Browsing: Features

Following the announcement of a new data-sharing partnership between the free, crowdsourced traffic and navigation…

The drive to make Mobility as a Service (MaaS) a reality in the UK gathered…

GoGet’s Justin Passaportis speaks to Traffic Technology Today about how the Australian carshare company is tackling congestion in the country’s major cities by reducing private car use and freeing up parking space.

At this week’s ITS European Congress in Glasgow (June 6-9) two submitted papers were chosen by organizers to be recognized in the Best Paper Awards. Traffic Technology Today speaks exclusively to the winners, to get the inside story on their world-leading research.

The majority of transportation professionals believe that the uptake of autonomous vehicles will follow a path similar to other automotive technologies, such as airbags and anti-lock brakes, and happen gradually, over a number of decades, according to the results of the latest Traffic Technology Today poll.

What happens when speed and red-light enforcement cameras are first introduced? In most major cities in the developed world it is becoming difficult to remember a time before traffic enforcement cameras of some type. And in most locations such systems were installed in a piecemeal fashion, making it difficult to assess overall effectiveness. However, in many cities in Turkey, traffic enforcement cameras are new, which gives authorities a unique opportunity to assess their overall effectiveness, as ‘before’ and ‘after’ data can be generated around large-scale deployments, as is revealed in this case study of an installation by Poltes Robot, partnering with Jenoptik.

Andrew Martin, professor of systems security at Oxford University in the UK, is an expert in ‘trusted computing technologies’, particularly in cloud, mobile, and embedded applications –embodied in the concept of the Internet of Things. Here, he gives his expert opinion on potential security issues in the field of autonomous vehicles – flagging areas, such as freight, that transportation authorities should be ready to protect from cyber attack.

With the ‘shared space’ movement putting pressure on authorities to remove traffic signals from urban areas, and proponents of connected and  autonomous vehicle technology claiming one day we may be able to do away with them all together, the future for the trusty traffic signal feels far from certain. In a second extract from his new book Traffic Signals, Alistair Gollop, senior ITS consultant at Mott MacDonald, takes detailed look at what we can expect from this technology in the coming years. 

The evolution of the traffic light can be traced back some 200 years, but before becoming the reliable system we know today it has had to recover from a number of design flaws and evolutionary dead-ends – as well as all-out explosions. In this exclusive extract from his new book Traffic Signals, Alistair Gollop (pictured), senior ITS consultant at Mott MacDonald, presents what is perhaps the most complete history of traffic signal design ever compiled. It is just the first chapter of the book, which is a comprehensive guide to traffic signals, from first principles and design issues, to equipment and testing, commissioning and assessments. It is a complete introduction to the subject and likely to be of interest to traffic management practitioners of all levels.

Traffic Technology Today poll results: The majority of transportation professionals believe that, contrary to the opinions of traditional regulators, ride-sharing services like Uber will eventually spell the end of traditional taxis and transform the sector into a self-regulating free market.