ITS Monday: Edition 32, 2025
ITS Monday is a small, weekly collection of curated content from the worlds of intelligent transport systems, smart mobility, and associated areas.
Included this week, large animal warning system, road user charging (again!),the promise and potential of micromobility, scenario testing, and more.
The article headlines below are:
- Endangered alert: A field-validated self-training scheme for detecting and protecting threatened wildlife on roads and roadsides
- Joint statement from Treasurers on road user charging
- $12.3 million for Australian first shared truck charging hub
- The Missing Piece in Public Transit? Micromobility.
- Dockless bicycles become the ‘winners’ of London’s Tube strike
- Private toll roads are supposed to save taxpayers’ money, but can have these hidden costs
- Why scenario testing matters
- 30 km/h in Amsterdam – Research report
This week’s articles
Now, scroll down, and see what’s in this week’s edition. Oh, and before you do, be sure check out the quickest way to receive our new content via the subscription box just below …
This new academic paper stems from an iMOVe project, Large Animal Activated Roadside Monitoring and Alert System. Co-authors on the paper are Kunming Li, Mao Shan, Stephany Berrio Perez, Katie Luo, and Stewart Worrall.
The abstract:
Traffic accidents, including animal-vehicle collisions (AVCs), endanger both humans and wildlife. This letter presents an innovative self-training methodology aimed at detecting rare animals, such as cassowaries in Australia, whose survival is threatened by road accidents. The proposed method addresses critical real-world challenges, including the acquisition and labelling of sensor data for rare animal species in resource-limited environments.
It achieves this by leveraging cloud and edge computing, and automatic data labelling to improve the detection performance of the field-deployed model iteratively. Our approach introduces Label-Augmentation Non-Maximum Suppression (LA-NMS), which incorporates a vision-language model (VLM) to enable automated data labelling. During a five-month deployment, we confirmed the robustness and effectiveness of the method, achieving improved object detection accuracy and increased prediction confidence.
See also:
- the final report on this project, at Large Australian animals and cars: Safety for all,
- and a webinar presenting the project and its outcomes at Safer roads for humans & animals: Proving the LAARMA System.
Joint statement from Treasurers on road user charging
The issue of road user charging has been running pretty hot the last month or so, and here we have a short statement from the Australian Government. Make of it what you will, and it is a very short statement indeed, but here’s what Professor Hussein Dia/a> had to say about the statement on LinkedIn:
“The Treasurer’s statement on road user charging is more about calming nerves than setting out a clear policy. By singling out EVs, the government risks entrenching the idea of an “EV tax” rather than tackling the inevitable challenge: replacing fuel excise for all vehicles.
What’s missing is any recognition that excise itself is declining as vehicles get more efficient. This was never just an EV problem. The silence on a universal charge suggests they’re not ready to commit to the bigger reform – politically harder, but inevitable.
New Zealand has already made that leap, committing to road user charges for all vehicles. Australia should follow suit if we want a fair and future-proof way to fund our roads without slowing the shift to cleaner transport.”
Related iMOVE article:
Related iMOVE projects:
READ THE ARTICLE
$12.3 million for Australian first shared truck charging hub
“Melbourne’s freight routes will soon have access to a dedicated electric truck charging hub thanks to an Australian first project supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
$12.3 million in funding will go to Mondo Power (Mondo) to develop, construct and operate an electric truck charging hub in Melbourne’s west to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility for fleets to electrify their operations.”
Related iMOVE article:
Related iMOVE projects:
- ESP: Preparing for the electrification of transportation
- Charging requirements for Melbourne’s electric bus fleet
- Gippsland community e-Bus pilot
The Missing Piece in Public Transit? Micromobility.
“Cities are struggling to keep people moving. Traffic is worse than ever, public transit doesn’t always go where people need it, and the last-mile gap — getting from a transit stop to your final destination—is still a major headache.
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting to cut emissions and make urban travel more sustainable.”
That’s where micromobility comes in.
Related iMOVE article:
Related iMOVE project:
- Fire safety for EVs and micromobility: Best practice assessment
- Liverpool Sustainable Urban Mobility Study
Dockless bicycles become the ‘winners’ of London’s Tube strike
“While previous walkouts ground the UK capital to a halt — leaving workers few alternatives but overcrowded buses, hard-to-find taxis or long-distance walks — the latest stoppage by the RMT union has coincided with widespread availability of so-called dockless bicycles that can be unlocked with a phone app and left on the street when finished.”
READ THE ARTICLE
A short video from the Transport WA YouTube account, about using scenario testing to look at what the (transport) future looks like for Peel and Perth.
30 km/h in Amsterdam – Research report
A direct link to this report from the City of Amsterdam.
“In December 2023, the City of Amsterdam introduced a 30 km/h speed limit on its roads. The speed limit was lowered from 50 to 30 km/h on a large number of distributor roads, which were designated as ‘GOW30’ roads. These roads have a relatively high volume of traffic, but residential functions are given more emphasis. In total, approximately 4,500 road signs were installed and 140 traffic lights were reconfigured.
In the autumn of 2024, over 200 kilometres of road markings were changed. The aim of a lower speed limit ties in with the broader objectives to ensure safety, quality of life and accessibility in and around the city.”
We used to send out a weekly newsletter, ITS Weekly Roundup, a collection of ITS- and mobility-related news from across the world. ITS Monday is a replacement for that, a collection of links to news and opinion pieces, academic papers, and more. Additionally, you can follow us on Linkedin and Twitter, both of which have a focus on iMOVE news and projects, or subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter.
*Inclusion in ITS Monday does not equal iMOVE endorsement. It’s more aimed at discovery, thought, or discussion … or all of those and more. And while for the most part I expect content to be current, a little age doesn’t mean diminished interest.
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