the operational efficiencies of a city and provide a unified view of all city agencies including energy, public safety, transportation, and water.
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  • October 20, 2011 - SAE 2012 WORLD CONGRESS -

    The Essential Automotive Technology Event
    April 24-26, 2012 Cobo Center, Detroit, Michigan, USA
    The SAE 2012 World Congress theme, Get Connected, represents the new and diverse connections that will drive significant advancements in the auto industry of tomorrow.
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  • October 20, 2011 - 90 Percent of Traffic Accidents Can be Eliminated: IEEE -

    Experts at IEEE insist that about every traffic accident could be eliminated if existing intelligent transportation technologies such as in-vehicle machine vision and sensors to detect drowsy drivers were implemented in our vehicles and roads.
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  • October 20, 2011 - NJ Transit partners with Google Wallet for ‘tap and pay’ option -

    NJ Transit is the first public transportation agency to partner with Google Wallet, allowing customers to wave their smart phones in front of a sensor to pay and sparing them the hassle of fishing for cash or credit cards.
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  • October 20, 2011 - Ford vehicles will read you text messages while you drive -

    The feature, which is intended to reduce texting while driving, is part of Ford’s voice-activated technology, Sync, and is already installed on all model 2012 Ford vehicles with the exception of the Ranger.
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  • October 20, 2011 - GM Promises Autonomous Vehicles by End of Decade -

    GM has been a leader in developing autonomous vehicle technology, having worked with Carnegie Mellon University to develop the “The Boss” Chevrolet Tahoe that brought autonomous vehicle operation to life in 2007 and won the DARPA Urban Challenge. The event required teams to build a driverless vehicle capable of driving in traffic and performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking and negotiating intersections over a 60-mile course.
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  • October 20, 2011 - New technology to help keep traffic moving during Alaskan Way Viaduct work -

    The pilot program allows viewers to see real-time video of traffic conditions at key road locations. The mayor also announced the activation this week of a new traffic responsive corridor on Aurora Avenue N, adding to the four currently operating, which will automatically sense traffic conditions and adjust signal timing for better flow.
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  • October 20, 2011 - Bluetooth devices save time in traffic -

    Houston TranStar, the Houston area’s traffic management agency, has developed sensors that can detect a Bluetooth device’s electronic address as it passes, allowing the agency to track traffic speed faster, cheaper and on more roads than ever before. The sensors also detect mobile GPS systems, telephone headsets, and in-vehicle navigation and hands-free systems.
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  • October 20, 2011 - Bombardier Transportation demonstrates its commitment to the state of Qatar -

    Serge Van Themsche, Vice President Europe, Middle East, Africa and Brazil, Systems, Bombardier Transportation, is a speaker at the conference. He will talk about smart transit systems and e-mobility technologies, highlighting solutions for the GCC‘s railway aspirations.
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  • October 20, 2011 - NUS teams up with NCS, MHIES Asia to study urban transportation -

    The National University of Singapore (NUS) has inked a partnership with two other parties to study modern transportation problems in cities and to explore the use of advanced technologies to improve urban mobility.
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  • October 20, 2011 - CuseCar-Community Car-Sharing Program: Car Sharing Lessons Learned -

    The New York Department of Transportation has released a report that summarizes the development and operation of CuseCar, a not-for-profit community car-sharing program in Syracuse, New York.
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  • October 20, 2011 - Up close: Technology will become even more personal -

    Intel’s curiosity about how people use technology in cars is hardly surprising. Carmakers are keen to install extra computing power in their vehicles in order to impress customers with a taste for technology, and Intel hopes that this will translate into a big new market for its chips.
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  • October 19, 2011 - How Google’s Self-Driving Car Works -

    Once a secret project, Google’s autonomous vehicles are now out in the open, quite literally, with the company test-driving them on public roads and, on one occasion, even inviting people to ride inside one of the robot cars as it raced around a closed course.
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  • October 18, 2011 - Pa. Senate committee votes to allow red-light cameras -

    The bill, sponsored by Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, authorizes Pittsburgh and third-class Pennsylvania cities with populations of 18,000 or more and full-time police forces to deploy the cameras. The cameras photograph the license plates of drivers who run red lights and generate citations that are sent by mail. Violators could be fined up to $100.
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  • October 18, 2011 - Keeping the Elderly Moving – Safely -

    NTSB
    Using safety technologies, such as electronic stability control, lane departure warning, forward collision warning, will especially benefit the elderly. Mitigation is also important since older adults are more likely to be injured or die as a result of a crash because their bodies are fragile.
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  • October 18, 2011 - After BIG-10, what is BMTC’s next BIG step? -

    Introducing for instance express services, short loops and dynamic programming that you don’t have in the same service you have all day, you adapt the service to the different part of the day. But you can do better if you invest in the bus – introduce intelligent transportation system to improve the reliability of the service, give bus priority by building bus lanes, building real stations on terminals – putting all this in a systematic approach is called BRT.
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  • October 18, 2011 - SwRI demonstrates traffic management to minimize environmental impacts -

    The SwRI Environmental Management System uses connected vehicle technology, specifically vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, to send data from a demonstration vehicle to a central Advanced Traffic Management System. Using the vehicle emissions data, traffic management center operators can identify environmental “hot spots” along the roadway and use congestion management techniques to reduce the of traffic.
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  • October 18, 2011 - Automakers working globally on connected cars -

    The Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Consortium (VIIC) is made of up of BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen. It said that globally harmonized standards will enable automakers and other stakeholders to bring connected vehicle technologies to market faster and at reduced cost. The announcement was made at the 18th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems, which runs this week in Orlando, Florida.
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  • October 17, 2011 - Unmanned car Cybergo can be called by a phone or internet -

    The French company Cybergo has done some studies and found out that there are bus and shuttle routes where the 40-seat buses drive mostly empty. Now this new robotic and 100 percent electric transportation can handle this problem eliminating the need to move a 40-seat bus to transport three people.
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  • October 17, 2011 - GM’s Super-Smart Pod Vehicle Looks at Future Transportation -

    This next-generation vehicle combines zero-transmission, super-connectivity and other advanced technologies to makes the future of individual transportation actually seem sustainable. Check out the video for a look at how this prototype might actually work:
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  • October 16, 2011 - Crosswalk signal changes walk signs automatically | Video -

    Michael Day thinks he has the answer: a new system that relies on cameras to automatically call for the signal change — without relying on a person to push a button — and then hold the red light until all pedestrians have cleared the intersection, regardless of how long that takes.
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  • October 14, 2011 - Driverless cars tested in Nevada -

    AB 511 passed through the Assembly Ways and Means Committee as well as the Senate Finance Committee, where it was amended twice before being voted for final passage by both state houses. Gov. Sandoval signed the bill into law on June 16, and Nevada became the first state in the nation to allow driverless vehicles onto designated roadways.
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  • October 14, 2011 - Cellphone signals help manage traffic -

    Intelligent traffic management is one of the key areas being addressed by Siemens’ new Infrastructure & Cities Sector, which started operating on October 1.
    In a pilot project in Texas, US, Siemens is developing intelligent transportation technology for the fast and orderly evacuation of citizens. In this project, trafficlight timing systems register traffic flow and adjust the phases of red and green light accordingly.
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  • October 14, 2011 - Folding electric assist bike begins final push for production -

    The designer sees such points being located near bus stops or rail links for seamless transport integration, and commuters being able to hire the short-haul transport solution using an RFID smart card similar to those already used for the growing number of bike hire schemes operating in many major cities the world over.
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  • October 14, 2011 - A smart drive -

    BMW intends to pull off a similar sort of evolution, turning a car into something much more than just transportation, using its ‘ConnectedDrive’ technologies. In the near future, its familiar ‘iDrive’ infotainment system won’t just be a glorified iPod any more. It can already navigate, help you avoid jams, highlight interesting things and let you surf the Internet.
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  • October 14, 2011 - Smart City Initiatives Can Improve Living Standards, Reduce Carbon Emissions, Says Pike Research -

    Cities are responsible for between 60% and 80% of the world’s energy use and about the same percentage of greenhouse gas emissions. According to a recent report from Pike Research, “smart” information and communication technologies that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of urban systems and services will not only help mitigate the environmental effects of mass urbanization, but also improve the lives of the people who inhabit the world’s burgeoning cities.
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  • October 14, 2011 - CTIA Survey Show More Wireless Devices than Americans -

    For the first time in the history of CTIA’s Semi-Annual Survey, there are more active wireless devices than Americans!
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  • October 14, 2011 - Transit tech: All aboard, with the wave of a debit card -

    That same card that you wave in front of an electronic reader to pay for gas, buy groceries and pick up the bar tab could also be used in the future to pay for your trips on public transportation. San Diego-based Cubic Corporation has launched a one-year pilot program with the Philadelphia-based Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO) and Visa to test just such a card.
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  • October 14, 2011 - Experts crack widely used smartcard -

    David Oswald and Christoph Paar, both expert hackers at the Ruhr University Bochum, who work to uncover flaws in hi-tech security systems, made the announcement in a study published this week. In the study they said they managed to crack the DESFire MF3ICD40 RFID cards, used in transportation systems including in the Czech Republic, United States and Australia, using non-invasive and non-detectable measures.
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  • October 14, 2011 - Evaluation of Data Needs, Crash Surrogates, and Analysis Methods to Address Lane Departure Research Questions Using Naturalistic Driving Study Data -

