ITS Network Germany interview

Date: 27 January 2010

The year 2010 will be an exciting one. The concept of “ITS“ will accelerate now that politicians and business people all over Europe regard it as indispensable. Where will it take us?

ERTICO asked Dr Norbert Handke from ITS Network Germany, part of the ERTICO hosted Network of National ITS Associations, to give the ITS community an overview of the European situation from a German perspective, concentrating on four important themes for 2010 – “deployment”, "co-operative systems”, public private partnershipé and “e-Mobility”

Deployment

Dr Norbert Handke:  The technology for ITS has been developed, now the only work left is to bring the products and services to the customer. This is what you can hear all across Europe and so, besides “standardisation”, the term “deployment” is in the foreground for the moment. But do we really know what the customer wants to have, what he accepts and what he considers necessary? Haven’t we again and again rubbed our eyes in surprise – when it came to SMS, nomadic devices or most recently smartphones? The most innocuous product or application can quickly take off, while on the other hand well developed applications like TPEG or some driver assistance systems remain stuck in realisation.

It’s time to replace technical with problem-orientated solutions. But that will only work if the potential customer will be more included in finding these solutions. Until now the themes of ITS were only presented successfully during national and international congresses and exhibitions – but mostly to the ITS community. Within fairs such as automobile exhibitions or IT-showcases telematics solutions and ITS only cover a niche sector - although there you can find the potential “first user/mover” who is urgently needed for deployment, and whose interest is not very much in technical solutions but rather in attractive applications and services. But there will be a shift in thinking, and, for example, in March of this year at CeBIT we will hopefully see how the conjunction of customers and suppliers – of IT and ITS – will perform.


Cooperative Systems

Dr Norbert Handke:  Even if cooperation with the customer is sometimes problematic, cooperation between cars and infrastructure has become a topical subject during the last years. The European projects CVIS, SAFESPOT and COOPERS approach their end in March, while the German SIM-TD project is not far from the beginning yet. So it will be interesting to see whether the German thoroughness will be left behind the pragmatism of others. For here, too, the customer plays a lead role. And he will not be very interested in talking cars, but is more likely to ask "where do I connect my Smartphone?" In the era of "apps", mobile Information Society will be personalised. Customers no longer want to learn about the different systems of each (rental) car or transport company, but want to dock on their personal, mobile system with their personal destinations and interests to their environment. What a PDA performed even 10 years ago is now called “Smartphone” and maybe will be a “little helper” ten years from now - the most important electronic communications element between users and their environment. Let's see whether all the car manufacturers will finally realize this and will create all the necessary interfaces.

PPP
 
Dr Norbert Handke:  The "eternal" topic of "public-private partnerships" -- relevant again in 2010? Yes, as triggered by the objectives of the European Framework/the ITS Action Plan, both the German topic and federal project of a  "Metadata Platform" for ITS services as well as the European wide introduction of cooperative systems will receive new impetus. For both topics it will be interesting to see how the public sector will position itself regarding the themes “liability” and “guarantee of availability” of actual public data. And regarding the "car-to-infrastructure" topic the same will be found out - that infrastructure-based innovations are  not only a task for the industry, but need also responsible actions from the public sector. These frameworks, which always have a little character of authorisation, require national and European visions, strategic concepts and system architectures for an intelligent transport management. As is normal in the United States, Great Britain or the Netherlands, in Germany there should also be federal, regional and local institutions promoting ITS and coordinating the steps of implementation and/or deployment. This may be the way to build the strategic partnership of PPP and the cooperation of Car2X (with X for Car, Infrastructure, City, or Smartphone) and to ensure the individually economic as well as the collective benefits of telematics systems and services.

eMobility

Dr Norbert Handke:  And now ITS also jumps on to this hype? No, quite the contrary. Without ITS the building of an infrastructure for electric mobility is unthinkable – and not only to load or to replace the energy resource. The topics range from good navigation to reach a suitable "gas station" up to money transfer at the charging points and improvements in route management. The construction of a substantial fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles will take years – but the necessary adjustments to the infrastructure also – and so it is NOW we have to start this.

So you see, 2010 is really exciting for ITS. For the entire mobile society, but also for us as "ITS Network Germany". Because without international networks and a European exchange of knowledge, it is will no longer be possible to achieve economic platform solutions for the customer and to make all the efforts for a strategic cross-border traffic management.

For further information on CeBIT 2010, please click here