ERTICO CEO, Mr Joost Vantomme, is pleased to welcome you back after the holidays. This new year holds many great opportunities, and the first couple of months will mark the next phase in our ongoing inspirational journey. We expect 2023 to be a positive year with many exciting collaborations and great success for all our activities. We will continue to facilitate safer, smarter and more efficient transport services for the benefit of all. Before looking ahead towards new adventures, Mr Vantomme looks back on some key memories after one year as CEO of ERTICO.
As CEO of ERTICO for one year, I was thrilled to elevate our way of working. Today, ERTICO is a house full of European projects, innovation platforms and Congresses, working towards delivering smart and sustainable mobility thanks to our talented people and our Partners. Throughout the year, I embarked on some construction works to make it even better: We built more rooms to lodge new activities, more space for ten incoming Partners, and more “light to enlighten us” with the new areas to cover. In short, a journey during which I felt in good company with my team, our partners and our governance bodies. As the second year has just begun, we will start to put new frames on the walls, change the curtains and add more colour to them. The ambition and drive are certainly there, and with our expanded team, we will strive to continue delivering on our promise to deploy smart and sustainable mobility solutions across Europe and even beyond.
Moving through 2022: A few key highlights
In his end-of-year message, Dr Angelos Amditis, ERTICO Chairman, emphasised the traction and many new initiatives we took last year. 2022 was truly a transformational year with many outstanding achievements and opportunities despite some difficult challenges on the geopolitical and societal front. It was an important turning point to rethink the future of mobility, and the transport sector made significant progress towards the twinning ambitions of smart and sustainable mobility. ERTICO made great advances by making new alliances with other sectors, tapping into the potential of clean and urban mobility, delivering on 5G projects with showcases in the logistics area and displaying the possibilities of a data-driven economy with data sharing through various platforms hosted by ERTICO.
The ERTICO Partnership grew with ten new members: SAENA, Mercedes-Benz, Brisa, RHOE, ITS Global, SAE International, City of Maastricht, Monotch, Microsoft, and Google Cloud. Together with our 120 Partners, we will continue building bridges, connecting the dots between all sectors to help address societal transportation challenges, including road safety, air quality, decarbonisation and digitalisation of transport.
The Congress team also delivered a fantastic event during the 14th ITS European Congress in Toulouse. Under the theme ‘Smart & Sustainable Mobility for All’, we made some great steps towards connecting the dots between all stakeholders. Our work continued after the summer as we headed to Los Angeles for the 28th ITS World Congress. For five days, we explored ‘Transformation by Transportation’, and I was honoured to be part of this journey with the team. Europe and the Americas face a lot of similar issues and questions on transport and mobility, but we also learned some different views on the matter as well. One thing is clear: our journey does not stop here.
Connecting the dots: A key motto that will continue
Connecting sectors, technologies, countries and continents, public and private sector actors as well the civil society remains my motto, and even more so this year. I am looking forward to seeing you at our 15th ITS European Congress in Lisbon end of May. With ‘ITS: The Game Changer’ as the overarching theme, you will be interested to discover new innovative topics, setting the scene for the future of mobility. The year will also be dedicated to preparing for the 30th ITS World Congress, hosted in Dubai from 16 – 20 September 2024.
2022 was also a year full of regulatory policy work on green, sustainability and smart mobility, as well as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, mobility data spaces, ITS directive, etc. The legislative train is still running for some of these, and we keep a finger on the pulse. ERTICO will continue the inspiration and advocacy work at an increased tempo. One of the areas where we continue to “knock hard on the door” is the recognition of ITS as an enabler for decarbonisation, so the joint efforts with our partners and stakeholders are accounted for and validated as sustainable investments in the Taxonomy regulatory framework.
2023 will continue to bring along some of the previous year’s priorities as we strengthen connections within the ITS community. One of which is urban mobility which will get even more traction this year. As a selected member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Urban Mobility, I am pleased ERTICO is part of this journey, and I look forward to our leadership role in the Future of Mobility group.
We will work intensively to deliver more on mobility data spaces. In addition, Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) continues to be an important focus where we work hand-in-hand with the MaaS Alliance. We will also ensure a fruitful liaison with other European and international associations to continue engaging in discussions and streamline views on ITS where possible. Our team will also embark on a series of the sector and cross-sector dialogues within ERTICO.
At the same time, we will organise more of our FOCUS ON Partnership events, focusing on strategic value chains in our eight sectors and their trends and challenges. Beyond this continuing work with our Partners, the network of National ITS organisations (ITS Nationals) is invaluable for me. This year, I look forward to taking an active role in stewardship, cooperation and synergising on key ITS topics.
Finally, an organisation is nothing without a T E A M. We worked intensively last year to give a fresh impetus through a wide scale of HR-related actions. One of them was a rethink of the key values that we want to portray and be a true ambassador of. Our five new values represent the ERTICO team and how we work: Cooperative, Impactful, Open, Passionate and Visionary. These values mirror the joint effort with our Partners to strengthen the connections between public and private stakeholders and facilitate positive transformation for the future of mobility. This will accelerate ERTICO into 2023 with an optimistic strength for tomorrow’s journey.
I am particularly pleased that ERTICO has been nominated for the HR Excellence Awards 2023 in the category of Best Employer Organizations. This is a special token of appreciation for the ERTICO office. Thank you Team!
More to come this year! Watch the space, our ERTICO fortnightly newsfeed is here for you: Subscribe now.
All my best wishes for 2023!
Joost
Image: ITS International
