New Forum 8 Premier Partner in North America

31 August 2009, 10:38am

Ourston Traffic Solutions Inc., (Ourston) of Madison, Wisconsin, USA is the latest Road Traffic Consultancy to recognize the tremendous benefits of becoming a Forum 8 Premier Partner.

Ourston Roundabout Engineering Inc., their parent company, is “North America’s pre-eminent roundabout design team”; they have been designing high-capacity roundabouts in North America since 1984, including the first roundabout in Maryland in 1993. They helped the states of California, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, and Wisconsin begin their roundabout programs.

Mark Lenters, the president of Ourston Roundabout Engineering commented; “In the US roundabouts are still rare and so the average driver often cannot understand how to navigate around them or indeed understand the benefits to the transport planner. As anyone knows who has travelled in Europe, roundabouts are a common feature of most road networks, especially in the UK, and are seen as the ideal solution to relieving congestion at intersections as well as dealing with intersections that have more than 4 entrances / exits.

“The problem with roundabouts, however, is that if you have never encountered one before, it would appear to be the strangest looking junction you have ever attempted to cross!

“With this in mind we have been looking for a way in which to help our clients and their stakeholders understand both the benefits of installing roundabouts in new road systems, whilst at the same time providing them with an educational tool to help drivers to learn how to conduct themselves when both approaching and leaving.

“Having researched the market we discovered Forum8’s range of Driving Simulators and its highly photo-realistic 3D virtual reality software UC-win/Road and immediately saw the potential of this technology in solving our roundabout visualization and driver training problem.

“The Forum 8 software UC-win/Road will enable our clients to not only simulate their new road networks on screen, they will also be able to allow members of the general public to drive through these new roadways in ‘virtual reality’. They will also be able to produce, quickly and easily, a range of training videos about how to navigate these proposed networks long before they have even been built. Plus lots more…

“The result of due diligence and detailed discussions with Forum 8 was our decision to order the first UC-win/Road licence and to become a Premier Partner.

“We believe that Forum 8 offers the very best solution to Road Traffic Simulation and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with them.”

Mr Ito the President of Forum 8 commented, “We are delighted that Ourston has joined our growing global network of Premier Partners and look forward to assisting them and their clients achieve all their business goals through the use of our range of state-of-the-art 3D VR products.”

Forum 8

Geo: International