Published Articles
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Talking Heads
A bout of fascinating acquisitions has propelled Federal Signal Technologies, a new name in the ITS sector, to the forefront of the industry. Harold Worrall talks to the new company's group president, Manfred Rietsch.
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Signal Changes
Manfred Rietsch, group president of Federal Signal Technologies (FST), talks about the recent acquisitions forming FST and the organisation’s plans for the future.
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Swift Check
With the Idris system now validated as a speed verification tool, the way is open for loops to be used in more complex enforcement applications.
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TTI interview Bill Osborne
Having spearheaded federal signal’s recent acquisitions spree, Bill Osborne is adamant he’s got the best tolling tools in the box to compete at the highest level.
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Seamless transition
Teri England, Diamond Consulting Services Ltd, describes the E-470's switchover to all-electronic toll collection
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Life with the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway
Marty Stone, Planning Director for Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) takes me on a journey travelling the Selmon Expressway’s conversion to a cashless solution.
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E-470 going cashless
To be or not to be cashless? That was the question E-470 Public Highway Authority (E-470) asked back in 2007. In June 2007, E-470 made the business decision to transition to an all-electronic toll collection (AETC) system, in other words, a cashless road.
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RFID'S Day
The route to achieving true state-to-state tolling interoperability has left many transportation experts scratching their heads. Cooperation between states and agencies is crucial, while harmonization of the technology to be adopted is a must.
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Class Action
In a previous article Bob Lees of Idris Technology Ltd looked at the appropriateness of toll classes in relation to all-electronic toll fee collection. In this article, he looks at how addressing classification standardisation could avoid downstream aggravation and cost.
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Dead Reckoning
The move to all-electronic fee collection should be encouraging tolling authorities to look again at whether their vehicle classification criteria and technologies remain at all appropriate. Bob Lees of Idris Technology gives his views.
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Below the Line
The more strident proponents of newer and emergent detection technologies are quick to highlight what they see as the disadvantages, and hence the imminent passing, of the humble inductive loop. The more prosaic will acknowledge that loops continue to have a part to play in traffic management, falling back on the assertion that it is all a question of application. And yet year after year the loop, despite its 'inherent' disadvantages being trumpeted to the heavens, continues stubbornly on. In fact, its percentage share of the overall detection market continues...
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Essential Collection
Idris axle-classification systems have been providing supreme accuracy, low maintenance and versatility with inductive axle loops for several years. Now, though, sites utilizing piezo-based sensors can also reap the same rewards. One card fits all is the message behind Nortech International’s development of a new piezo-based axle-detection card – an advancement that allows Idris technology to utilize alternative sensors for data-collection applications. As a result, users can benefit from the accuracy of Idris axleclassification products at existing piezo...
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Reversing Tampa Congestion
It would be nice to think the Expressway Marty Stone was escorting me down had been closed solely for my visit to Tampa! Having won a Queens Award for export and been presented to her majesty in person – surely I could expect no less! But alas this was not the case, the reason for the closure was the directional change over of the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway's reversible open road tolling lanes.
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Source: Published April 2008 |
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Irregular Behavior - ETC and the infrequent customer
Automatic ETC is great for regular drivers, but if you’re not always using toll roads, payment options can be limited. Operators will find that catering for this demographic – which is larger than you might think – could be crucial in future
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Source: Tolltrans Jan 2008 |
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Technology and the Future of Tolling
Many of us would probably project the future for tolling as robust. Certainly, tolling has become a last resort for politicians to avoid transportation tax increases and to close funding gaps and maintain our respective countries’ global competitiveness.
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Source: Thinking Highways (North American Issue), 2007, Issue 7 |
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EVR: the new security and OTC solution
Electronic vehicle registration has significant Homeland Security potential but could also be the costeffective key to making open road tolling truly work. Hal Worrall makes the case.
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The Automatic Choice
Deployed into several first-of-type tolling systems, the Idris range of automatic vehicle classification products is rapidly defining the way in which the tolling industry detects, counts and classifies road-using vehicles.
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Back to Basic - The Next Step
In our previous 'Tolling - Back to Basics' feature we looked at what makes up the lane infrastructure and how to gather vehicle data and information so that the correct toll fee may be collected. In this feature we'll look at what happens to that information and the process trail from initial vehicle detection to the 'green light for go'.
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Open Tolling
'Open' in the sense of communicating a tolling authority's intentions to the most important, but most-often overlooked group of people: road users. The Illinois Tollway's congestion relief programme's Communications Plan is an award-winner
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From Road Rage to Road Raves
The Second feature from The Tollways “Road to Congestion Relief”. Since the summer of 2005, the Illinois Tollway has been converting 20 mainline toll plazas to Open Road Tolling (ORT) for I-PASS travel at highway speed. Looking back over the last twelve months, the Tollway has progressed its road to congestion relief at a record pace!
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First of Type for New Jersey Turnpike Authority
What do Asbury, Toms River & Raritan all have in common? Quite a bit actually, all three are tolling plazas situated within the state of New Jersey on the Garden State Parkway. They use the ACS State & Local Solutions “Vector Express” tolling solution and all three plazas are designed for Open Road Tolling (ORT).
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Patently Obvious - Why patents are important
ITS companies spend millions in R&D. They must if they are to increase or even maintain market share in the fast moving world they inhabit. Whether developing X-by-wire, co-operative vehicle/highway systems, off-board navigation or advanced communications systems for telematics, the costs are substantial and the potential rewards huge. But who would be willing to undertake such a venture without some guarantee of commercial success? What insurance is there that predatory companies will not immediately make use of the new technology so laboriously and expensively developed?
