The Government company, responsible for the country’s motorways and major A roads, has developed a free app to raise drivers’ awareness of their blind spots.

What Highways England’s Virtual Reality App looks like

The app can be accessed on a smart phone attached to a simple pair of cardboard goggles so drivers can use it before they get behind the wheel.

John Walford Commercial Vehicle Incident Prevention Team Leader said:

We have set ourselves the long term vision that no-one should be harmed while travelling or working on our roads, and within that it is doing all we can to help reduce collisions involving lorries because they tend to have a greater impact when they do occur.

They most commonly occur when trucks change lanes or attempt to overtake and using this technology allows us to provide a realistic environment for commercial vehicle drivers so that they can experience the impact of not using their mirrors to check blind spots. It’s just one of the steps we’re taking to help improve safety for this valuable group of drivers and ultimately everyone who uses our network.

The app includes 5 road safety scenarios for both left and right hand drive vehicles and has been developed to stress the importance of adjusting mirrors to cater for driving in a different way when in the UK. The blind spot app has 5 scenarios:

• mirror adjustment
• identifying vehicles in blind spots
• joining a motorway from a slip road
• overtaking
• tailgating

It is on show at this week’s Commercial Vehicle Show taking place at the NEC in Birmingham, with Highways England giving the free headsets to visitors.

Although developed for commercial vehicle drivers, the app could also benefit private motorists by giving them a sense of what commercial vehicle drivers experience every day. For example, helping them to understand the location of commercial vehicle blind spots and hence reduce the potential for unnecessary accidents.

The virtual reality app is just an example of the safety initiatives that Highways England has developed as part of its commercial vehicle incident prevention programme. The programme includes initiatives to improve the design and maintenance of commercial vehicles and initiatives to assist operators and drivers.

Examples include:

• a joint initiative with police using HGV cabs to target dangerously driven vehicles (one of the cabs with police representatives will be at the Show);
• the installation of sophisticated tyre/vehicle measurement (tyre pressure, tyre tread depth, vehicle weight, axles heat) technology at key locations;
• initiatives with the Health & Safety Executive and the police to improve load security; and interventions to reduce diesel spillages which damage the carriageway and cause long delays.
• development of truck stop apps in Polish and Romanian (they can also be seen at the Commercial Vehicle Show).

General enquiries

Members of the public should contact the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Media enquiries

Journalists should contact the Highways England press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.

The detailed information of this census of over one billion stars, which comes from the Gaia mission, allows their positions and distances to be mapped to unprecedented precision giving us a 3-dimensional map of our Milky Way Galaxy.

This new release of information shows us 600 times more stars than previously available, covering a volume 1,000 times larger than Gaia’s own first data release two years ago, with precision some one hundred times improved. These results allow improved study of almost all branches of astronomy: from traces of the formation of the Solar System; through how stars evolve; through the current structure, the assembly and evolutionary history of the Milky Way; to mapping the distribution of Dark Matter in the Galaxy; to establishing the distance scale in the Universe; to discovery of rare objects.

This second data release allows progress in all these studies by providing not only distances and apparent motions across the sky for 1.3billion sources, but also very precise measurements of brightness and colour for an even larger catalogue of 1.7billion sources. Seven million stars have their line of sight velocities measured, providing full 6-dimensional – three space positions, 3 space motions – information, determining full orbits for those stars in the Milky Way. This is the information needed to weigh the Galaxy, and determine the distribution – and perhaps the properties – of Dark Matter, the mysterious substance which dominates the mass of the Galaxy and the Universe.

Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

The mission is reliant on the work of UK teams at the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leicester, Bristol, the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) at UCL London and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) RAL Space facility, all of whom are contributing to the processing of the vast amounts of data from Gaia, in collaboration with industrial and academic partners from across Europe.

Professor Gerry Gilmore from the University of Cambridge, UK Principal Investigator for the UK participation in the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium, and one of the original proposers of the mission to ESA, said:

“The combination of all these unprecedented measures provides the information for astronomers to take the next big steps in mapping the formation history and evolutions of stars and our Milky Way Galaxy. There is hardly a branch of astrophysics which will not be revolutionised by Gaia data. The global community will advance our understanding of what we see, where it came from, what it is made from, how it is changing. All this is made freely available to everyone, based on the dedicated efforts of hundreds of people. There are so many exciting things to do better with the exquisite Gaia data we anticipate new science papers appearing every day after this release.”

