Highway & Network Management

The European Commission has warned Portugal to change national rules on the introduction of tolling that are contrary to Community law, a decision that has widespread implications for similar schemes throughout the rest of Europe depending on how what is becoming a complex legal tangle is resolved. In November, 2010, the Aveiro municipality filed a formal complaint against the Portuguese Government to the European Commission objecting to a tolling scheme on the old SCUT highway. It argued that the system wa

It's all smiles at Swarco's stand at Gulf Traffic which opened today because the company has announced it has been awarded the second phase of the Automated Traffic Administering & Monitoring (ATAM) project, a Saudi Arabian programme for the cities of Riyadh and Qaseem.

Road safety and enforcement will be key topics at the annual TISPOL European Traffic Police Network conference taking place in Scottish capital Edinburgh. The event will be held at the MacDonald Roxburghe Hotel, on Tuesday 2nd-3rd October 2012. The theme for the conference is ‘Europe’s priority ... protecting vulnerable road users’. The speaker line-up includes top-level road safety representatives of Government, Police and Academia from Europe and Australia. Delegate pre-registrations have been higher than

The World Bank is reducing its financing projects in Ukraine until 2016. The new cooperation strategy between the bank and the country's government follows a drop in financing through slow spending loans extended by the bank to the country in recent years. The bank will provide US$150million for the Second Project for Exports Development in 2012. And Ukraine can also receive $1billion in 2013-2014. However, both financing packages will depend on development of economic reforms in the country during the foll

The European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) is calling on the European Governments to recognise the importance of investing in infrastructure. The FIEC says it recognises the challenging economic climate and the need for governments to cut unsustainable levels of public debt. But FIEC president Luisa Todini commented, “Austerity is however not a solution by itself.” Europe’s transport, energy and telecommunication networks are the backbone of the EU internal market, ensuring that goods and services

Plans are in hand for infrastructure upgrades in Malaysia. The local government in Selangor State is to carry out a series of infrastructure projects, including the construction of three or four highways with a total investment of US$2.44 billion. Meanwhile a new 6km toll road will be built to link Marunda with Kalibaru terminal in Indonesia's Tanjung Priok. This will cost an estimated US$167 million and forms part of a plan to have a railway and toll road linking other major facilities with the terminal.

Siemens has announced that Surrey County Council in the UK is continuing to upgrade urban traffic control (UTC) with modern digital communications equipment following the deployment of the company’s latest UTMC-compliant outstation transmission units (OTUs) at a further 25 analogue sites. Working closely with Surrey’s traffic engineers to commission the new Siemens technology, the full programme to upgrade all 100 UTC sites is planned for completion in the coming weeks.

EC Harris, the global built asset consultancy, has been appointed by the Ecomouv consortium to monitor construction progress, expenditure and testing on the new French Ecotaxe truck tolling system which is scheduled to be introduced across the country by mid-2013. The Ecotaxe scheme will see a levy imposed on all French and foreign heavy good vehicles (HGV) that travel along the 15,000km of national and departmental roads throughout France. Each HGV subject to the tax will have technology installed onboard

Dr Michael Milford from Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) Science and Engineering Faculty in Australia has revealed details of research that dispenses with GPS satellites and uses cameras instead to make road navigation a far cheaper and simpler task. "At the moment you need three satellites in order to get a decent GPS signal and even then it can take a minute or more to get a lock on your location," he said. "There are some places geographically, where you just can't get satellite signals and ev

Telvent GIT has been selected by the North East Texas Regional Mobility Authority (NET RMA) to integrate an electronic toll collection (ETC) system in northeast Texas. The company’s advanced SmartMobility Open Road Tolling technology, which integrates into the existing toll system, will be used to implement and manage the NET RMA ETC system. The ETC system provides drivers with the convenience of travelling at free-flow, highway speeds, for increased throughput, and decreased green house gas (GHG) emissions