Auto Transportation

Posts Tagged ‘infrastructure’

The rise in foreign investment has led to the rapid growth of automobile production, its export and developing of a more strong automobile industry. Overseas companies are making huge investments and are installing extensive production capacities in many developing countries. Today, the increase in the purchasing power and standards of living of people has resulted in the increased demand of automobiles especially four-wheelers in the developing nations. The fast pace of life and changes in lifestyles necessitates safer mobility for commuting to and from the work place and for traveling long distances. Research & development has resulted in increased productivity, better quality of automobiles and automotive accessories all across the globe. Low cost vehicles that are scooters and motorcycles have led to the massive growth of some of the fastest developing economies. The future of automotive industry in the developing countries seems bright and promising because of its further growth potential.

A lot of the major automotive giants are shifting their production facilities to almost all emerging markets with the main purpose of gaining better access and reduction in their production costs. According to the figures, South America and Asia have witnessed a boom in the past years. The various factors such as cheap financing and price discounts, rising income levels and infrastructure development have helped increasing the growth and development of automotive sector in the majority of developing countries around the world. The global automobile industry along with components and parts is expected to reach US$ 1.9 trillion by 2015, growth and it is thus evident that the economical potential of the auto industry is very high.

Reasons for the boost witnessed in the certain regions for the automobile industry are due to the availability of infrastructure facilities such like power supply, machinery, capital and availability of raw materials with efficient and relatively cheaper labor. Automotive industry is providing employment to a population of about 25 million people in the world. This industry not only provides millions of jobs to the people, but also produces billions of dollars in terms of worldwide revenues to many countries that are linked directly or indirectly with automobile industry.

This industry is developing new markets worldwide but major shares still remain in the prominent automotive manufacturing regions. North American regions like New England, New York and the Mid-Atlantic, Central New York, Pittsburgh/Cleveland, Western Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Valley, Ohio and Eastern Indiana, Kanawha and middle Ohio Valley, St. Louis, the Southeastern region, Gulf Coast, Central Florida, and the West Coast are the major contributors towards the automotive industry in the USA. The European Union has the largest automotive production regions in the World. The key automobile manufacturing regions are United Kingdom, Rhine-Ruhr River Valley, Upper Rhine – Alsace – Lorraine region, and the Po Valley in Italy.

The global automotive component industry is highly diverse and comprises of various product segments like engine parts, drive transmission and steering parts, suspension & braking parts, electrical parts and other auto components parts.

In its continuous efforts to promote improved road safety, Mazda Motor Corporation has recently announced its plans to participate in public road trials in the Hiroshima area to help validate a new Intelligent Transport System (ITS) scheduled to start in fall 2007.

Intelligent Transport Systems use the latest in high-tech telecommunications to create an information network encompassing people, roads and vehicles, the goal of which is to work toward solutions for transport problems including road accidents, congestion and damage to the environment.

To help validate these tests Mazda, maker of top of the line Mazda timing belt, is set to develop an in-car navigation system that supports the ITS as well as supply several dozen test vehicles from which data will be collected and analyzed. The automaker is also developing a safe driving support system – reportedly an arrangement of cameras and sensors placed along roads that will transmit information to drivers – to be compatible with the ITS infrastructure.

The Hiroshima area has many road environments that make it conducive for a wide range of test conditions for the verification trials, including numerous bridges over the many rivers (including those which have dangerous blind summits); roads that accommodate both trams and motor vehicles, which have complicated traffic dynamics; and lowlands and mountain regions situated close together, which can create unexpected variations in weather and road surface conditions.

The equipment to be tested includes:

A system to identify the extent of road congestion.
A warning system to prevent speeding.
A system to prevent rear-end collisions at traffic signals.
A head-on collision prevention support system.
A right-turn collision prevention support system (identifies approaching trams, oncoming traffic and pedestrians crossing the street).
An in-transit information system.

The safe driving support system technology that will be tested collects information from the ITS infrastructure and from vehicles (vehicle condition, driver operation) to monitor local traffic flows and individual driver responses. The information collected will then be used to identify potentially dangerous situations and determine whether a warning or an alarm should be triggered. This is a breakthrough in terms of functionality compared to previous ITS systems that merely provided information to drivers.

Mazda aims to use the trials to establish usable ITS technologies which can be introduced in the near future to reduce the number of traffic accidents and lessen the impact of transportation on the environment.

Along with Mazda, are Hiroshima’s local government, academia and industry which all will take part in the public road tests as part of a consortium formed during last year’s Hiroshima Conference on ITS Validation on Public Roads.