    In anticipation of the large volume of data to be collected during the SHRP 2 NDS, several projects were conducted to demonstrate that it is possible to use existing NDS data and data from other sources to further the understanding of the risk factors associated with road crashes. More specifically, the four projects conducted under the title Development of Analysis Methods Using Recent Data examined the statistical relationship between surrogate measures of collisions (conflicts, critical incidents, near collisions, or roadside encroachment) and actual collisions.
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  • October 14, 2011 - Nissan’s Future Safety Tech: Reducing Accidents, Injury -

    The new systems are part of Nissan’s Intelligent Transportation Systems technology.
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  • October 13, 2011 - More roads going high tech -

    Secretary LaHood
    Even as highway budgets are forced to do more with less, the number of vehicles on our roads continues to climb. We need to work smarter with what we already have. So, I’m happy to see so many state and local agencies relying on the latest technology to improve service for all motorists.
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  • October 13, 2011 - Can Smart Transportation Apps Curb Greenhouse Gases? -

    Experts believe traffic, bus and parking applications will be the public sector’s key wireless contributions in helping reduce future environmental impacts, according to a report released Tuesday, Oct. 11. A new report sponsored by CTIA—The Wireless Association estimates that transportation apps can contribute to the reduction of 1.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year.
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  • October 13, 2011 - Safe and sound: Fire Chief Werner leads $1 million data sharing project -

    Federal agencies will also be able to see regional events in real-time, enabling them to quickly allocate resources should a catastrophic event occur.Part of the project will focus on preemptive safety measures. Updated road sensors could electronically inform the Department of Transportation when temperatures approach the freezing point so road crews are prepared to prevent icy roadways. Flood river gauges would provide the same assistance in evacuating residents who may be in danger.
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  • October 13, 2011 - IBM plans to change Nairobi to a smarter city -

    Imagine a city with one control platform that harnesses information from the government services, transportation, energy and utilities, healthcare, public sector and education to make better decisions, anticipate tragedies like the fire that consumed Nairobi’s Sinai slums, then resolve them proactively.
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  • October 13, 2011 - The Next Boom in Mobile Devices Is the Car -

    New York Times
    Cars, one of the great mobile devices to begin with, are about to get connected to the Internet like never before. It will change not just how we drive, but the economics of the car business.
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  • October 13, 2011 - 5 Great U.S. City Parking Apps -

    But ParkPGH also taps a unique algorithm — developed by Robert Hampshire of Carnegie Mellon University — that considers historical parking data and current events, such as concerts, to predict what the parking situation will be in the future. The result is the country’s “first predictive parking app,” according to the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, which recognized the technological advances of ParkPGH with an award in early October.
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  • October 12, 2011 - Dynamic Real-Time Routing for Evacuation Response Planning and Execution -

    Purdue University has released a report that explores dynamic routing operations in the emergency response context, primarily in terms of the routing of response vehicles and evacuees. The study focuses on identifying the paths used for routing response vehicles and evacuees in disaster situations.
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  • October 12, 2011 - Communication with Vulnerable Populations: A Transportation and Emergency Management Toolkit -

    TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 150: Communication with Vulnerable Populations: A Transportation and Emergency Management Toolkit describes how to create a communication process to reach vulnerable populations regarding their transportation options in emergencies.
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  • October 12, 2011 - 2012 Symposium on Mileage-Based User Fees and Transportation Finance Summit -

    TRB is cosponsoring the 2012 Symposium on Mileage-Based User Fees and Transportation Finance Summit, on April 22–24, 2012, in Philadelphia, PA. The symposium is designed to bring together professionals to explore the latest studies and pilots in mileage-based user fees and the diverse range of financing tools available to toll agencies, state transportation departments, and local governments. Individuals or groups wishing to present at the meeting must submit an abstract by October 25, 2011.
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  • October 11, 2011 - West Philly Teens Build Ground-Breaking “Badass Hybrid” Car -

    Who says teenagers can’t change the world? In their free time after school, 15 teens from a low-income high school in Philadelphia built a car. And not just any car: their 160 mpg Factory Five GTM biodiesel hybrid kit car has outperformed other fuel-efficient cars built by professional engineers and graduate students from Ivy League universities.
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  • October 11, 2011 - Cars avoid crashes in future here now -

    Imagine a world where your car, truck or SUV can “talk” to other vehicles on the road and let you know if there’s a car in your blind spot or a truck stalled up ahead. That technology already is here, and it was on display in Cincinnati Friday as part of a 15-city tour.
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  • October 11, 2011 - India needs proactive policy action if it is to protect the environment while also providing the people with efficient travel options. -

    The Government of India introduced the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) in 2006. The most significant initiative in the policy had to do with integrating urban land and transport development and optimising road capacity. Another aim of the policy is establishing Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) over a phased manner in the next 20 years.
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  • October 11, 2011 - Call for Papers: 1st European Symposium on Quantitative Methods in Transportation Systems, EPFL Campus, Lausanne, Switzerland -

    This Symposium is an interdisciplinary intermediate-size research conference on transportation research in general, and quantitative methods for transportation systems in particular. The Symposium will bring together major experts and most promising young researchers in the fields of Transportation Modeling, Operations Research, Economics, Physics, Logistics in a setting highly suitable for scientific discussion and active interaction in relatively small groups.
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  • October 11, 2011 - New electric vehicle OEM releases first line -

    New electric vehicle manufacturer Evolve Motorcycles announced its first line of models Thursday in New York…
    The free Evolve mobile app allows riders to connect and share on the road, finding each other’s real time locations, locating charging stations and sharing videos and updates.
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  • October 11, 2011 - Hacked Tulsa Traffic Sign No Laughing Matter For ODOT -

    Oklahoma State transportation officials called a road-side practical joke a public safety hazard Friday. Someone hacked into one of ODOT’s smart signs on I-44 in Tulsa Wednesday night, alerting drivers of “zombies ahead.”
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  • October 11, 2011 - SEPTA’s new electronic payment system will be a big change for rail commuters -

    SEPTA expects to award a contract this month for its long-delayed “smart card” fare system, which will allow bus, subway, trolley, and train passengers to pay for their trips by tapping any “contactless” bank card on an electronic reader. Riders can use credit or debit cards they already own or get smart cards from SEPTA. The system is also being designed to eventually accept payment from smartphones.
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  • October 10, 2011 - AKQA, Audi Tap Driver Frustration With Real-Time Index -

    Audi wants to quantify how frustrating the American roads are because its A6 model offers features that can alleviate some sources of frustration, such as a technologies that adapt the car to poor road conditions and warns you of drivers straying into your lane. The Facebook promo for the RFI says, “Looks like the new Audi A6 is here in the nick of time.”
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  • October 10, 2011 - San Francisco Hackers Work With The City To Make It Run Smoother -

    The Summer of Smart hackathon resulted in several sites and apps that can make transportation or food shopping easier. And the city is embracing them.
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  • October 10, 2011 - Boise’s first car sharing program -

    Karen Sander, the executive director of the Downtown Boise Association (DBA), says the group became interested in car share after Boise State University started one for its students last fall.
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  • October 7, 2011 - SEPTA is cosponsoring a “hackathon” this weekend to produce apps that use its wealth of data for riders. -

    Public agencies have always collected and used vast amounts of data, while offering only a small fraction of it back to the public – often in less-than-user-friendly ways. But in the last several years – spurred by the spread of smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone – something unexpected has been born: a largely organic public-private partnership, in which agencies make data more easily available, and app developers use the data to try to make money by making people’s lives easier and more efficient.
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  • October 7, 2011 - Study Shows Red Light Cameras in Iowa Save Lives and Reduce Injuries -

    They found that after RLR camera-enforcement systems were implemented, red light running crashes decreased by 40 percent while crashes of all types decreased 20 percent at these intersections. At the same time, total crashes increased by 7 percent at the control intersections.
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  • October 7, 2011 - Cars of the future -

    A car that drives itself must know what other cars are doing, which means managing a lot of information. At Carnegie Mellon, Platzer and his colleagues write computer programs that test the safety of self-driving cars. He says that self-driving cars will probably not be available to buy and use within the next few years, but they’re getting closer. Already, some new cars come with automatic braking systems and warnings that alert drivers to dangerous situations.
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  • October 5, 2011 - GM dips toe in car sharing in deal with RelayRides -

    General Motors is expected announce a partnership tomorrow with start-up RelayRides that will allow GM vehicles owners to rent out their cars to other consumers using OnStar and a smart-phone. The service will first be offered in California starting by the end of the first quarter next year.
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  • October 5, 2011 - Edmonton first North American city to test automated ‘smart’ highway to ease gridlock -

    “It’s about cost,” said Brice Stephenson, the city’s manager of transportation operations. “If you wanted to upgrade a road like the Yellowhead to a freeway, it would be very expensive, hundreds of millions of dollars.” By contrast, the tab for smart-road technology, including cameras, new traffic signals, road sensors and digital signs, is about $10 million…
    “When the system is fully working, the computer will receive an automatically generated signal from the road or video camera, then calculate the best place to detour drivers,” the Journal reports. “It will post a message on digital signs above the Yellowhead. Then it will predict what congestion that detour route will cause on side roads, and change the traffic signals there to get everyone moving better.”
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  • October 4, 2011 - Pittsburgh Picks Up Predictive Parking -

    It sounds like any number of parking apps, but there’s a twist. Unlike similar systems, like San Francisco’s Streetline, ParkPGH not only counts existing open parking spaces but predicts which lots will have a free space by the time a driver gets there. The system relies on an algorithm designed by Dr. Robert Hampshire at Carnegie Mellon University, and uses historical data and current events to predict how many parking spaces will be filled at any given time.