UK participation in the European Space Agency mission itself has been funded by the UK Space Agency and scientists and engineers from around the UK played key roles in the design and build of Gaia.

The UK Space Agency has already contributed £15 million to Gaia and is committed to spending a further £4 million on processing and analysing the data.

Dr Graham Turnock, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said:

“We’re working with industry and academia to support cutting-edge science that will lead to new discoveries about our Galaxy.

“The UK involvement in this exciting mission shows that our academics and engineers are world leaders in the space sector. As part of ESA we will continue to be at the forefront of research and deeply involved in missions such as ExoMars, with its Airbus-built rover, and the BepiColombo mission to Mercury.”

One of the new aspects of the Gaia data released today are radial velocities derived from Gaia spectra. Gaia releases radial velocities for some 7million stars, many times more than have been measured in the history of astronomy up to now, with vastly more to come in future releases.

Professor Mark Cropper leads the team at Mullard Space Science Laboratory/UCL that made the UK contribution to this spectroscopic processing effort and said:

“Spectra provide the critical information to complement Gaia’s astrometry, providing line of sight (radial, Doppler-shift) velocities and precise measures of stellar chemical element abundances. Gaia measures huge numbers of individually low-signal spectra – nearly 20 billion separate spectra to date – which must be carefully combined to deliver their full value. This demanding process is worth the effort! The remarkable map of the changing average radial velocity as we look around the sky is direct evidence of the rotation of our Galaxy.”

Dr Floor van Leeuwen from the University of Cambridge has been Project Manager for the UK and European photometric processing work, and is a leading co-author on the example science papers illustrating Gaia’s impact on our knowledge of star clusters and satellite galaxies in the outer Milky Way. Speaking of the new findings he said “Groups of dwarf galaxies, including the Magellanic Clouds, can now be observed to be moving around in very similar orbits, hinting at a shared formation history. The accurate observed motions and positions of the globular clusters and dwarf galaxies provide tracers of the overall mass distribution of our galaxy in a way that has not been possible with this level of accuracy before.”

STFC helped the set-up of the data applications centre for the project and STFC’s current support involves the UK exploitation of the scientific data that is now being yielded from the mission. In addition the photometric data processing software to which STFC contributed, as part of the UK-led team, offers the ability to precisely measure the brightness of the billion objects that Gaia is observing, while contributions from the rest of Europe are charting the positions, distances and movements of those one billion stars.

Professor Ian McCrea, Space Physics and Operations Division Head at STFC’s RAL Space said:

“Four years into the Gaia mission and it is incredible to see that our work in the UK on developing the photometric data processing software, that precisely measures the brightness of the billion objects that Gaia is seeing, is now successfully giving us comprehensive and detailed information that helps us better understand our true place in the Milky Way, our home galaxy. With this new data release and those that will follow, I am excited to see what new celestial objects, such as extra-solar planets, brown dwarfs, supernovae, asteroids, and of course, things that we have not even imagined have now been recorded.”

Gaia orbits the sun at a distance of 1.5 million kilometres from the earth and was launched by the European Space Agency in December 2013 with the aim of observing a billion stars and revolutionising our understanding of the Milky Way. During its expected five-year lifespan, Gaia will observe each of a billion stars about 70 times.

A special aspect of the Gaia mission is that the teams involved do not keep the results for their own science interests. Instead the Gaia data is released with free access to everyone for analysis and discovery.

     The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, today (April 21) officiated at the opening ceremony of the 2018 World Book Day Fest, co-organised by the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) and the Education Bureau (EDB), to launch the city-wide reading promotion campaign “Discover and Share the Joy of Reading”.

     In celebration of World Book Day and to further promote reading in Hong Kong, the EDB, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) and the Information Services Department are working together to present a series of vibrant activities to the community under the theme “Discover and Share the Joy of Reading”. The curtain-raising event – the 2018 World Book Day Fest – was held at SKH St Mary’s Church Mok Hing Yiu College in Sham Shui Po District today.

