Highway & Network Management

A test stretch of road in the US is playing a valuable role in developing technology and boosting traffic safety -*Tom Gibson writes Located a short distance from the Virginia Tech campus in the mountains of rural southwest Virginia in the mid-Atlantic region of United States, the Virginia Smart Road looks like a conventional road. But venturing to either end of the 3.5km-long thoroughfare reveals that it actually goes nowhere, at least for now. The result of a plan conceived back in the 1980s, the Vi

Rebuilding of one of the oldest motorways in Germany is testing out the possibilities for public-private project road construction reports Adrian Greeman A freshly renovated section of the A8 Autobahn in southern Germany will be watched with some interest this summer as traffic begins driving along its rebuilt carriageway and additional third lanes. That is not because of any special road features, other than a distinctive reddish colour to its concrete surface, but because it is a first fullscale public

The US state of Oregon’s new pay-by-the-mile road usage charge program, OReGO, took a step forward last month.

User-pays is crystallising as the preferred option by governments and taxpayers around the world, said Jack Opiola, managing partner of international road usage charging consultancy, D’Artagnan Consulting. Opiola, who chaired a session at the inaugural IRF - Roads Australia Regional Conference for Asia and Australasia in Sydney earlier this month, has been working with several US states which are wrestling with the ‘who pays’ issue. “Some states are propping up their transportation funding with portio

Foreign road users could be paying up to €130 (US$147) a year for using Germany's autobahn motorways starting in 2016. The plan was given the go-ahead by the German government last October but implementation could be delayed if it faces a legal challenge by European member states. Bavarian state transport minister Alexander Dobrindt said he was convinced that the draft law does not discriminate against foreign motorists, an issue if the law were to be challenged in any European court. He called the infras

Melbourne’s road users are the focus of a year-long study into what options are possible for funding road infrastructure projects including various user-pays models. The study headed by Australian toll roads operator Transurban will conducted across Melbourne’s entire road network to see how drivers react to tolling and other road-use models such as charging motorists for each kilometre travelled, a charge to access roads, annual fixed costs per kilometre on expected usage and price per trip. It will al

VIDEOTEC’s latest compact outdoor camera, the ULISSE Compact HD PTZ, now comes with a 30x optical zoom lens. It has higher sensitivity, higher gain level, improved WDR, defog function and improved autofocus speed. As such, it offers what the company claims is unrivalled performance even in extreme low light conditions. The unit’s optional IR LED illuminator, ULISSE COMPACT HD provides sharp images of the monitored area at night and is able to detect a figure in the dark up to 200m away. The built-in wipe