CONNECT

Stimulating ITS activities in Central and Eastern Europe

With the expansion of the EU, integrating the Central and Eastern European countries into the larger transport network has become an important issue. The CONNECT Euro-regional project was therefore launched in May 2004 to coincide with the EU's enlargement to 25 Member States. Uniting public authorities, road administrations and traffic information service providers, CONNECT helps coordinate and stimulate ITS activities in this region.

Partners from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are working together to improve cross-border traffic and transport through the use of ITS.

Ensuring that national traffic management arrangements are coordinated and high-quality traveller information services are available, CONNECT aims to prevent system differences and breaks on the important east-west and north-south road corridors.

Objectives

• Integrate the new EU Member States in ongoing European initiatives.
• Foster cross-border coordination of strategies, systems and services.
• Stimulate investments in ITS infrastructure.
• Improve safety for road users.
• Reduce travel time by providing road users with accurate, timely and relevant information as well as cross-border services.
• Improve interoperability between national Electronic Fee Collection systems to achieve basic pre-conditions for interoperable road user charging.
• Harmonise national system architectures to avoid new borders between the CONNECT member states as a result of non-interoperable national telematics systems.

Duration and Funding

May 2004 - December 2007, funding through the European Commission Directorate General for Transport and Energy and the TEMPO programme.

Consortium

Coordinator: Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology (AustriaTech)

Partners: German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development; Czech Ministry of Transport, Directorate for National Roads and Motorways, Poland; Hungarian Ministry of Economy and Transport, Hungarian Ministry of Informatics and Communications, Slovak Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications; Slovenian Ministry of Transport.

ERTICO is a partner under the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology.

Visit the CONNECT website