Source –http://www.hindustantimes.com

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

Drivers on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai National Highway will soon be able to use a common electronic tag on their vehicles to pay tolls while crossing the six toll plazas. The plazas are operated by two different road developers — Larsen and Toubro, and IRB Infrastructure. Each toll plaza will have two lanes with electronic-readers to capture data from tagged vehicles.

This is the first time the Indian Highways Management Company Ltd (IHMCL), a firm set up to implement the inter-operable electronic tolling system across the national highway network, will be undertaking the job. IHMCL is jointly owned by highway developers, financial institutions and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

Trial runs on the stretch are already on, for which ICICI Bank is providing the back-end clearing-house mechanism and has tied up with US-based firm TollPlus for technical knowhow.

Having an inter-operable system requires a clearing-house mechanism, so the toll amount debited from users can go to the different firms that operate the particular stretch.

India’s 80,000 km national highway network is dotted with over 200 toll plazas, about half of which are now handled by different highway developers, and the rest by NHAI.

A common electronic highway toll payment mechanism has been Government’s long-time goal, and NHAI had started work on such a project close to eight years ago. But the project was first marred by a war among vendors with competing technology standards. This ended with recommendations by a committee headed by Nandan Nilekani in 2010. Subsequently, attempts to start the project did not make much headway due to lack of an institutional mechanism, an issue expected to be resolved with the formation of IHMCL.

IHMCL was formed in late 2012 with 25 per cent equity from NHAI, 50 per cent from highway developers and 25 per cent from financial institutions.

As of now, the 22 highway developers, also slated to be equity-holders, include L&T IDPL, IRB Infrastructure, Oriental Structural Engineers, Shapoorji Pallonji Infrastructure, SREI Infrastructure Finance, GMR Highways, Reliance Infrastructure, Ashoka Buildcon, HCC, Sadbhav Engineering, TRIL Roads, Gammon India and Uniquest Infra Ventures.

Financial institutions expected to take a stake in the project are ICICI Bank, IDFC Projects, Macquarie, Union Bank of India and IDBI Infrafin.

“It is a good collaborative effort. Somebody had to take a step towards creating a clearing-house and connecting all the toll plazas,” said Athar Shahab, CEO, Uniquest Infra, a joint venture between Malaysian Government’s investment arm Khazanah and IDFC.

Calling this a good beginning, K.K. Mohanty, Managing Director, Gammon Infrastructure, said his concern is about increasing public awareness so that people see the value in adopting electronic toll payment.

[email protected]

Source- http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

BANGALORE: A peak-hour ride though the Central Business District may soon come at a price.

The government of Karnataka has taken up for consideration a proposal from the Union ministry of urban development to implement congestion pricing policy to ensure the city is free from “excessive motorization”. It will also encourage investment in public transport, create infrastructure for walking and cycling, and strategize transit-oriented development (TOD).

“We got the proposal notification recently,” confirmed V Manjula, Directorate of Land Urban Transport. The urban transport authorities will now vet the proposal and study the issue before replying to the Centre.

Congestion charging is a system of imposing a surcharge on users of roads or public goods, subject to congestion through excess demand. The charge could apply to services like buses, electricity, Metro and even telephones. It is implemented by either cordoning off a busy area of the city for private vehicles, and imposing a toll on those who want to enter the area for access to a lane or facility.

This charge has helped increase lane speed and reduce traffic in London, Milan, Singapore and Stockholm; the wide streets of central and west London are almost free of rows of cars. Congestion was reduced by 21%.

Some stakeholders managing Bangalore’s transport needs are already pressing for some sort of congestion pricing mechanism in the city.

MA Saleem, additional commissioner of police (traffic), told TOI, “Once congestion charging comes into effect, more people will switch over to public transport, reducing traffic problems. Bangalore’s typical problem is that IT corridors are congested as the roads are narrow. Every year, the number of vehicles on Bangalore’s roads goes up by 10%. The city already has over 47.5 lakh vehicles.”

However, Saleem admitted that until the city gets a reliable and faster integrated public transport system, it is difficult to implement the congestion pricing policy.

What the Centre wants

The proposal by the Union ministry, sent to the state on January 5, 2013, says:

“Excessive use of private vehicles on available road space is inefficient use of precious urban land. There is, thus, a need to discourage use of private vehicles in core areas of the city to increase the mobility of the people at large so they can reach their offices, workplaces, business centres, ships etc in time, without losing valuable working man hours…The congestion pricing is premised on a basic concept, ‘charge a price in order to allocate a scarce resource to its most valuable use’.”

The ministry, however, says that before implementing the congestion charging system, city authorities need to ensure that people have a good public transport system, pedestrianization and cycling. Congestion pricing should not be seen as a means to fill up government coffers but be used to develop non-motorized transport infrastructures and facilities, it adds.

It asks state urban development departments to conduct studies in each city, on whether demographic conditions permit congestion pricing in core areas.

Bangaloreans thumb down levy

Though it’s an old idea, Bangaloreans are surprised about congestion pricing in the city. They point out that high vehicle taxes work as a disincentive to buy cars and two-wheelers. With 6,500-odd buses making nearly 80,000 trips daily to cover 800 sqkm area of the city, BMTC is already a stretched resource. Namma Metro is sharing this burden, but covers only a small stretch. Citizens say public transport options are too few.

Source http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com