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Illinois Tollway - Express Delivery
The Illinois Tollway maintains and operates one of the busiest transport networks in the US – 274 miles (440 km) of interstate tollways in 12 counties, including the Reagan Memorial (I-88), North-South (I-355), Northwest (I-90) and Tri-State (I-94, I-294, I-80/I-294). Its Congestion-Relief Program is an innovative and ambitious US$5.3 billion plan to relieve congestion and reduce travel time. This, the first of three articles, examines an important part of that plan, Open Road Tolling, and how the Tollway is achieving its goal of 'Open Roads for a Faster Future'.
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Tolling - Back to Basics
Recent political decisions have put Road User Charging (RUC) firmly on the UK’s demand management agenda and given rise to renewed interest in electronic charging options. The UK offers relatively few working examples and most traffic managers have little practical experience of the technology. The picture is quite different in the US where electronic toll collection (ETC) is a mature technology which has been in routine use for more than a decade. In this, the first of a series of articles, Teri England, Idris Project Manager with Diamond Consulting Services (DCS), takes electronic tolling back to basics and provides a concise but digestible guide to the technology and its application.
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Get me to the bus on time
The bus schedules have had to be re-written. The published times of arrival were so inaccurate as to be an embarrassment. Sound familiar? Another complaint about late running public transit vehicles? Not this time, in fact quite the reverse. In the City of Aberdeen, an urban traffic management scheme has resulted in buses completing their routes well ahead of schedule and has required a new timetable to be published.
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ORT: Thinking outside the box
The toll industry has enjoyed significant success with the implementation of electronic toll collection (ETC). Traffic queues are reduced, customer service has increased, and capital expenditures associated with the construction of expanded plazas have been deferred. In addition, throughput capacity has increased from 400 vehicles per hour to over 2000. Yet, the productivity benefits of ETC are not without their challenges. Most notable is the design and implementation of the lane/roadside architecture.
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Out of Space
The problem is not new. Around the world, increasing volumes of traffic compete for road space that cannot keep pace with demand. And as the available space effectively diminishes, the requirement for management/enforcement of traffic regulations becomes more acute. In turn, this leads to a sharply increased potential for conflict between the regulatory authorities and the driving public.
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Source: Traffic Technology International April/May 2004 |
www.ukipme.com |
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Wolverhampton Lighting Up the Offence
A novel bus lane deterrent system, part of a pilot being run by Centro, has gone live in Wolverhampton. A successful pilot here could be rolled out across the West Midlands.
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For Whom the Tolls
There is more to congestion charging than just political will. Patrick Hook takes a look at tolling technology.
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Suncoast Inspiration
Florida's new Suncoast Parkway boasts the state's first electronic, Express-Lane Toll installation as well as environmental features, as Emilio Suarez and Tom Knuckey explain.
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Remedy and the Cause
Road tolling is in danger of adding to the congestion problem rather than helping in its solution. As the volume of traffic rises, the need for its control grows, but current systems designed to reduce demand, particularly on the inter-urban roads network, stand accused of creating a raft of additional problems. So what is the answer? Can technology help?
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The E470 Expressway Tolling System Incorporates Idris
Drivers using the just-completed final eight miles - US 85 to Interstate 25 - of the E470 Expressway, Denver, Colorado, USA can complete its 47-mile overall length in about 40 minutes, their $8.50 toll collected reliably and efficiently thanks to Idris® technology developed in the UK.
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Source: TEC July/August 2003 |
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Idris Offers More Effective Tolling
Diamond Consulting Services (DCS) design and develop intelligent transport systems that provide very accurate data on individual vehicles for tolling and traffic data recording purposes. A powerful technique, developed with the support of a Smart Award, helps identify the number of axles per vehicle using inductive loop technology. The IDRIS axle classification system offers a simple and cost effective method for charging tolls, which is being adopted by authorities in North America and Europe.
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Source: Business Link 2003 |
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A Class Counting Act from Idris
Idris technology has over time become a complete Automatic Vehicle Classification system. Developer Bob Lees sees a very bright future for this technology in the tolling industry which is under pressure to count and classify vehicles to ever greater levels of accuracy.
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Pre-Classification Provides Accurate Axle Counts
Camino Colombia Toll Road (CCTR) offers a border crossing free of congestion and connects the main traffic arteries in South Texas and North Mexico. The Comino Colombia highway is the first privately owned toll road in Texas, and also provides the only hazardous cargo route in the region. This unique project is setting trends for the tolling industry. It is the first location to use Idris® Smart loops in a pre-classification mode with reversible lane directions.
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Source: Smartways Spring/Summer 2001 |
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Idris Loops for Axle Detection
With the benefit of an R&D grant from the UK Government, Diamond Consulting Services (DCS) has further enhanced its idris smart loop detector technology to encompass vehicle axels. A combination of cost-effectiveness with a >99.97 per cent seperation accuracy, provides a complete Automatic Vehicle Classification (AVC) system.
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Source: Tolltrans Oct/Nov 1998 |
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Idris Goes to the Tolls
Shadow tolling, as pioneered by the UK Private Finance Initiative, provides a ready mechanism for quasi-private highway provision. Count accuracy, however, is the challenge to successful operation. A new technique to enhance loop detectors for high accuracy counting and classification, in both free-flow and stopped traffic, offers exciting possibilities for such tolling operations.
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Source: Tolltrans Oct/Nov 1996 |
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