Should tollway have “website of shame” for scofflaws?

May 15, 2013

Lawmakers are considering setting up a “website of shame” to post the names of people who owe more than $1,000 in fines to the Illinois Tollway.

(Lawmakers are considering setting up a “website of shame” to post the names of people who owe more than $1,000 in fines to the Illinois Tollway.)

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois House Friday rejected by one vote a plan to set up a “website of shame” to display the names of scofflaws owing more than $1,000 in tollway fines.

After the vote, state Rep. Kathleen Willis, an Addison Democrat, said she had intended to vote for it but accidentally didn’t.

Its sponsor, state Rep. Lou Lang, could try again as early as next week.

The proposal would require the Illinois Tollway to contact people who owed fines nine different times before posting their names on the website.The point, Lang said, is to try to collect the millions of dollars in delinquent tolls owed by drivers.

“This is just an additional tool to embarrass people,” the Skokie Democrat said.

Some Republicans showed concern some drivers might be unfairly named, for instance if others using their cars and racking up fines or a scofflaw was in the process of trying to pay the debt.

“I would not want to see the wrong people posted on the web,” said state Rep. Mike Fortner, a West Chicago Republican.

State Rep. Ron  Sandack, a Downers Grove Republican, called Lang’s plan a “website of shame” and voted against it.  The plan has already been approved by the Illinois Senate, so the House’s approval would send it to Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk.

It’s not an entirely new idea in Illinois. The state has a website, www.deadbeatsillinois.com, that displays the names and photos of some people who are behind on child support payments.

Source-http://www.dailyherald.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Soon: Toyota’s smart-cars that can communicate with each other

April 22, 2013

Susono, Japan: Toyota Motor Corp is testing car safety systems that allow vehicles to communicate with each other and with the roads they are on in a just completed facility in Japan the size of three baseball stadiums.

The cars at the Intelligent Transport System site receive information from sensors and transmitters installed on the streets to minimize the risk of accidents in situations such as missing a red traffic light, cars advancing from blind spots and pedestrians crossing the street. The system also tests cars that transmit such information to each other.

In a test drive for reporters Monday, the presence of a pedestrian triggered a beeping sound in the car and a picture of a person popped up on a screen in front of the driver. A picture of an arrow popped up to indicate an approaching car at an intersection. An electronic female voice said, “It’s a red light,” if the driver was about to ignore a red light.

The 3.5 hectare test site looks much like the artificial roads at driving schools, except bigger, and is in a corner of the Japanese automaker’s technology center near Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.

Toyota’s Lexus LS stops automatically in front of a dummy during a Toyota Motor Corp. demonstration of the pre-collision system (PCS) at its Higashi-Fuji Technical Center in Susono. AP

Toyota officials said the smart-car technology it is developing will be tested on some Japanese roads starting in 2014. Similar tests are planned for the US, although details were not decided. Such technology is expected to be effective because half of car accidents happen at intersections, according to Toyota.

Managing Officer Moritaka Yoshida said Toyota sees preventing collisions, watching out for pedestrians and helping the driving of the elderly as key to ensuring safety in the cars of the future.

“We offer the world’s top-level technology,” he told reporters.

All automakers are working on pre-crash safety technology to add value to their cars, especially for developed markets such as the US, Europe and Japan. But the strongest sales growth is coming from emerging markets which are eventually expected to show more interest in safety technology.

Toyota’s Japanese rival Nissan Motor Co. recently showed cars that were smart enough to stop on their own, park themselves and swerve away from pedestrians who suddenly jumped into the vehicle’s path.

Toyota also showed a new feature that helps the driver brake harder to prevent bumping into the vehicle in front. Toyota officials said drivers often fail to push hard on their brakes in such situations because they get into a panic.

Toyota said the technology will be available “soon,” without giving a date, and hinted it will be offered for Lexus luxury models. Luxury models already offer similar safety features such as automatic braking. Technology involving precise sensors remains expensive, sometimes costing as much as a cheaper Toyota car.

Toyota has also developed sonar sensors that help drivers avoid crashing in parking lots. One system even knows when the driver pushes on the gas pedal by mistake instead of the brakes, and will stop automatically.

Rear-end collisions make up 34 percent of car accidents in Japan, comprising the biggest category, followed by head-on collisions at 27 percent.