     At the opening ceremony, Mrs Lam launched a new TV Announcement in the Public Interest (API) entitled “Discover and Share the Joy of Reading”. The API highlights the joy and endless charm of books to encourage reading in a refreshing tone and manner. It will be broadcast on TV and radio as well as social media platforms starting today. More publicity initiatives will be rolled out in the coming months to mark local citizens’ discovery of joy of reading in the new age.

     Together with the Secretary for Education, Mr Kevin Yeung; the Director of Leisure and Cultural Services, Ms Michelle Li; and the Chairman of SCOLAR, Mr Lester Huang, Mrs Lam joined some 160 primary school students and their teachers in the “Reading Marathon” activity – reading out an interactive story themed “Appreciation and Respect” to share the pleasure of reading.

     Mrs Lam also visited the “My Pop-up Library” set up by the Hong Kong Public Libraries (HKPL) of the LCSD at the venue. She toured the e-books experience zone and shared her reading experience with students. In support of the theme of the campaign, Mrs Lam gave away some 130 books chosen from her personal collection to participants to share with them the joy of reading.

     Under the theme “Towards a Reading City”, the 2018 World Book Day Fest aims to foster a sustainable atmosphere and culture of reading across the city by building on the strengths in the promotion of reading across the curriculum and capitalising on the synergy of schools, parents and community partners.

     Today’s activities included various programmes for students of different ages and parallel experience-sharing sessions conducted by schools, parents, government and non-governmental organisations as well as game booths and book exhibition. Over 3 000 school heads, teachers, school librarians, students and parents of secondary and primary schools and kindergartens participated in the activities.

     SCOLAR and the EDB will continue to collaborate with different working partners in promoting reading in the school sector and nurturing students’ interest in and habit of reading. Immediately following today’s event, the LCSD will also launch a rich array of fun-filled activities including the Fun at Central Library fun day at Hong Kong Central Library tomorrow (April 22), enabling members of the public to have a unique and extraordinary library experience, and take in the joy of reading with family members.

     To tie in with World Book Day, the Reading Charter campaign organised by the HKPL aims to raise the public’s awareness by promoting reading. Members of the public may sign the Reading Charter, make a pledge and set their own goals for the joy of reading. An online version has been designed for readers to make the pledge at any place or any time. For details of HKPL activities, please stay tuned to its webpage (www.hkpl.gov.hk).

The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that every person in the reserved category should get the fruits of development. He was addressing the gathering during the release of the book titled ‘Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Vyakti Nahin Sankalp’, edited by Shri Kishor Makwana and handing over the first copy to the President, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, at Rashtrapati Bhavan here today.

     The Hong Kong Police Force today (April 7) held the Police Recruitment Day (Spring) at Police Headquarters to provide one-stop service to applicants of Probationary Inspectors, Recruit Police Constables and Police Constables (Auxiliary), shortening the time required for the recruitment process.

     A total of 2,048 applications were received in this recruitment exercise, which was the second highest in all Recruitment Days (Spring), with the number of Probationary Inspector applications registering a record high. Successful applicants will undergo training at the Hong Kong Police College in May the soonest.

     In the financial year 2017-18, over 21,000 applications were received, which was similar to the application number for the financial year 2016-17. According to the application numbers and recruitment targets of the past three financial years, an average of 40 applicants competed for a Probationary Inspector vacancy, whereas about 10 applicants competed for a Recruit Police Constable vacancy. The Force will recruit about 1,800 officers (including Probationary Inspectors and Recruit Police Constable) in this financial year.

     Being one of the most outstanding and professional police forces in the world, the Hong Kong Police Force is committed to recruiting more enthusiastic and capable persons to join the Force. To enhance applicants’ understanding of the recruitment process, the Police Recruitment Division has produced a series of videos, namely “Madam’s Classroom”, to share with applicants the preparation required for the application process. The videos will be uploaded to the Police Recruitment Division webpage and the Hong Kong Police YouTube channel in phases.

     The Force receives applications year-round. Any person interested in joining the Force may complete the application form at the Police website or mail the completed form to the Police Recruitment Division.

     For more information or application matters, please visit our Police recruitment website at www.police.gov.hk/recruitment.