(Source: etrucker.com)

The American Trucking Associations this week opposed a federal recommendation for a vehicle miles traveled tax, saying it presents privacy concerns.

ATA’s comments come in response to the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission’s report on highway funding challenges. The commission anticipates increasing problems with relying on fuel taxes to support infrastructure improvements because of increasing strides in fuel efficiency.

The commission’s solution – to migrate to a vehicle miles traveled tax – presents privacy concerns that not only are intrusive, but also could lead to new forms of fraud and identity theft, ATA argues. Also, the costs to implement and maintain the program would reduce the amount of funds available for infrastructure, ATA says.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: CNN)

Gone are the days, it seems, when executives can comfortably lounge poolside, expensing meetings and meals along with margaritas and massages.

As President Barack Obama, Congress and the financially anxious public continue to cry out for corporate responsibility, what does this crackdown mean to American cities and to industries that are fueled by business travelers, conventions and meetings?

“January was a disaster,” said Don Singh, a Las Vegas, Nevada, taxi driver, who added that he brought home about half of what he did the previous year.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Jalopnik.com).

TransportGooru adores the creative thinkers at Jalopnik and Gizmodo.  And here is what our lovely friends at Jalopnik have to say about GM’s state of affairs, with a funny twist.

Jalopnik would like to hear your thoughts.  So, if you got a minute to spare, register your comments here.  Also, you are seriously encouraged to drop your comments under this post as well. 

(Source: Ars Technica via Gizmodo.com) 

• @justincpeters Justin the report by Brookings is the one from this morning. The ITIF report was submitted much earlier.. Not sure though. in reply to justincpeters #

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Thursday, February 26, 2009 — ISSN 1529-1057

Register Today for IBTTA’s Toll Road Summit of Australia, New Zealand & the Asia Pacific Rim, March 15-18, 2009 in Sydney, Australia 

If you are interested in public-private partnerships, innovations in customer service and next generation technologies, you need to attend this meeting! Join IBTTA and ITS Australia in Sydney, Australia and learn about the explosive growth of tolling in Australia, New Zealand and the countries in the Asia Pacific Rim. Learn about toll concessions and operations, including the political, regulatory, public affairs and customer service aspects of startup and mature facilities, and lessons learned from successive implementation of all electronic toll collection. Visit IBTTA’s website to view the preliminary agenda, make your travel arrangements and register today

AVIATION

1) Transportation Budget Proposes NextGen Air Traffic Control Funding

Link to story in Business First of Louisville:

http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2009/02/23/daily40.html

2) Technology in the Sky

A photo essay in Time:

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1666378_1454387,00.html

CAMERAS

3) Mississippi May Blind ‘Eyes’ on Traffic

Bill to ban devices that photograph traffic scofflaws advances.

Link to story in The Clarion-Ledger:

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090226/NEWS010504/902260345/1001/news

 ELECTRONIC TOLLING

4) FastLane Slips in Stealth Fees

Up to one million customers hit with faulty charges.

Link to story in the Boston Herald:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2009_02_26_Fastlane_slips_in_stealth_fees:_Up_to_1_million_customers_hit_with_faulty_charges/srvc=home&position=0

GPS / NAVIGATION

5) Federal Commission Backs Mileage Fees Over Gas Taxes, Champions GPS Technology

Link to story in Inside GNSS:

http://www.insidegnss.com/node/1366

OTHER

6) New Weather Monitoring System Reaches to the Heavens

Microwave technology used for the first time in US.

Link to story and video report on KING-TV:

http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_022509WAB-weather-testing-KS.2f300ba.html

PARKING

7) Parking Meters Out to Destroy the Human Race

Washington, DC meters pretend to be broken then ‘self-correct’ to give you tickets.