    The research was brought to reality through the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and developed with support from Traffic21, an intelligent transit research program within Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College. As Pittsburgh is a learning lab for future research, it wouldn’t be a surprise if other cities’ smart parking programs gained predictive functionality.
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  • October 4, 2011 - U.S. Department of Transportation releases results of the 2010 ITS Deployment Tracking Survey -

    The ITS Deployment Tracking Project has conducted a nationwide survey of state and local transportation and emergency management agencies nearly every year since 1997, with the scope covering agencies involved with freeway, arterial, and transit management; public safety (law enforcement and fire/rescue/emergency medical); and toll collection. The 2010 effort distributed nearly 1,600 surveys to state and local transportation agencies located in nearly all states. The overall response rate for all surveys was 85 percent.
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  • October 4, 2011 - 2011 Urban Mobility Report -

    The Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University has released a report that explores congested conditions in 2010, the impact of the economic downturn on congestion, and possible congestion solutions.
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  • October 4, 2011 - Technological Innovations in Transportation for People with Disabilities Workshop Summary Report -

    The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released a report that summarizes a workshop that examined technological innovations in accessible transportation. The workshop explored the requirements of pedestrians and travelers with visual impairment or other disabilities.
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  • October 4, 2011 - Operational and Institutional Agreements That Facilitate Regional Traffic Signal Operations -

    Regions can use RTSOPs to help improve traffic flow as it crosses from one jurisdiction to another. A central focus of these programs is the coordination of signal timing on multi-jurisdictional arterials; however, RTSOPs can also facilitate the consideration of other traffic operations measures to improve regional mobility.
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  • October 4, 2011 - Innovations in Travel Demand Forecasting – 2012 -

    TRB is sponsoring a conference on Innovations in Travel Demand Forecasting in April 2012 in Tampa, Florida. The conference is designed to allow researchers and practitioners to share knowledge and experiences on current models and modeling research. The conference will review advances made possible by the integration of social, land-use, transportation supply, and technology into the modeling process. Short papers, not abstracts, should be submitted for possible inclusion in the conference through the conference submission website no later than Monday, November 7, 2011.
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  • October 4, 2011 - Guide to Integrating Business Processes to Improve Travel Time Reliability -

    TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Report S2-L01-RR-2: Guide to Integrating Business Processes to Improve Travel Time Reliability explores various ways that transportation agencies could reengineer their day-to-day business practices to enhance traffic operations, address nonrecurring traffic congestion, and improve the reliability of travel times delivered to roadway system users.
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  • October 4, 2011 - National Transportation Workforce Summit – Call for Papers -

    The Summit Steering and Program Committees is now accepting abstracts from individuals of all disciplines interested in transportation workforce issues. Download the available PDF call for papers below. Abstracts are due November 11th.
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  • October 4, 2011 - Paris launches electric car-sharing plan -

    The French capital rolled out the first of its new eco-friendly electric “bubble cars” on Sunday at the launch of a car-sharing plan it hopes will spark a quiet transportation revolution…
    It boasts a GPS to stop drivers from getting lost (and allow Autolib’ to keep track of you). In case of a fender-bender, there’s a big blue button to raise the alarm at a control center.
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  • October 4, 2011 - Cultural Trust unsnarls scramble for parking -

    “I must say, this is really neat,” trust president Kevin McMahon said of the “predictive parking” enhancement, developed by Robert Hampshire, assistant professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Predictions are based on three years of parking data and current event information. On Monday, the Washington, D.C.-based Intelligent Transportation Society of America presented the trust with a “Smart Solution Spotlight” award, given to groups that use technology to ease transportation problems.
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  • October 2, 2011 - U.S. DOT Announces Free Public Meeting and Webinar to Discuss the EnableATIS Dynamic Mobility Application -

    The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S.DOT) will be hosting a free public meeting to obtain stakeholder input on concepts, opportunities and needs for Enabling Advanced Traveler Information Services (EnableATIS) operational concept.
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  • October 2, 2011 - VDOT: New sponsorship program expected to offset costs of 511 traffic information system -

    The Virginia Department of Transportation plans to offset the annual operating costs of an upgraded 511 traffic information system through new sponsorships projected to bring in $10 million over five years. The transportation department announced this week it awarded a five-year contract to California-based Iteris Inc. for the design, development and operation of a new and enhanced phone and web-based 511 system.
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  • October 2, 2011 - Dawn of the Smart City -

    Barron’s Cover Story
    Cities of the future will be larger than anyone ever imagined, straining both those who dwell in them and those who run them. In China alone, population growth and migration will create 81 new cities by 2025. How can they and their counterparts around the globe organize themselves to cope with the surge? What’s the most efficient way to supply power? Speed traffic? Haul waste? Manage health care? Prevent crime? And where’s everyone going to park?
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  • October 2, 2011 - Smart Parking Tech Might be Paying Off in U.S. Cities -

    A new survey from IBM has confirmed what city managers, travelers and commuters already know from everyday experience: finding a parking space in a big city can be a frustrating and sometimes futile chore. And the problem isn’t confined to the U.S. — it’s an issue around the world.
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  • October 2, 2011 - Can GPS Solve Our Traffic Woes? -

    Now a group working at Microsoft Research Asia has shown that tracking the location of taxicabs could be a better way to identify the underlying problems with a city’s transportation network, helping officials determine how to best ease congestion. The researchers used GPS data from more than 33,000 Beijing taxicabs.
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  • October 2, 2011 - Traffic-smoothing signals spread out across region -

    That may change. Space Coast transportation officials are synchronizing 100 traffic lights along 11 congested corridors — including SR 520 — using computers and fiber-optic cable. The goal: Reduce red-light delays and boost average vehicle speeds. Total cost is $8.4 million.“There’s a lot of eyes on this project nationally. This is one of the biggest projects of this type in the country,” said Doug Mihalich, Brevard County traffic operations manager.
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  • September 30, 2011 - Smart cities get their own operating system -

    The idea is for the Urban OS to gather data from sensors buried in buildings and many other places to keep an eye on what is happening in an urban area. The sensors monitor everything from large scale events such as traffic flows across the entire city down to more local phenomena such as temperature sensors inside individual rooms. The OS completely bypasses humans to manage communication between sensors and devices such as traffic lights, air conditioning or water pumps that influence the quality of city life.
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  • September 30, 2011 - County joins Google Transit to aid route planning -


    The Local Transportation Authority this month agreed to a nearly $37,000 contract with a consultant who will work on getting the local routes coded into the system. It is designed to provide information on routes, schedules and fares. The project is fully funded with a federal grant.
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  • September 30, 2011 - It’s not ‘Jetsons,’ but robots are here to stay -

    In a similar manner, some car manufacturers are already including features like adaptive cruise control and self-parking – while BMW develops a kind of short-term autopilot for drivers incapacitated by a medical issue. Features like the latter are likely to arrive on the market within the next five to ten years and will help condition the public for fully autonomous cars in the years beyond, said Chris Urmson, a Carnegie Mellon University robotics researcher who joined Google to work on the Mountain View search company’s self-driving car initiative.
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  • September 29, 2011 - Applying GPS Data to Understand Travel Behavior -

    TRB NCHRP Request for Proposals
    The objective of this research is to prepare guidelines on the use of multiple sources of GPS data to understand travel behavior and activity. The results will be used by transportation planners, travel modelers, and travel survey practitioners.
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  • September 28, 2011 - IBM launches city parking analytics system -

    IBM is offering this system in conjunction with San Francisco-based startup Streetline, which offers remote sensors that can determine if a parking space is taken by a car. IBM provides the analytical software, by way of a cloud service, that aggregates data from these sensors so it can be used to better understand how a city’s parking spaces are used over time.
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  • September 28, 2011 - “We have to extend beyond cellular”, says Verizon spokesperson -

    Khurjekar, speaking at the Connected Verticals Summit co-located at the Broadband World Forum in Paris, referred to a wide range of in-car connectivity services that she said the operator could deliver. These included creating “intelligent transportation”, that could help to dramatically reduce the rate of road crashes, which Khurjekar said stood as occurring every five seconds in the USA, with a fatality every five minutes.
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  • September 28, 2011 - Smart set of wheels -