Cars that stop and go on their own, avoiding accidents, are not pure science fiction, experts say.

Alberto Broggi, professor at the University of Parma and an expert on intelligent transportation systems, said the idea of the accident-free cars is “very hot,” and probably within reach on some roads within several years.

“I’m sure we will arrive to such a technology even if I don’t know when exactly,” he said.

AP

Source-http://www.firstpost.com

A Treat to Watch….Skytrain in Bangkok…

April 22, 2013

A Skytrain passes over vehicles on the road in Bangkok. BTS Group Holdings PCL’s infrastructure fund rose as much as 22 percent in its trading debut as Thailand’s biggest initial public offering underscored demand from yield-hungry investors amid a flurry of listings in Southeast Asia. Reuters
A Skytrain passes over vehicles on the road in Bangkok. BTS Group Holdings PCL
Source-http://www.hindustantimes.com

Germany expresses interest in investing in DMIC project

April 15, 2013

Germany has expressed interest in investing in India’s ambitious $ 90 billion Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.
BERLIN: Germany has expressed interest in investing in India’s ambitious $ 90 billionDelhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) after New Delhi made special presentation on the project to investors here.Although it initially started with the help of Japanese investment, the project is open to participation from other countries as well.Official sources said that India has made special presentation to the Germans that was spread over three days during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit here.This was part of New Delhi’s strategy to woo investment from Germany, which it terms as “major potential investor”.

Germany is Europe’s largest economy and a key state in the 27-nation European Union.

DMIC is aimed at creating mega industrial infrastructureBSE 2.62 % along the Delhi-Mumbai Rail Freight Corridor, which is under implementation.

Japan is giving financial and technical aid for the project, which will cover seven states totalling 1,483 km.

Seven National Manufacturing and Investment Zones ( NMIZs) have been notified along the DMIC. The project envisages development of world-class industrial townships on a public- private-partnership model.

Japan has committed to invest $ 4.5 billion in this project. The Union Cabinet had approved an expenditure of Rs 18,500 crore on development of infrastructure for the project.

Further, India has sought Germany’s cooperation in taking up a pilot project on skill development in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor project.

The new corridor planned between Mumbai and Bangalore likewise also opens up interesting prospects for Indo-German cooperation.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Global internet slows after ‘biggest attack in history’

March 28, 2013

 

The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones explains why the attack is  like a “motorway jam”, alongside expert David Emm from Kaspersky LabCo continue reading the main story

The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history.

A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.It is having an impact on popular services like Netflix – and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks.

Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation which aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content.

To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists – a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes.

Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host which states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide “what goes and does not go on the internet”.Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with “criminal gangs” from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack.Cyberbunker has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.’Immense job’
Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC the scale of the attack was unprecedented.

“We’ve been under this cyber-attack for well over a week.

Continue reading the main story
‘Decapitating the internet’

Writing exactly one year ago for the BBC, Prof Alan Woodward predicted the inherent weaknesses in the web’s domain name system.

He wrote: “It is essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless.”

Read Prof Woodward’s full article

“But we’re up – they haven’t been able to knock us down. Our engineers are doing an immense job in keeping it up – this sort of attack would take down pretty much anything else.” Mr Linford told the BBC that the attack was being investigated by five different national cyber-police-forces around the world. He claimed he was unable to disclose more details because the forces were concerned that they too may suffer attacks on their own infrastructure.

The attackers have used a tactic known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which floods the intended target with large amounts of traffic in an attempt to render it unreachable. In this case, Spamhaus’s Domain Name System (DNS) servers were targeted – the infrastructure that joins domain names, such as bbc.co.uk, the website’s numerical internet protocol address.Mr Linford said the attack’s power would be strong enough to take down government internet infrastructure.

“If you aimed this at Downing Street they would be down instantly,” he said. “They would be completely off the internet.”He added: “These attacks are peaking at 300 gb/s (gigabits per second).

“Normally when there are attacks against major banks, we’re talking about 50 gb/s.”

Clogged-up motorway
The knock-on effect is hurting internet services globally, said Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey.

“If you imagine it as a motorway, attacks try and put enough traffic on there to clog up the on and off ramps,” he told the BBC.

