LABEIN Tecnological Centre, based in the Basque Country, has developed an innovative system for verifying tunnel safety in the case of fire. The new system, developed at the request of the Gipuzkoa Provincial Government, has been successfully tested in the new Lezarri (Bergara) tunnel on the A1 Eibar-Vitoria motorway.
The novel element in the testing set up by LABEIN, compared to other systems used to date, is that the verification can be carried out in a short period (about 8 hours) and wit
Just as roads need to be repaved and highways repaired, the technological infrastructure that guides traffic also has to be kept up-to-date. But updating traffic management systems can be costly, as new applications and devices are often not designed to interoperate with older systems. Overcoming this problem is the IST project OMNI’s prototype platform that allows traffic authorities to integrate the new while retaining the old, thereby protecting past investments.
“There are high inve
Device can save industry $2 to $3 billion in annual damages from collisions
FarSounder, Inc. and a University of Rhode Island researcher have begun commercial production of the FS-3, the first 3-dimensional, forward-looking sonar designed as an aid to marine navigation.
With a range of 1,000 feet, a 90 degree field of view, and a refresh rate of just two seconds, the device will allow marine vessels to avoid collisions with submerged obstacles and potentially save the marine
Silver cars are less likely to be involved in a crash resulting in serious injury than cars of other colours, finds a study in this week’s Christmas issue of the BMJ.
Researchers in New Zealand examined the effect of car colour on the risk of a serious injury in over 1,000 drivers who took part in the Auckland car crash injury study between 1998 and 1999.
Factors that could affect the results, such as age and sex of driver, seat belt use, vehicle age, and road conditions, were taken
Natural warning sounds may be the future in airplanes and perhaps in cars as well. A “slurp” when fuel is low works better than a monotonous beeping sound. In a dissertation at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden, Pernilla Ulfvengren has studied how warning sounds function, how we associate sounds, and how new sounds can be designed.
In the cockpit of an airplane there are a large number of warning units. If something happens to the plane, some twenty alarms may go off simultan
Hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in traffic every year. The threat traffic represents to badgers is greater than was previously known. A new dissertation at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) illuminates the conflict between traffic and animals in Sweden and provides models that predict the risk of accidents involving wild animals.
It is only in recent years that the impact of traffic on animal populations has been taken seriously. Today increasing traffic is re
Australia is set to be a safer place due to another outstanding piece of CSIRO technology and innovation.
Called a ’Contraband Scanner’, the device can accurately and rapidly detect illicit drugs and explosives.
Dr Geoff Garrett, the CEO of CSIRO, today welcomed the Federal Government’s announcement that $8.4 million dollars will be allocated to the Australian Customs Service to construct a commercial-scale Scanner and facility in Brisbane to trial the world-f
A new catalyst could help auto makers meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s deadline to eliminate 95 percent of nitrogen-oxide from diesel engine exhausts by 2007, while saving energy.
Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, the new catalyst is one of a family of related catalysts that also shows promise for reducing NOx emissions from industrial sources, such as coal-fired power plants and furnaces at chemical plants and refineries.
With increasingly sophisticated in-vehicle communication systems it could be easy to become overloaded with information when driving. Managing the driver’s information needs, COMUNICAR, has designed, developed and tested an in-vehicle, integrated multimedia Human Machine Interface (HMI) that holds the potential to improve both safety and driving comfort.
More than 40,000 people die and 1.7 million are injured on Europe’s roads each year. The direct cost is €45 billion and indirect
Anyone who has ever waited for a bus can relate to the saying that you hang around for an hour and then three come along at once. It has been true in Europe’s congested cities for years, but with the development of a best practice guide for prioritising bus services by the PRISCILLA project it may well be a phrase that falls into disuse.
Through trials in medium-sized European cities where buses are the principal method of public transport, PRISCILLA has detailed solutions to one of the
The hassles and frustration of commuting and road trips may not seem so bad if you drive down scenic, tree-lined streets, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that people who viewed a videotape of a drive down a scenic parkway scored lower on a test of frustration than did others who viewed a drive through a metro area cluttered with buildings and utility poles.
While commuters may not get to choose their views as they drive to work, the results suggest that nature can have a ca
The European Space Agency is working with Portuguese organisations on how space technology can improve road safety.
Each year in Europe, 40 000 people die and 1 700 000 are injured in road accidents. Statistics show that one in three Europeans will become road accident victims during the course of their lifetime. These appalling figures are from the European Commission’s White Paper “European Transport policy for 2010: time to decide”.
Europe is looking at ways to lower thes
How can you be sure your watch is not a fake? How can you avoid a cargo container’s shipment changing, or disappearing, between departure and the arrival?
The Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has developed technical devices that support the fight against falsification and illegal trafficking. Using sophisticated technologies, originally devised for nuclear safeguards, the Commission has invented and tested prototypes and applications for the identification of watches and for the sea
More than 1.2 million accidents on European Union roads each year result in approximately 1.6 million injuries and 42,000 deaths. But recent studies estimate that the introduction of passive safety systems in cars could reduce these casualties by 120,000 annually. IST project CHAMELEON’s pre-crash demonstrator system with sensing and processing modules for obstacle detection and crash prediction might prove to be a future lifesaver on Europe’s highways.
Vehicles installed with a pre-crash
Ohio A study of muffler technology at Ohio State University is giving automakers new options for designing quieter cars.
Engineers here have tested a promising new muffler design that utilizes glass fiber, and are developing the computational tools manufacturers will need to optimize the design.
The new design can often silence auto noise just as well as a typical muffler, but it can be lighter, less prone to corrosion, and help engines work more efficiently.
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Penn State simulation testing suggests that barriers, called underride guards, placed on the rear end of heavy trucks to prevent cars from sliding underneath and being crushed in rear-end collisions may be less effective if placed lower or higher than 16 inches (400 mm) from the ground.
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration regulations set a maximum ground clearance of 22 inches (560 mm) and no minimum for underride guards on new trucks.
The Penn State simulati
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