    Car companies have long been masters of marketing new models by claiming a dedication to innovation and cutting-edge technologies. But now they are using complex data-led innovation to stay ahead of the competition. ‘Connected automotive systems’, which exchange data with smartphones, the internet and even other cars, are no longer exclusive to premium models. These systems are expected to grow to 189 million units worldwide by 2016, up from a predicted 41 million at the end of 2011, according to a study by ABI Research.
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  • September 28, 2011 - Telematics and the connected car: How to deal with increasing data use -

    “That’s just a drop in the ocean in comparison with the rest,” says Terry Norman, principal analyst at Analysys Mason who leads the firm’s wireless networks and spectrum research programs. “I expect [data traffic to cars] growing maybe five to ten years down the line, but not for the moment.”
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  • September 28, 2011 - Inrix to provide traffic data to Google in multi-million dollar deal -

    Inrix has been on a serious roll lately. And the Kirkland company just scored yet another big deal, winning a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract to provide real-time traffic data to Google’s navigation and mapping properties.
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  • September 28, 2011 - NXP eCall solution takes centre stage in Brussels and Berlin -

    On September 8, 2011, the European Union announced their intent to introduce the eCall emergency call system in all new cars by 2015. In a presentation to the European Parliament, Neelie Kroes, EU Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, emphasized that “the technology itself is available,” and demonstrated the manufacturer-independent ATOP eCall solution from NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) to proof her point.
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  • September 28, 2011 - Dubai Bus Trips Increase -

    Actual trips made by public buses in Dubai during the period from 1 January up to 31 August this year have shown an increase as high as 99% per cent against 98% during the same period last year.
    The Operation Control Center at the Public Transport Agency of the Roads ‘&’ Transport Authority (RTA) controls all the intelligent systems used to monitor and control the daily movement of buses all over Dubai Emirate, stated Adel Shakiri, Director of Transportation Systems at Public Transport Agency.
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  • September 27, 2011 - OnStar’s ‘brazen’ data tracking comes under fire -

    CNNMoney (New York) — Your OnStar-equipped car can share an awful lot about your driving habits — even if you’re no longer an OnStar customer. A senator from New York has asked the Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation into vehicle tracking by General Motors’ OnStar division. Two other senators issued calls for the company to explain and reconsider its tracking policies.
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  • September 27, 2011 - Information Systems, Geographic Information Systems, and Advanced Computing 2011 -

    TRB’s Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2215 includes 12 papers that examine integrated real-time transit information and multimodal trip planning; an enterprise information management system for transportation right-of-way activities; real-time decision support on arterial networks; data sharing, visualization, modeling, and analysis; and the integration of geographic information systems and the global positioning system for transportation.
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  • September 27, 2011 - Methods and Technologies for Collecting Pedestrian and Bicycle Volume Data -

    TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) has issued a request for proposals to assess existing, new, and innovative technologies and methods and provide guidance for transportation practitioners on how best to collect pedestrian and bicycle volume data. Proposals are due November 17, 2011.
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  • September 27, 2011 - Carnegie Mellon Study Finds Benefits of Plug-in Vehicles Depend on Battery Size -

    Carnegie Mellon University’s Jeremy J. Michalek and co-authors report that plug-in vehicles with small battery packs and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) that don’t plug in can reduce life cycle impacts from air emissions and enhance oil security at low or no additional cost over a lifetime. But plug-in vehicles with large battery packs are more costly and may have higher or lower emissions than HEVs depending on where and when they are plugged in.
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  • September 27, 2011 - Siemens developing intelligent transportation technology using traffic light timing systems and mobile phones -

    Siemens Intelligent Traffic Solutions is developing intelligent transportation technology for the fast and orderly evacuation of citizens. In this project, traffic light timing systems estimate the number of vehicles by registering Bluetooth signals emitted by the drivers’ cell phones and adjust the phases of red and green light accordingly. The associated software is supplied by Siemens’ global research unit, Corporate Technology.
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  • September 27, 2011 - IIT-M traffic survey from today -

    A comprehensive traffic survey, the first step towards setting up an Advanced Traveller Information System (ATIS) at 13 junctions in the vicinity of IIT-Madras, will commence on Sunday. The objective of the project is to set up intelligent electronic signboards that would provide information to motorists about congestion and suggest alternative routes. The survey might also be able to throw up some interesting revelations on the impact of Metro Rail work on the traffic flow on arterial roads.
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  • September 27, 2011 - Not-So-Smart Cities -

    Greg Lindsay is a visiting scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University and the co-author of “Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next.”
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  • September 27, 2011 - Reinvigorating Transportation in the Third Industrial Revolution -

    The major strength of Jeremy Rifkin’s Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) framework is that it ties together, in a synergistic and coherent fashion, technologies that are already beginning their introduction into the marketplace. This is especially true in Pillar 5, with the emerging “electrification” of the automobile…
    Calling fuel cells, the “ultimate technology,” Akio Toyoda, recently revealed plans to introduce an “affordable” fuel cell car by 2015 by cutting the costs by “90 percent” from current prototype, early production models.
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  • September 26, 2011 - Smarter Trucking Saves Fuel Over the Long Haul -

    Fleet operators can collect highly detailed information about a given driver and vehicle, for example. “They almost have a real-time printout of a specific driver,” Kedzie said. He ran off a list of data points that a growing number of U.S. fleets are monitoring: “Where they stopped, how long they rested, how often they braked and how often they hard-braked, the temperature of the engine.”
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  • September 26, 2011 - Toyota: Sustainability is key for cars -

    Meanwhile, experts on Toyota’s Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) team are making transportation infrastructure safer and more efficient through advancements in microelectronics, satellite navigation, mobile communication and sensors.
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  • September 23, 2011 - DOE testing to help shape the future of ‘connected’ trucks -

    The Connected Commercial Vehicle test will also begin next fall. It’s being shepherded by a team that includes Battelle, Denso, Daimler Trucks North America, Mercedes Benz Research and Development North America, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, and Meritor WABCO. It will deploy four tractors and seven trailers that will be driven in a closed airport by professional drivers. There will be three 53-ft box trailers, a pair of 28-ft box trailers, a 48-ft box trailer, and a 40-ft intermodal carrier and chassis.
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  • September 23, 2011 - Google Transit called ‘very useful’ -

    Bus ridership increased 20 percent in two years in the Clemson area since the advent of Google Transit, a high-tech route information service that will debut here in two weeks. The Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority will become only the second bus service in the state to offer Google Transit…
    The user decides where he wants to go, types in the information on laptop, smart phone, iphone or Droid, and Google Transit spells out the route, maps it, gives departure and arrival times and provides a comparison of the cost of riding the bus versus driving.
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  • September 23, 2011 - Qatar to have state-of-the-art transportation system -

    He said that the ministry is working with Qatar University on a project to come out with a smart transportation traffic information system based on GPRS which will help the motorist to obtain information on their mobiles on the volume of traffic in specific roads to enable them to opt for the less crowded ones for rapid transit.
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  • September 23, 2011 - Parking experiment takes national stage -

    San Francisco’s grand experiment to see whether traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by micromanaging the supply of public parking through price manipulation took center stage Thursday at a national transportation conference held in the city.
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  • September 23, 2011 - Franken and Coons urge OnStar to reverse privacy changes -

    “In a nutshell, OnStar is telling its current and former customers that it can track their location anywhere, anytime — even if they cancel their subscriptions — and then give or sell that information to anyone as long as OnStar deems it safe to do so,” the senators wrote in a letter to Linda Marshall, the CEO of OnStar.
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  • September 23, 2011 - Wigle: Intel investing in sustainability -

    How can we use Intel technology to manage water better, as it becomes a more scare resource across the planet? How can we use our technology to make transportation systems more intelligent, so that we’re using less fuel? You know, a third of cars driving around in any given metropolitan area are typically looking for parking places. So if we can create technology that allows you to reserve a parking spot or show you where an open one is, we’ll be saving lot of time, fuel, pollution and money.
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  • September 22, 2011 - Abu Dhabi Incorporate Intelligent Traffic Systems to Improve Road Safety -

    In a bid to create a world-class transportation system for the Emirate, Abu Dhabi’s transport authorities are implementing an integrated Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) strategy as part of the 2030 Plan.
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  • September 22, 2011 - ‘Flashpoint’ — 9/18/11 -

    Great video feature on Intelligent Transportation Systems in Florida and the upcoming ITS World Congress in Florida in October.
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  • September 21, 2011 - Turnpike toll collectors are becoming an endangered species Read more: Turnpike toll collectors are becoming an endangered species -

    “The technology is there, but agencies like the Turnpike Commission have to determine when people are ready to accept it. Right now, the Turnpike Commission is doing a good job of incrementally phasing it in and providing incentives for people to use it,” said Stan Caldwell of Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21 program, which studies ways technology is improving transportation.
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  • September 21, 2011 - Green & Clean -

    So how do you make transportation smart? Ideally, you build a city with clean, quiet mass transit and ban cars from the roads. But humans love their cars, and mass transit won’t meet everyone’s needs.
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  • September 21, 2011 - The Top Five Transit Technologies For The Low-Carbon Economy -

    People need to move around, but we can do it in a less impactful way with these five innovations. Some are new and some are old, but together they could remake transportation.
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  • September 21, 2011 - CuseCar – Community Car-Sharing Program: Car Sharing Lessons Learned -

