Transportation and Logistics
This field deals with all spatial and time-related activities involved in bridging the gap between goods and people, including their restructuring. This begins with the supplier and follows each stage of the operational value chain to product delivery and concludes with product disposal and recycling.
innovations-report provides informative reports and articles on such topics as traffic telematics, toll collection, traffic management systems, route planning, high-speed rail (Transrapid), traffic infrastructures, air safety, transport technologies, transport logistics, production logistics and mobility.
FarSounder, URI researcher develop first sonar for marine navigation, obstacle avoidance
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 safest
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
A “slurp” says more than ten beeps
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
Risk models can reduce number of collisions with wild animals
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
CSIRO contraband scanner – a world-first
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
New catalyst could help
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.