“With this attack, there’s so much traffic it’s clogging up the motorway itself.”

Arbor Networks, a firm which specialises in protecting against DDoS attacks, also said it was the biggest such attack they had seen.

“The largest DDoS attack that we have witnessed prior to this was in 2010, which was 100 gb/s. Obviously the jump from 100 to 300 is pretty massive,” said Dan Holden, the company’s director of security research.

“There’s certainly possibility for some collateral damage to other services along the way, depending on what that infrastructure looks like.”

Spamhaus said it was able to cope as it has highly distributed infrastructure in a number of countries.

The group is supported by many of the world’s largest internet companies who rely on it to filter unwanted material.

Mr Linford told the BBC that several companies, such as Google, had made their resources available to help “absorb all of this traffic”.

The attacks typically happened in intermittent bursts of high activity.

“They are targeting every part of the internet infrastructure that they feel can be brought down,” Mr Linford said.

“We can’t be brought down.

“Spamhaus has more than 80 servers around the world. We’ve built the biggest DNS server around.”

source: www.bbc.co

Japan keen on Bangalore-Chennai highway project

January 16, 2012

The Government of Japan on Thursday evinced interest to build the proposed Bangalore-Chennai expressway.

Japan’s Minister for Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLITT) Takeshi Maeda, during his meeting with the Union Road Transport and Highways Minister C P Joshi here, said the country is keen on executing the project, especially with a Japan-based company being involved in preparing a detailed project report.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Joshi said: “We told them (Japan government) that we have a very transparent system, where you have to enter into the bidding process.

If Japan government is interested in taking up the project on government to government (G-G) basis, then you have to discuss it at the higher level.”  The project could be discussed at the Prime Ministerial level, he added.

However, G-to-G negotiations might deprive Indian entrepreneurs the opportunity to participate in the bidding, as projects are straightaway given to a country and would be executed by companies from there.

In the highways sector, 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) is allowed and the Japanese companies can also tie-up with domestic companies to bid for the project, the Minister said. Currently, Egis-Secon, a private company, is preparing the Detailed Project Report (DPR) expected to be ready by March 2012.

“After getting the DPR, the government will decide how to implement the project -whether to go for competitive bidding or adopt any other method,” the minister said.

The expressway, first of its kind in the country, will be built with public-private participation on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.

The 100 per cent access-controlled road would cut down travelling time between Bangalore and Chennai to just three hours from the current five to six hours.

As per the proposal, the expressway will have six lanes and vehicles can travel at a speed of 120 km per hour.

The proposed road will run parallel to the existing National Highway–4 and pass through Kolar, Palamaner, Chittur and Ranipet.

Source: deccanherald.com

37 road infrastructure projects to be completed during current year: Dr Arbab

December 26, 2011

ISLAMABAD(SANA): The National Assembly was informed on Thursday that thirty-seven road infrastructure projects will be completed by National Highway Authority during the current fiscal year.

Minister for Communication Dr. Arbab Alamgir Khan told the House during question hour that 2305 million rupees have been spent on repair of Highways and Motorways damaged by the floods.

He said a PC-1 of 23.56 billion rupees has been forwarded to Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for approval to carry out reconstruction of the remaining flood damaged road infrastructure. A loan agreement has also been signed with the Asian Development Bank for the flood emergency reconstruction project.

To a question, the Minister said the Kallar Kahar portion of Motorway will be realigned to avert serious accidents there. He said the National Highway Authority has planned to undertake dualization of Muzaffargarh to Dera Ghazi Khan through public-private partnership from October next.

He said toll connection on motorways is being upgraded and replaced with electronic toll traffic management system. The Minister said that the National Highway and Motorway police has taken a number of measures to ensure safety of passengers road users. Four permanent trauma centres are being constructed on different Motorways.

Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah told the House that five point eight million families living below the poverty line are being given cash grant on regular basis under the Benazir Income Support Programme. He said these beneficiaries are also being given health insurance and a proposal is under consideration to exempt them from the payment of sales and other taxes. He said those living below the poverty line will also be given concessions in electricity bills.

He said a poverty survey has been completed in most parts of the country except FATA and some districts of Southern Punjab. He said the survey in the remaining areas will be completed by March next which will help determine the exact ratio poverty in the country.