    The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the New York Department of Transportation have released a report that summarizes the development and operation of CuseCar of Syracuse, a not-for-profit community car share, launched in December 2008.
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  • September 21, 2011 - Innovator: September/October 2011 -

    The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has released the latest issue of its Innovator newsletter, which is designed to help advance widespread implementation of innovations and technologies in the highway community and help chronicle a nationwide movement to improve the way highways are built.
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  • September 21, 2011 - Integrated Delivery of SHRP 2 Renewal Research Projects -

    TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has issued a request for proposals to develop tool(s) to promote and support systematic and integrated application of the products developed in the SHRP 2 Renewal Research Program. The Renewal program is designed to enhance a transportation agency’s ability to consistently apply Rapid Renewal in the development and execution of the planning, design, construction, maintenance, and preservation of its infrastructure. Proposals are due November 1, 2011.
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  • September 21, 2011 - Development of a Guide for Transportation Technology Transfer -

    TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) has issued a request for proposals to develop a guide that provides methodologies, case examples, and techniques that facilitate transportation technology transfer. Proposals are due October 25, 2011.
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  • September 21, 2011 - Video to Solve Traffic Problems Discussed at DoT Meeting -

    A federal transportation official says a program promoting public-private partnerships to foster ideas and products for transportation solutions might support increased use of traffic cameras or other video technologies as part of the overall solution to traffic problems, but it depends on the problems identified…
    The program is the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DoT) Digital Transportation Exchange (DTE) which seeks to connect citizens, businesses, state and local governments, industry, entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors though a public private partnership to create “a thriving marketplace for transportation solutions.”
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  • September 21, 2011 - CSE route-sharing project for bicyclists to expand statewide -

    Cyclopath is a “geowiki” of biking paths moderated and modified by its users. The website allows cyclists to instantly create, rate and update biking maps. Users can share their favorite routes and suggest shortcuts to others.
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  • September 21, 2011 - Rutgers, UCLA Awarded $2 Million to Develop Smart Technology that Reduces Urban Congestion, Air Pollution -

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant worth nearly $2 million to Rutgers and UCLA to develop intelligent metropolitan traffic management technology that reduces urban traffic congestion and air pollution. Using wireless computer networking, the technology will monitor traffic flow and air quality, and then in response, recommend alternate routes to drivers via on-board navigation devices. The technology could also offer drivers incentives to follow different routings that balance overall flow and temper pollution hot-spots.
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  • September 21, 2011 - The Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prizes -

    The Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prizes recognize members of the Society, in any grade, who demonstrate notable achievements in research related to Civil Engineering. Preference is given to younger members (generally under 40 years of age) of early accomplishment who can be expected to continue fruitful careers in research. Nominations due October 1.
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  • September 19, 2011 - Parkmobile USA Selects Citi to Expand Its Suite of Cashless Payment Solutions for Parking -

    Washington DC, The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and Parkmobile piloted 1,000 parking spaces in 2010 and has implemented Pay by Phone parking services at all of the approximately 17,000 on-street metered spaces in the District of Columbia. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) launched Parkmobile services for its riders in July 2010. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Parkmobile also implemented Pay by Phone parking services for commuters in June 2011.
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  • September 19, 2011 - ‘Show Me My Buzz’ app helps drivers see BAC -

    The “Show Me the Buzz” free app is now available in the Apple App Store and the Google Market. It allows users to calculate their estimated blood-alcohol concentration based on how many drinks they’ve had, how long they’ve been drinking and their gender.
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  • September 19, 2011 - Spending cuts leave smart transport in a jam -

    UK – Axing grants to local authorities for high-tech transport schemes will add to the misery of traffic congestion, a committee of MPs has warned. The Department for Transport (Dft) comes under fire for its decision to end funding of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Toolkit.
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  • September 19, 2011 - On Android Phones, a Live-Streaming Police State -

    The app can also be used as a way to escort students from a library or a late night party to their dorm rooms.
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  • September 19, 2011 - Real-Time Transit Data Demonstration Projects Awarded to Integrated Corridor Management Demonstration Sites -

    The primary objective of the Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) Initiative is to demonstrate how innovative transportation strategies and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies can efficiently and proactively facilitate the movement of people and goods through major metropolitan transportation corridors.
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  • September 19, 2011 - $39.5 Billion Will Be Spent on #SmartCity Technologies in 2016 -

    While $8.1 billion was spent on smart city technologies in 2010, by 2016 that number is projected to reach $39.5 billion. A smart city is determined by six dimensions: smart economy, environment, governance, lifestyle, transportation, and community.
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  • September 19, 2011 - AUTOSHOW-INTERVIEW-Siemens eyes acquisitions in car comeback -

    Siemens (SIEGn.DE) is scouting around for potential acquisitions to grow its automotive electronics unit, a business it has re-entered after abandoning it four years ago.
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  • September 19, 2011 - In the Public Interest: Americans Are Driving Less, Washington Should Pay Attention -

    Some cultural observers suggest that these trends are part of a larger generational shift — one in which digital connectivity trumps horsepower, and iPads and Androids take the place of an earlier generation’s ’57 Chevys as symbols of consumer aspiration and freedom.
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  • September 15, 2011 - U.S. Department of Transportation Announces Winner of the ITS Video Challenge -

    The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) today announced that the team from the Charlotte, N.C. Department of Transportation, submitted the winning entry for the Intelligent Transportation Systems ( ITS) Video Challenge.
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  • September 15, 2011 - Europcar sees growing divide between drivers and cars -

    The survey, which seeks to identify new trends in European mobility, is based on responses from more than 6,000 drivers, age 18 and over, in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the UK…
    Meanwhile, cars available in self service, and features such as geo-location technology to find the vehicle in the street and payment by the minute or hour, are making rental an increasingly attractive option.
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  • September 13, 2011 - Automated Delay Estimation at Signalized Intersections: Phase I Concept and Algorithm Development -

    The Utah Department of Transportation has released a report that explores develop a method to automate traffic delay estimation in real-time using existing field traffic data collection technologies.
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  • September 13, 2011 - 14th International HOV/HOT and Managed Lanes Conference -

    TRB is sponsoring the 14th International HOV/HOT and Managed Lanes Conference on May 22-24, 2012, in Oakland, California. The conference is designed to help advance the state-of-the-art related to managed lanes and pricing strategies. The conference theme will focus on the evolution of high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes into high-occupancy-toll (HOT) and managed lanes using pricing and other strategies to address metropolitan mobility and accessibility. Individuals or groups who wish to present at the meeting must submit an abstract by October 5, 2011.
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  • September 13, 2011 - North American Travel Monitoring Exposition and Conference (NATMEC): Improving Traffic Data Collection, Analysis, and Use -

    TRB is sponsoring the NATMEC: Improving Traffic Data Collection, Analysis, and Use on June 4-7, 2012, in Dallas, Texas. The conference is designed to advance the state of the practice of travel monitoring by providing a mechanism for improving the interaction between system operators, data collection program managers, and the various staff that collect, process, and utilize that data. Individuals or groups wishing to present at the meeting must submit an abstract by September 15, 2011.
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  • September 13, 2011 - Cars don’t waste fuel. Drivers waste fuel -

    Researchers at the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CERT) are developing a new way of boosting fuel efficiency by as much as 30% without changing a car’s powertrain at all…
    “When you get in the car, you have the vehicle recommend the route you could take based on traffic conditions on the route, and on the way if there’s anything wrong with your driving it may provide some feedback to you to adjust your driving behavior,” Boriboonsomsin said.
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  • September 13, 2011 - Taxis Are Flexible and High Tech Public Transportation -

    Managing a fleet of hundreds of taxis over thousands of miles of a large city network is a daunting task. Done wrong, there can be tremendous waste of driver time and fuel on empty hauls, or long waits at the wrong location. This is where Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) come in with the combination of computerized optimization, automated vehicle location (AVL), global positioning systems (GPS), and fast mobile network based communications between fleet and dispatch center.
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  • September 13, 2011 - Bogota’s Revolutionary Public Transportation, Ten Years Later -

    Despite the fact that few cities have followed Bogota’s example in setting up BRT, it’s still an aging idea. Transmilenio was enacted 10 years ago. In a new video, the transportation nuts at Streetsfilms look at how the system is holding up a decade after inception and if the city is resting on its laurels:
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  • September 13, 2011 - Choosing the right technology for indoor vehicle location systems -

    Maintenance operations and marshaling in the light-rail industry are typically performed in buildings where GPS cannot operate, requiring a different location technology to be used. Whereas GPS is the clear choice for outdoor location technology, ultra-wideband (UWB) is the clear winner for indoor location systems.
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  • September 13, 2011 - Frustration Rising. Commuting in Cities Around the World — What Can Be Done? -

    The future is not about building new roads or widening existing ones to clear up congested roadways. We can make the most of the roads we already have – by using technology to improve their performance and efficiency. Intelligent transportation systems can allow people to alter their routes or traveling times based on specific traffic flows, and promote better route guidance to use roads more efficient.
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  • September 13, 2011 - Call for Papers: The 20th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT), July 17-19, 2013, Noordwijk, The Netherlands -