Link to story on WRC-TV:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Local-Parking-Meters-Develop-Artificial-Intelligence-Will-Destroy-Humans.html

SAFETY / SECURITY

8) US Department of Homeland Security Secretary: Agency Likely to Miss Cargo Scanning Deadline

Link to story from CongressDaily:

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090225_7302.php

Link to further information from the House Committee on Homeland Security:

http://homeland.house.gov/Hearings/index.asp?ID=171

9) TSA: Mule Skinners Need Background Checks, Too

Employees who accompany historic canal boats required to get security credentials.

Link to CNN story:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/25/mule.skinner.blues/

TELEMATICS

10) Leverage Telematics and On-Board Diagnostics for Warranty Management

Link to story in Automotive DesignLine:

http://www.automotivedesignline.com/howto/214600030;jsessionid=3QLTBFFM2ABFAQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN

TRAVELER INFORMATION / TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT

11) Traffic Nerd Looks Through Numbers with CEO

Seattle traffic reporter meets with the president of Inrix to discuss new traffic data.

Link to story on KIRO-TV:

http://www.kirotv.com/traffic/18792881/detail.html

VEHICLES

12) ‘Talking’ Cars Could Hit the Road by 2012

Link to story in Wired:

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/02/talking-cars-co.html  

News Releases

1) SITA and WestJet Go Live with New Standard for Checking In and Boarding Passengers

2) US Department of Transportation Unveils 2010 Budget Framework

3) Toyota Adds to Pre-Crash Safety Technologies

4) Gresham, Smith and Partners Wins City of Memphis, City Engineer’s Award of Excellence for SmartWay Project

5) Raleigh-Wake Emergency Communications Center Offering Online Traffic Information

6) GeoSpot Deep Local Search Launches Nationwide on Web and Mobile

Upcoming Events

Carbon-Free Mobility Conference – March 6 – Oakland, California

http://www.advancedtransit.org/doc.aspx?id=2109

Today in Transportation History

1914 **95^th anniversary** – The HMS Britannic was launched in Belfast.

http://www.atlanticliners.com/britannic_home.htm

=============================================================================================

The Transportation Communications Newsletter is published electronically Monday through Friday. 

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TCN archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications

Questions, comments about the TCN?  Please write the editor, Bernie Wagenblast at i95berniew@aol.com.   

© 2009 Bernie Wagenblast

A breakdown of provisions and funding requirements for mass transit in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The Dig ~ Infrastructure of the stimulus plan: $8.4 billion in Mass Transit | Blueprint America.

(Source – The Number Thirteen Line blog, hosted by PBS’ Blue Print for America)

Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Number Thirteen Line, a monthly blog about transportation in New York and around the world. This month’s topic: The Stimulus Package and its impact on transportation.

Seven hundred and ninety billion dollars, as designated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is a lot of money. Frankly, we had hoped that most of it would go toward public works projects; after all, good infrastructure projects have been shown to produce five times the GDP impact of broad-based tax cuts. Nonetheless, we understand reality doesn’t always play out the way we’d like. So we are reasonably pleased to see that $130-billion, of the $790-billion bill (16%), is intended for construction projects.

The really good news from a transport perspective is that high-speed and existing long-haul rail will receive more than $9 billion. Urban transit gets a nice sized boost as well. So what can we, as New Yorkers, expect and what should we demand?

Approximately $1.3-billion of the funds are being directed to on-going capital transit programs in the New York City metropolitan area. This means that projects such as the Fulton Street Transit Center and the No. 7 Subway Extension will finally be built. There’s little left for much else, so we must be thrifty in advancing other new projects. We are also limited in our imagination by the requirement that projects be “shovel-ready.” In an upcoming blog we will let our imaginations go wild.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has been lauded worldwide as the one of the cheapest, most easily-implementable forms of mass transit (read “shovel-ready”), widely popular among riders and similar to light rail transit in its ability to carry people. And it fits perfectly into the objectives of the stimulus package as it can be planned, designed, and constructed in just one year. We recently planned and designed a BRT line on Fordham Road in the Bronx (disclosure: we are consultants to the New York City Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Transportation Authority on BRT) which was quickly implemented and has been enjoying wide success. We should demand a network of BRT solutions city-wide

(Source: Greenwire via New York Times)