Parliamentary Secretary for Information Technology Nawab Liaquat Ali Khan told the House that new technology is being introduced to bolster the agriculture produce and ensure food security. He said nine PSDP projects are being executive to popularize the already developed technologies. He said a number of agreements have been signed with different national and international organization to transfer technologies to the farmers as well as to the public department.

Responding to a supplementary question, Minister for Communication Dr. Arbab Alamgir Khan told the House that work on 133 kilometer Karachi-Hyderabad (M-9) will be started next year. He said negotiations for undertaking this project on Build Operate Transfer (BOT) basis with a Malaysian Company is in final stages and will be signed next month.

Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah informed the House that the government has no plans to privatize Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). He said the present government has always pursued pro-workers’ policies and abolished all black laws introduced by the dictators. He said we have a given a new concept of privatization by giving twelve percent shares to the employees of public sector under the Benazir Stock Option Scheme.

Parliamentary Secretary for Information Technology Nawab Liaquat Ali Khan told the House that sufficient urea is available in the country to meet the requirements of the growers. Responding to a call attention notice moved by Murtaza Javed Abbasi Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Ahmad Shah told the House that eighty percent work in the earthquake affected areas of Azad Kashmir and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have been completed. He said twenty-four billion rupees are required to complete the remaining work in the affected areas. Ten billion rupees have been allocated for this purpose during the current financial year while the remaining fourteen billion rupees will be allocated in the next financial year.

He said the government is committed to the complete reconstruction and rehabilitation of quake affected areas and ERRA has been directed to expedite work on the remaining projects.

Responding to another call attention notice Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr. Asim Hussain informed the House that three point five million vehicles are running on CNG in the country.

These are moving bombs and pose threat to the lives of the people. He said during the last few days explosions in the CNG fitted vehicles have claimed the lives of many people. The Minister said the powers of checking the quality of CNG cylinders be delegated to the OGRA and Institute of Hydrocarbon to ensure the quality of the cylinders.

Source: sananews.net

18th World Congress on Intelligent Transport systems-Orlando

November 4, 2011

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America, ERTICO-ITS Europe, and ITS Asia-Pacific has commensed  the  world’s leading transportation policy makers, technology, and business professionals in Orlando, Florida, from October 16-20, 2011 for the 18th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, which  featured ITS America’s Annual Meeting & Exposition.

Indian Tollway’s Views From Orlando, Florida, USA

One senses a certain quiet excitement, a kind of diffused hurriedness about the place. And lots of people. With attendance estimates between 8,000 and 10,000, one thing that is not apparent are empty exhibit floor isles.

The five-day ITSWC conference began on Sunday, October 16th with an evening kickoff event that featured Florida Governor Rick Scott and General Motors VP of R&D Alan Taub. While their speeches conveyed all the usual bits about reducing congestion, a cleaner planet, increasing safety and ITS funding, the emerging theme is decidedly high-tech. with emphasis on real-time telematics, in-vehicle ITS, and connected vehicle technology.

The conference offered more than 300 sessions, focused on topics such as highway & vehicle safety, next generation traveler information, consumer apps for in-vehicle and smart devices, congestion management, performance measurement, analytics, eco-management and many more.

The exhibition hall comprised two main areas. The first was a single hall layout of more than 35,000 square meters of exhibition space with more than 200 companies manning stalls. The second area was an impressive  outdoor pavilion themed into four areas: Safety Village, Environment Village, Pricing Village, and Mobility Village. These areas featured live demonstrations of connected-vehicle technologies, smartphone  driver awareness, first responder vehicle movement, V2I/V2V, collision avoidance through smart systems, intermodal tracking & clearance, interoperability, and a host of other live demos.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this conference was that it was perhaps the most clear indicator of ITS industry trajectory of any ITS conference this year. As expected, there are all the traditional components of ITS here, from software & communication systems to cameras, detection equipment, and VMS. These are certainly the backbone of ITS systems. But the clear stand-out in emerging components of ITS is Connected Vehicle Technology (CVT).

CVT may be seen as the next generation of ITS, one which will allow vehicles and roadway environments to communicated directly with each other. The US DOT estimates that CVT has the potential to mitigate (at least to some degree) a huge number of driver related crash scenarios – as much as 81%. In addition to reducing accident rates, CVT has the promise of lowering driving costs, reducing traffic congestion, and lowering individual vehicle emissions.