    The 20th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT) will be held at the Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin, Noordwijk, The Netherlands from July 17 to July 19, 2013. The 20th Symposium will be organized by Delft University of Technology. The ISTTT series is the premier gathering for the world’s leading transportation and traffic theorists, and for those who are interested in contributing to or gaining a deeper understanding of the field. The symposium covers all scientific aspects of transportation and traffic, spanning all modes of transport, including freight, air, and maritime modes, as well as private and public transport.
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  • September 13, 2011 - Request for Information (RFI) for Traffic Data Sources Evaluation in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area -

    Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) operates the San Francisco Bay Area’s 511 Traffic Program under contract to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). SAIC invites you to respond to a Request for Information (RFI) to provide traffic data for selected roadways in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area…
    All responses will be analyzed after which, SAIC intends to issue a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) for the procurement of traffic data.
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  • September 9, 2011 - USDOT approves US$54 million loan for Colorado US 36 HOT/HOV lanes project -

    It includes construction of one new managed, high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lane in each direction and the reconstruction of the general purpose lanes for a total of six lanes. Carpoolers and buses will use the HOV lanes for free, while single occupancy vehicles will be able to pay a toll to use the lanes, which will effectively convert them into high-occupancy-toll (HOT) lanes.
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  • September 9, 2011 - $10B regional transit plan gets green light (Edmonton) -

    At the same time, a smart card and high-tech smart buses will be introduced, along with a unified regional control centre for all transit operators.
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  • September 9, 2011 - Cars that talk to you are annoying; cars that talk to each other prevent accidents -

    Cars that think for themselves are hard to build and harder to trust. Cars that talk to each other while they’re on the road in the same way printers or servers on the same network talk, on the other hand, could make highway driving much more efficient and a lot safer. Car-to-car communications is about to get its first large, real-world test in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute will be building a huge test-bed using a $14.9 million grant it just got from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation.
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  • September 9, 2011 - Report: Smart cities taking off -

    Smart city concepts are really taking off globally,” said Josh Flood, senior analyst at ABI Research, in the statement. Currently, smart grids account for the bulk of spending on smart city technologies, but Flood predicted “significant increase” in investments on smart transportation technologies such as automatic vehicle identification as well as smart governance systems such as e-ID and identity document systems.
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  • September 9, 2011 - Allegheny County will study diesel emissions Downtown -

    The study will begin in January under the leadership of Jane Clougherty, an assistant professor in Pitt’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, who did a similar saturation monitor study in New York City, and Allen Robinson, a CMU professor in the departments of Engineering and Public Policy and Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Robinson did an air pollution study for the Health Department in 2008 that found diesel exhaust Downtown carried a significant cancer risk.
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  • September 9, 2011 - 10 worst cities for commuting (2011 edition) -

    The city scored the highest in IBM’s Global Commuter Pain Survey, released today. The study surveyed a cross-section of economically important cities around the world regarding commuting habits, ranking the emotional and economic toll of commuting in each of the cities. It found that drivers throughout the world reported more stress and frustration with their commute compared to last year.
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  • September 8, 2011 - Center stack is new high-stakes battleground; showdown with safety regulators looms -

    For auto suppliers and gadget companies eager to get a piece of the auto industry, the hottest chunk of vehicle real estate now is the center stack. That corridor of interior space, running from the driver’s right hip up through the center of the cockpit to the bottom of the windshield, has become a California gold rush of opportunity.
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  • September 8, 2011 - The connected car: New services pit convenience against safety -

    In our October report “Connected Cars: A New Risk,” we look at the some of the technologies automakers are offering in their vehicles, address the potential for driver distraction, and speak to a wide range of industry insiders and safety advocates.
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  • September 8, 2011 - US tech company to build The Center, a New Mexico ghost city for testing -

    Pegasus Global Holdings is investing $200m in the project, which will create a grand, life-size testing bed for new ideas and technologies – potentially including security, transportation and energy ideas that might be a little risky to try out in populated environments.
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  • September 8, 2011 - Study shows that vehicle-to-vehicle navigation systems really do work -

    The researchers, Ilias Leontiadis from the University of Cambridge and coauthors from there, the University of Bologna, and the University of California, Los Angeles, will have their study published in an upcoming issue of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems…
    Still, the overall average trip time was significantly reduced when the CATE navigation system was used. The researchers also found that, when just 34% of the vehicles used CATE, the performance of the entire was comparable to the performance when up to 100% of the vehicles used the system.
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  • September 7, 2011 - Location Services Click With 28% Of U.S. Adults -

    Among cell owners, 28% use their devices to get location-based directions and recommendations — or 23% of all U.S. adults…
    Nielsen estimates that about 37% of mobile users have smartphones, with that proportion projected to surpass 50% by year’s-end.
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  • September 7, 2011 - L.A. School District Crowdsources Maintenance Requests -

    The app allows faculty and staff members–and eventually students and parents–to transmit maintenance requests throughout the district via smartphones…
    Crowdsourcing is also gaining a foothold at the collegiate level. Using GPS-enabled cell phones, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is engaging Facebook users to help report potholes, said Byron Spice, director of media relations for the university.
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  • September 6, 2011 - New System Measures Border Crossing Times -

    The Texas Transportation Institute’s Center for International Intelligent Transportation Research has just completed a project that electronically measures the crossing time for commercial vehicles at the border.The system uses radio frequency identification; trucks are equipped with electronic tags that are read by antennas stationed on each side of the border. The system reads the tags and measures the precise crossing time.
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  • September 6, 2011 - On the road to a smoother commute -

    Edmonton is set to become the testing ground for a new smart-road system. The city has signed an agreement in principal with BMW and a group of other companies from the United States and Italy to test an intelligent road system that relies on embedded sensors. The system has already been proven to work in theory and on small sites, but needs research before being implemented citywide.
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  • September 6, 2011 - Pa. Turnpike Launches Hands-Free Traveler Alert App -

    The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission launched a new iPhone and Droid application that reads audio alerts to travelers when there’s a closure or delay in their way. TRIP Talk senses your position and direction on the Turnpike and talks to you when it detects trouble spots nearby. Unlike other travel-alert tools out there, TRIP Talk is hands free and eyes free. Just turn it on before you depart, and it does the rest.
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  • September 6, 2011 - Fixed Speed Camera Collision, Casualty, and Speed Data -

    The U.K. Department for Transport has released a series of links to external websites where local authorities, or their partners, have published information in respect of collisions, casualties, and speeds at fixed speed camera sites. The site is designed to allow local residents to see whether speed cameras are having a positive impact on accident rates in their areas.
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  • September 6, 2011 - Feasibility of Using In-Vehicle Video Data to Explore How to Modify Driver Behavior That Causes Nonrecurring Congestion -

    The report, a product of the SHRP 2 Reliability focus area, includes guidance on the protocols and procedures for conducting video data reduction analysis. In addition, the report includes technical guidance on the features, technologies, and complementary data sets that researchers can consider when designing future instrumented in-vehicle data collection studies. The report also highlights a new modeling approach for travel time reliability performance measurement across a variety of traffic congestion conditions.
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  • September 6, 2011 - North American Travel Monitoring Exposition and Conference -

    TRB is sponsoring the NATMEC: Improving Traffic Data Collection, Analysis, and Use on June 4-7, 2012, in Dallas, Texas. The conference is designed to advance the state of the practice of travel monitoring by providing a mechanism for improving the interaction between system operators, data collection program managers, and the various staff that collect, process, and utilize that data. Individuals or groups wishing to present at the meeting must submit an abstract by September 15, 2011.
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  • September 6, 2011 - TRB Webinar: 2012 TRB 91st Annual Meeting – How to Survive and Thrive -

    On September 13, 2011, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT, TRB will hold a webinar designed to help both new and returning Annual Meeting attendees get the most out of their meeting experience. The webinar will review issues related to personal planning for the meeting, including hotel reservations, airline reservations, and other basics; help attendees plan their schedules during the meeting; and explore ways attendees can optimize their Annual Meeting networking after they return home.
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  • September 6, 2011 - It’s time to rebuild Pennsylvania -

    Improvements would include system-wide safety enhancements and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS); reduction in structurally deficient bridges; improved roadway resurfacing and reconstruction; new road and bridge capacity projects; increased transit facilities and services; and upgrades and improvements for rail, airports, and ports.
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  • September 6, 2011 - THSRC app to let patrons use smartphone as ticket -

    Passengers on the high-speed rail will soon be able to use their smartphones as a ticket, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) said yesterday.
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  • September 6, 2011 - New intelligent transportation system will benefit trucking sector -

    Pavement sensors, a fibre optic link to the provincial weigh scale facility and computerized weigh-in-motion technology allows pre-screening of individual trucks as they arrive on Prince Edward Island. The system directs only the most relevant loads to the scale house for inspection. The majority of carriers will be directed to proceed along the highway without having to stop and report to the scale.
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  • September 6, 2011 - RouteMatch to deliver intelligent transportation system to Georgia -

    A $1.6m intelligent transportation systems (ITS) will help regional rural transit agencies improve operational efficiencies and ridership service by optimizing route scheduling and standardizing reporting across the state.
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  • September 2, 2011 - ?stanbul’s historical peninsula to launch Smart Bike Project -

    The new public transportation system will enable members of the public to use a special card to check out a bicycle at one station and check it back in at any other station. Demir gave the example that sightseers will soon be able to simply swipe a credit card and rent a bike from Eminönü and then leave it at the Grand Bazaar to go shopping.

