Highways England, the new government company responsible for operating England’s motorways and major roads, has awarded a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group to develop options for multiple highway schemes in England, UK.

The contractual scope includes stage two options development work involving upgrades to A428, A12 Chelmsford to A120 (Junction 19 to 25) and M11 Junction 7 in the East region, and A31 ringwood road widening and technology enhancements on A34 in south region. It also includes improvements to M6 Junction 19 in the northwest region.

To enable electric car owners take more informed decisions about where to charge their cars on-the-go, electric vehicle (EV) charging service technology provider, Virta has signed a co-operation agreement with cloud-based location services provider, HERE.

Virta, which operates public EV charging stations in a number of European countries, will connect its stations to HERE’s Location Cloud, which collects information from all the EV charging and fuel stations, as well as off-street parking facilities and delivers the same to connected vehicles. It, thus, helps drivers to find charging stations around them at any location.

The NZ Transport Agency has awarded a NZ$195m ($141.38m)-worth contract to construct second stage of the Christchurch Southern Motorway (CSM2) to McConnell Dowell / Downer joint venture.

The CSM2 project, which is aimed at improving travel times and reducing incidents in the south of Christchurch and Canterbury, is the final section in the Canterbury Roads of National Significance (RoNS) portfolio.

It includes 8km of new four-lane motorway, 5km of existing SH1 duplication, 5km of local roads and adaptions. Further, seven bridges will be constructed over the new highway and one local road will be culverted beneath it.

Construction of the second stage is scheduled to begin in October this year and will be completed by late-2019.

"Construction of the second stage is scheduled to begin in October this year and will be completed by late-2019."

INRIX, a connected car services and movement analytics provider, and Citi Logik, a company involved in understanding demand patterns derived from anonymous mobile network data, have joined hands to drive the development of UK smart cities.

By combining mobile network data from Citi Logik with INRIX’s vast network of GPS data and advanced analytics tools, the companies will generate population movement insights such as information about trips and travel habits and real-time population density.

Movement analytics is of much help to transport agencies, local governments, city planners, and enterprises such as retailers.

Image: Virta charging stations integrated to HERE automotive services. Photo: courtesy of Virta.