Few pieces on the same has been shown .

Source: Greg Bartlett, Guest Editor

Atlanta bags order worth Rs. 10435.1mn

October 31, 2011

Atlanta has registered a cumulative revenue growth of 30% during the last two years.

Mumbai-based infrastructure and real estate firm, Atlanta in consortium has bagged around Rs. 10435.1mn order from National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), the flagship road building programme of the Ministry of Transport and Highways. Atlanta along with a Joint Venture partner Essar Projects has bagged the order for four laning of Lucknow-Sultanpur road widening project of around 126 kilometres in Uttar Pradesh. The project has a concession period of 23 years, which includes two-and-a-half years of construction time and is based on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode on Design, Build, Finance, Operate & Transfer (DBFOT) basis. The debt equity ratio is proposed at 3:1

“We expect to bag additional road project orders worth Rs. 20bn in this fiscal,” said Rajhoo Bbarot, MD, Atlanta. He declined to divulge details of the fund raising.
A total of 34 players, including Gammon Infrastructure, L& T Infrastructure, HCC Concessions and IL&FS Transportation, had shown interest in the project.

Atlanta has registered a cumulative revenue growth of 30% during the last two years. The current order book of Rs. 1,950 crore is seven times its FY11 sales, while the average execution cycle is three years. This gives good visibility of revenues for the coming three years.

Atlanta recently secured an order of 117 km Mohania-Ara for Rs. 9170mn in Bihar and another one in Punjab for Rs. 2200mn. The Bihar project entails four laning of Mohania -Ara section on National Highway 30 under the public-private-partnership mode for a length of 117 km.

Currently Atlanta has two operational road projects. First is Mumbra bypass on NH 4 and the second is Nagpur Kondhali on NH 6. Other than this it is pre-qualified for projects worth Rs. 400bn. So far, the company has done 225 lane kms and 600 lane Kms are in pipeline.

Atlanta’s focus areas for EPC business comprises highways, bridges, railways, and other urban infrastructure projects across the country. It has over 3 decades of experience in Engineering, procurement, Construction (EPC) and Realty.

Atlanta is credited with successfully commissioning India’s first greenfield BOT project on National Highways – Udaipur Bypass within the record time of 18 months as against stipulated time of 36 months. Atlanta has already developed three projects on DBFOT basis on Public private partnership basis.

Source: www.indiainfoline.com

City welcomes decision to halt toll projects

October 31, 2011

CA_tooooolllls0STAFF REPORTER

THE City of Cape Town has welcomed the news that South African National Road Agency Limited’s (Sanral) tolling project to implement tolls on the N1 and N2 has been halted.

Sanral was planning to establish a R10 billion toll project that would include a 105km stretch on the N1 between the Old Oak Interchange and Sandhills, and a 70km section of the N2, from west of Swartklip to Bot River.

In July, the city declared an inter-governmental dispute with Sanral and more recently launched an application in the Cape High Court for an interdict to stop the project, which included two new tunnels.

Brett Herron, Mayoral Committee Member for Transport, Roads and Stormwater said the city welcomed the decision by the National Department of Transport to halt the projects until further investigation.

“Our application to the High Court is premised on our view that the process followed by Sanral, which eventually led to the N1 and N2 being declared toll roads, was fundamentally flawed and illegal.”

He said the city has been concerned about the impact the projects, which have not been fully investigated, would have on the economy and residents.

“The imposition of the toll roads would amount to unfair discrimination against poor and largely black communities who would be disproportionately affected,” said Herron.

If Sanral had its way the N1 and the N2 would be tolled from the R300, the N1 stretch would end just after Worcester, the N2 toll road at Bot River. The Huguenot Tunnel would be taken into the tolling plan.

“It appears from the statement issued by the National Minister of Transport that he shares our concerns with regards to the socio-economic impacts and that he is seeking to address one of our procedural concerns, (which is) lack of proper consultation with the city and the public.

“We welcome the department’s intervention.’’

Herron said other legal issues, which were not addressed by the minister, had also been raised.

Source: www.iol.co.za

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