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  • September 2, 2011 - Visions on Tomorrow’s Internet -

    Highlights include cloud computing, semantic computing, quantum computing, IPv6, application-data mashups, intelligent transportation, and more.

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  • September 1, 2011 - Connected Cars: The Fine Line Between Innovation & Distraction -

    Of course, one could argue that Sync itself provides plenty of distraction to drivers, to which Monty says, in effect, get real. In 2011, drivers are likely to be answering calls, texting and trying to listen to music anyway. With Sync, at least they’re doing all that while keeping their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road. “Our first priority is the safety of our driver,” says Monty. “We know texting goes on in vehicles. If we can provide an alternative, we’ve met our goal.”

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  • September 1, 2011 - Complicated system helps you drive through Roseville -

    Each of Roseville’s 166 traffic signals has a traffic camera — they don’t call them “surveillance cameras” because this makes people uneasy, Shykowski said, and the devices don’t have the ability to record.

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  • September 1, 2011 - Intelligent Systems at an Intelligent Price -

    But there also are relatively low-cost methods of increasing traffic volumes, and moving traffic faster via intelligent systems, that are available to agencies from coast to coast. The following is an overview of some of these accessible technologies for state, city and county road agencies.

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  • September 1, 2011 - MDOT upgrades traffic monitoring system -

    From a control center on North West Street, in Jackson, the Mississippi Department of Transportation can now look at over 400 cameras, which are statewide and digital. They can monitor traffic flow in real time. The system is so sophisticated you can create your own route and determine if it is open.

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  • September 1, 2011 - Cars and the City: A Look at the Future of the Automobile -

    The writers, an MIT professor and two industry experts, envision a future where cars are designed around their wireless communication abilities and electric drive systems, rather than big, gas-guzzling engines. They can communicate with other cars and roads through a “mobility internet,” and of course, recharge whenever and wherever they need to through a smart electric grid powered by clean, renewable energy.

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  • September 1, 2011 - 5 big ideas for Pittsburgh from emerging leaders -

    And while we’re at it, let’s make the current infrastructure more user-friendly through state-of-the-art technology. Some of these ideas are already being created through Pittsburgh’s Traffic 21 Initiative. Check out three intelligent transportation projects Traffic 21 has already launched ParkPGH, Tiramisu and the Personalized Transportation Mobility Aid.

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  • September 1, 2011 - New AT&T app blocks SMS junkies from texting while driving -

    The app has a simple-but-effective concept where it automatically sends a text message to anyone trying to contact you informing them that you’re currently driving and that you’ll get back to them as soon as safely possible.

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  • September 1, 2011 - Forget gas; future Ford cars may run on the cloud -

    Thanks to mobile broadband, access to a driver’s calendar and entertainment preferences, and smart engineering, the Ford Evos is an example how the cloud can power cars of the future. In conjunction with the IFA show in Berlin, the auto-maker is showing off the Evos concept vehicle in this video, released today.

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  • August 31, 2011 - 5 Emerging Technologies Soon to Hit the Government Market -

    A company called Illuminating Concepts transforms typical streetlights into highly intelligent network nodes that do more than fend off darkness. The Farmington Hills, Mich., company launched a product called Intellistreets that adds lighting control, wireless communication, audio, video and digital signage to any standard streetlight.

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  • August 31, 2011 - BMW Tests an Autonomous Vehicle -

    That’s why BMW is testing a 5-Series sedan outfitted with autonomous tech on that stretch of roadway. The German automaker wants to see if cars with the ability to sense their surroundings can make heavy traffic less of a chore for stressed-out drivers. Engineers from the Highly Automated Driving group have racked up more than 3,100 miles in a semi-autonomous car that can take over during a traffic jam and even bring the car to the shoulder if the driver becomes incapacitated.

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  • August 31, 2011 - Valet Parking, the App -

    While the live test used ultrasound to find available parking spots, future garage parking spots may be equipped with technology that mechanically prevents access to vehicles without the proper ID. The researchers envision a citywide GPS system that reserves the nearest available parking spot within a specified price range. Managing hundreds of simultaneous requests for vacant parking spots throughout a city, it would direct subscribers from their present location to the parking spot closest (and if desired, cheapest) to their destination.

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  • August 31, 2011 - Cameras at construction zones, traffic lights touted for safety Read more: Cameras at construction zones, traffic lights touted for safety -

    A proposal to generate $2.7 billion a year for transportation in Pennsylvania recommends allowing traffic enforcement cameras at intersections and in construction zones across the state.

  • August 31, 2011 - A Data-Driven Approach to Inspection: FHWA Introduces New Bridge Safety Initiative -

    A new bridge safety initiative introduced by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) this year is using systematic, data-driven, and risk-based reviews and analysis to improve oversight of how States are performing their bridge inspections.

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  • August 31, 2011 - 2010 Urban Congestion Trends: Enhancing System Reliability with Operations -

    The U.S. Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Operations has released a report that explores how system reliability may be enhanced through a variety of operational strategies.

    The report also includes three national snapshot performance measures derived from travel time data from 20 urban areas in the United States. The measures include congested hours, travel time index, and the planning time index.

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  • August 31, 2011 - Using Census Data for Transportation Applications Conference -

    TRB is sponsoring the Using Census Data for Transportation Applications Conference on October 25-27, 2011, in Irvine, California. The workshop will focus on the use of census data for transportation applications by exploring the results of current research, providing an opportunity for the sharing of experiences of practitioners who are using census data, and by examining potential strategies for practical improvements in data use for current and emerging data needs.

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  • August 31, 2011 - Improving Roadway Safety Programs Through University-Agency Partnerships -

    TRB will organize a conference to review new safety tools and concepts, highlight current successful university-transportation agency safety partnerships, identify current and potential capabilities to fully utilize these new tools and concepts, and explore collaborative approaches by transportation agencies and universities to improve roadway safety.

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  • August 31, 2011 - 2012 TRB 91st Annual Meeting: Spotlight Theme -

    The spotlight theme for the 91st Annual Meeting is Transportation: Putting Innovation and People to Work. Spotlight sessions, workshops, and discussions at the 2012 TRB Annual Meeting will highlight how research leads to innovation in transportation services and products, and how this in turn can stimulate the economy, create jobs, and attract students to the transportation profession.

    The TRB 91st Annual Meeting, January 22-26, 2012, in Washington, D.C.

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  • August 30, 2011 - GPS App Keeps Drivers’ Eyes on the Road -

    A new app, Wikitude Drive, aims to help drivers navigate without diverting their attention away from the road. Philipp Breuss–Schneeweis, founder of Wikitude GmbH, the Austrian company that developed the app, claims that “seeing the cars in front of you in the camera image can help you to avoid a crash. Many accidents actually happen when drivers look at the navigation system and the car ahead stops.”

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  • August 30, 2011 - Pa. governor’s panel advises more red-light cameras -

    “It’s using technology to affect behavior, reduce the cost of enforcement and improve enforcement,” said state Transportation Secretary Barry Schoch, who chaired the governor’s Transportation Funding Advisory Commission.

  • August 30, 2011 - Trucking Industry Mobility and Technology Coalition -

    Make plans now to attend the 3rd Annual Trucking Industry Mobility and Technology Coalition meeting, held in conjunction with ATA’s Management Conference and Exhibit (MC&E). The 2011 TIMTC Annual Meeting will take place at the world famous Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Dallas on October 17 – 18, 2011.

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  • August 30, 2011 - Bike sharing takes hold in the US -

    Two companies are working to split the market across the US: B-Cycle, a joint effort between advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Humana healthcare and Trek Bicycle Corporation, and PBSC Urban Solutions, the people behind BIXI. Both companies supply the bikes, build the docking stations and provide the tracking systems needed to run each scheme.

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  • August 29, 2011 - Travel pan-India with mobility card -

    It’s time to bid goodbye to heavy purses and all that stuff that you carry when you travel in public transport. All thanks to the Common Mobility Card-a prepaid smart card that will allow denizens to travel in public transport- bus, auto-rickshaw, taxi and even book railway tickets pan India.

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  • August 29, 2011 - Armstrong County hopes to plug into transportation’s future -

    Commissioner Patty Kirkpatrick is hoping the emerging technology known as intelligent transportation will soon reduce traffic congestion, improve safety and expand industry here.

    As the co-chair of the Infrastructure Policy Committee for the region with the University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, Kirkpatrick is interested in strategies for meeting the future travel needs of the county.

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  • August 29, 2011 - Google gets behind the wheel -

    Raj Rajkumar, co-director of the General Motors autonomous driving collaborative lab at Carnegie Mellon University, predicts that driverless vehicles will be on the roads in the next 10 years and drastically improve the use of road infrastructure…

    “When we fly, the autopilot is in control for much of the flight,” he said. “We already trust our lives to computers in these safety-critical situations.”

