ERTICO News: Successful Geneva launch for Partner Topic Groups

Date: 13 June 2008

The four ERTICO Partner Topic Groups on mobility of people, goods transport, security and environment held separate meetings at the ERTICO General Assembly in Geneva. Each group presented the outcome of their discussions in a Plenary Session afterwards. ERTICO CEO Hermann Meyer reminded delegates that the main role of the PTGs should be to serve as in-house think tanks, whose mission was the development of new ideas and applications, and to foster deployment of ITS solutions.

The ERTICO Partner Topic Group on safety and efficiency for mobility of people convened by Martin Weiser of Volkswagen established a list of ITS services which should become a priority for deployment. Under the umbrella of “Urban mobility concepts”, the PTG will focus on two aspects of mobility of people: Firstly, integrated inter-modal traveller information and secondly, cooperative ADAS and IVIS. In the near future, the group will focus on creating an impetus for faster deployment for these priority ITS services.

The ERTICO Partner Topic Group on security convened by Jim Hammond of ACPO discussed how collectively the ERTICO partnership should approach the new domain of security. ERTICO is primarily concerned with cooperative mobility and ITS with this in mind 2 pillars were defined under which any security services should be developed.

The first being “Supporting ITS as a critical infrastructure”.

Critical Infrastructure can be defined as material assets that are essential for the functioning of a society and economy. As ITS systems are ever more involved in key systems such as traffic management, road user charging, hazardous goods tracking, any disruption to such infrastructure will have a negative impact.

The second pillar for the group was defined as “ITS to support enforcement”.
ITS technology is already available that can be used to support enforcement, for example intelligent speed control could be used actively by enforcement agencies to support remote vehicle stopping.  In the near future the group will begin to develop ideas and proposals for deployment under these 2 pillars.

The Partner Topic Group on Goods Transport convened by Michael Nielsen from IRU presented and agreed on a white paper dealing with the Service network for enhanced co-modal logistics. The paper describes a concept of service oriented network which would be used by different stakeholder groups to enable services for safe, secure and efficient transportation of goods. The ERTICO Partners taking part in the group agreed to work in the area of co-modality, even though a few stakeholder groups are currently missing in the partnership.

The next steps for this group are to work in-depth on a number of selected high-priority services, investigate business cases and architectures needed. The current work phase will be concluded with the creation of a roadmap for deployment of the selected services.

Finally, the Partner Topic Group on Environment, in a well-attended workshop convened by Jean-François Janin of the French Ministry of Environment, Ecology and Sustainable Development, reached agreement on the top priority areas for the application of ITS for energy efficiency and environmental benefits. These would form the core of the PTG’s activities over the next year, and would deliver inputs to ERTICO strategy as well as a roadmap for activities to accelerate development and deployment of “green ITS”.

“Green traffic management” would see traffic lights optimised to reduce the number of vehicle stops and to provide a smoother traffic flow. Once future cooperative systems would allow interaction between roadside and vehicle systems, traffic could be guided away from congested or high-pollution areas, and local “green waves” could be coordinated by the traffic management centre.

The group identified a “green travel and driving assistant” as a second priority theme, comprising a range of pre-trip and on-trip information aimed at helping travellers choose the best route and means of travel. Travel time and cost would be supplemented with data such as energy use, CO2 and pollutant emissions, and ambient air quality.  For drivers, the service would offer both in-vehicle and off-line feedback on their fuel consumption, with advice on how to drive more economically.

The enabler for such “green ITS” services would be extended and improved methods for collecting and integrating traffic and environmental data, and their use in a new generation of combined models for assessing and forecasting the status of both traffic and environmental indicators. Lastly, the PTG called for a study to compile a catalogue of “green ITS” measures, with an assessment of their effectiveness for reducing environmental impacts of mobility.

For more information on the Partner Topic Groups, please contact Mr Maxime Flament (Mobility of People) at m.flament@mail.ertico.com, Mr Zeljko Jeftic (Goods Transport) at z.jeftic@mail.ertico.com , Mr Gary Bridgeman (Security) at g.bridgeman@mail.ertico.com, or Mr Paul Kompfner (Environment) at p.kompfner@mail.ertico.com.

ERTICO CEO Hermann Meyer                         Plenary Session of the Partner

explains the role of the Partner                    Topic Groups

Topic Groups