At the FREILOT final workshop “The Cooperative Services: Today, Tomorrow and Forever?”, held in Helmond, the Netherlands, on 19 June 2012, the city authorities announced their intention to continue the operation of the cooperative mobility services piloted in the EU co-funded project.
Gert Blom, Strategic Adviser Mobility of City of Helmond, said, “After seeing the results of the FREILOT pilot, we are convinced of the clear benefits of cooperative mobility services. We are especially pleased that the Helmond fire brigade successfully joined the pilot project in 2011, providing another reason for Helmond to continue with the FREILOT solution even after the end of this project”. Willem Hartman, Managing Director at Imtech/Peek Netherlands, stated in December 2011 that the work from FREILOT and eCoMove has contributed strongly to the commercialisation of the cooperative services.
The workshop, which was jointly organised with eCoMove, gathered around 40 stakeholders interested in cooperative traffic management solutions. The workshop was clearly orientated to the practical aspects of deployment. FREILOT presented their final results and lessons learnt while eCoMove presented the next-generation cooperative traffic management solution. Finally a demonstration tour was organised through Helmond with FREILOT-equipped vehicles. The day closed with a discussion between the audience and a panel of experts representative of both projects stakeholders.
Zeljko Jeftic, Senior Project Manager at ERTICO and FREILOT Project Coordinator said, “Not only has FREILOT shown the benefits of cooperative mobility services in a real environment, leading to a 13% reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions but it has also successfully overcome all deployment barriers towards a successful and viable project after-life.”