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  • August 29, 2011 - Joint MIT/Princeton Researchers Develop Mobile System To Help You Avoid Red Lights & Save Gas While Driving -

    The new system is called SignalGuru and it aims to capture images while you are driving to relay information about stop lights. Emmanouil Koukoumidis, a visiting researcher at MIT who led the project, said that the application’s use can easily spread beyond just traffic signal capture to include parking spaces, city bus paths, or various gas stations. It works by placing a bracket on a car’s dashboard that will hold your smartphone in order to capture images as you’re driving.

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  • August 29, 2011 - Ford and Michigan Tech Team Up to Imagine a Better Bus System -

    Michigan Tech’s Transportation Enterprise and Automotive Computing Enterprise (ACE) won the $50,000 competitive grant. Enterprises are teams of students who take on real-world problems and—with industry partners—use their Tech education to find practical solutions.

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  • August 29, 2011 - PennDOT probes management of traffic signals throughout Pennsylvania -

    The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is reviewing the way traffic signals are managed across the state. “Timing (of signals) is not as organized as it should be,” PennDOT spokesman Steve Chismar said. “It’s a problem that crops up more than it should.”

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  • August 29, 2011 - U.S. DOT Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Announces Over $8 Million in Grants to Strengthen Truck and Bus Safety Across Pennsylvania -

    FMCSA awarded $7.9 million to the Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to strengthen enforcement oversight at high-crash corridors throughout the state, conduct safety audits of new truck and bus companies and upgrade the commercial driver’s license knowledge test from paper to electronic form at testing facilities across the state.

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  • August 29, 2011 - Can taxing trucks by the mile help save transportation funding? -

    As part of the experiment, researchers came up with three different pricing schemes for the mileage tax. The first one would simply charge a basic fee per mile traveled. A second would also charge truckers lower rates for taking highways designed to handle trucks, and higher rates for taking local roads. The third set-up would give discounts to trucks that traveled during off-peak hours, to try to cut down on traffic jams.

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  • August 24, 2011 - PennDOT RFP for NEXT GEN ATMS -

    The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is soliciting proposals from interested Offerors to design and implement the Next Generation Advanced Traffic Management System (NEXT GEN ATMS). This will include services to design, develop, implement, test, maintain and support a single statewide Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) software that will allow shared control of all existing and future Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) devices and data throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

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  • August 24, 2011 - RoboCar MEV-C: Japan Gets New Robot Car -

    While the conventional COMS is a rather simple electric vehicle, ZMP added quite a few features to make it sexier: a stereo camera, a 9-axis wireless motion sensor, a GPS unit, a temperature and humidity sensor, a laser range sensor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G and the so-called CAN (Control Area Network) protocol as an “open platform” that allows buyers to access every piece of the hardware.

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  • August 24, 2011 - Stockholm’s Congestion Pricing Success -

    Rather than installing hundreds of cameras throughout its city centre, Stockholm opted to install cameras at 18 entrance points to the city – a system only possible due to the fact that central Stockholm is essentially an island with just a few possible points of entry.

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  • August 24, 2011 - City Launched ITS to Control Traffic Congestion -

    Great effort is needed rather than relaying to officer to solve traffic jam in Jakarta which is getting worse. Jakarta Provincial Government through Jakarta Dept. of Transportation is using advance technology by launching Intelligent Transport System (ITS). ITS is not only used as monitoring center, but it also has ability to perform anticipation and reactive action to traffic lane.

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  • August 23, 2011 - Number Of Cars Worldwide Surpasses 1 Billion; Can The World Handle This Many Wheels? -

    The number of cars on the world’s roads surpassed one billion last year, according to a study that has spurred debate on what the rapidly-growing car population will mean for the world’s economy and environment. According to a report from Ward’s Auto released last week, the global number of cars exceeded 1.015 billion in 2010, jumping from from 980 million the year before.

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  • August 23, 2011 - Put your money where your miles are -

    The Netherlands has begun a brave experiment to tax motorists not on how much gas they use, but how much they drive…

    One of the key components of the Dutch system is a display not unlike a taxi meter, which tallies the charge based on driving distance in real time. Such visual representations of money flying out of your pocket can be a powerful tool to change behavior.

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  • August 23, 2011 - U.S. Department of Transportation Launches Major Test of Innovative Vehicle Safety Technology -

    (DOT) today announced that the University of Michigan will conduct a road safety field trial in Ann Arbor, MI using innovative technology equipment in everyday vehicles in a real-time environment. This advanced technology will be tested in a major study over the course of a year, and may help significantly reduce the number of vehicle crashes on our nation’s roads. The Safety Pilot will include the installation of wireless devices in up to 3,000 vehicles in one location to evaluate the effectiveness of connected vehicle technology to prevent crashes.

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  • August 23, 2011 - Senior Travelers’ Trip Chaining Behavior: Survey Results and Data Analysis -

    The Illinois Center for Transportation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has released a report that explores senior citizens’ travel and activity scheduling behavior. According to the authors, the reports finding may be usefully in helping to plan more efficient transit services targeting senior travelers and may help change their attitudes toward public transportation.

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  • August 23, 2011 - Response Modification for Enhanced Operation and Safety of Bridges -

    The Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota has released a report that explores the role bridge health monitoring and structural response modification can play in extending the service life of existing bridge structures.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Digital Transportation Exchange (DTE) Initiative -

    The Digital Transportation Exchange (DTE) would connect citizens, businesses, state and local governments, industry, entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors though a public private partnership like never before—creating a thriving marketplace for transportation solutions. The DOT is interested in (1) engaging a wide variety of stakeholders on the potential for this initiative to connect people and technology for transportation innovation and (2) identifying partners to launch and manage this platform.

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  • August 22, 2011 - New 511 System Coming to W.Va. -

    When the system is up and running, motorists can simply dial 511 to get that information, Kenney said. But it’s not your typical 511. Instead of having to push buttons, users will be able to talk back to get information.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Governor’s panel: Allow red-light cameras statewide -

    In Pennsylvania, red-light cameras, which photograph the license plates of motorists who run red lights and send those folks citations in the mail, are legal only in Philadelphia — though a recent development might help change that.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Parkmobile launches its Pay-by-Phone parking service in Nashville -

    Parkmobile USA has announced that its service will be implemented at Premier Parking surface lots located in Nashville, Tennessee. Customers will now be able to pay for parking with their cell phones using Parkmobile’s mobile applications for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smartphones.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Florida DOT gets US$2.6 million of FHWA funding for Sarasota-Manatee ATMS -

    When it is online, the ATMS will direct traffic at 75% of the signals in the two counties. Similar systems elsewhere in the USA and in Europe show up to 48% reductions in travel times. The FHWA funding for the new ATMS was among US$417.3 million in government grants announced for projects across the USA.

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  • August 22, 2011 - County prepares to expand Intelligent Transportation System -

    PANAMA CITY — It might seem difficult to imagine while attempting to navigate 23rd Street during lunch hour or cross the Hathaway Bridge after work, but Bay County’s Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) has decreased travel times and saved drivers millions of dollars since its inception about a decade ago, and it soon will be expanding.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Ford and Twitter Talk Keys to Marketing to Millennials -

    Ford outlined several keys to getting millennials interested in Ford cars that boiled down to giving them what they’ve come to expect from their offline and online life: connectivity, individuality and instant gratification.

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  • August 22, 2011 - In-vehicle technology helps drivers make better decisions -

    A new in-vehicle system developed at Clemson University promises to gather key information about traffic and road conditions that can help drivers make better decisions.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Federal grants to fund Kan. highway projects -

    The largest grant — $1.65 million — will allow the state to build an “intelligent transportation system” that will use real-time traffic data to help guide motorists through construction zones.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Car Jack-Jacking: Cybersecurity Is The Next Challenge For Electric Vehicles -

    By 2015, $144 million will be spent annually on cybersecurity tools for electric vehicles. Hacker attacks on electric vehicles couldn’t just spoof credit card numbers or power a car for free–they could also potentially take down the grid.

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  • August 22, 2011 - Idaho takes another step toward roads paved with solar panels -

    The government is once again bequeathing Solar Roadways with some capital to pursue its vision, this time giving the company $750,000 to replace its own parking lot with the paneled blocks, which include an array of photovoltaic and heating elements, as well as wireless LED lights all protected by glare-free glass that offers the same traction as asphalt. This will allow Solar Roadways to monitor its baby ’round the clock, and to see if the technology can live up to its grand potential.

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  • August 22, 2011 - ‘EzRide’ software now for smart phones -

    Commuter Services of Pennsylvania announced that its ride matching software, “EzRide,” is now available for smart phones.

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  • August 17, 2011 - IBM to create academic competence center for intelligent transportation systems -

    The Moscow State Automobile and Road Technical University (MADI) and the Scientific Center for Complex Transportation Problems of the Ministry of Transport have reached an agreement with IBM for the creation of an academic competence center dedicated to IBM solutions in the area of intelligent transportation systems.

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  • August 17, 2011 - New Parking App Promises to Save Time, Gas, and Carbon Emissions -

    “The ideal scenario is: You know you’re leaving in five to 10 minutes,” founder Brian Rosetti told Fast Company. “You set your price. If anyone bids on your spot, you get a text message.”

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