From 21 – 22 June, the annual ERTICO Activity Development Days (ADD) brought together close to 100 representatives from the ERTICO Partnership to drive the smart mobility agenda forward. Hosted by the Innovation & Deployment department, the two-day event aimed at determining the Partnership’s future priorities and joint innovation targets, especially within the European Commission’s upcoming Calls and Tenders, as well as future policy plans and targets.
The first day, opened by Joost Vantomme, CEO of ERTICO – ITS Europe, covered an agenda divided into ERTICO’s four focus areas: Cooperative Connected & Automated Mobility (CCAM), Clean & Eco- Mobility, Urban Mobility and Transport & Logistics. Vladimir Vorotovic, Director of Innovation & Deployment, presented an overview of the state of ERTICO projects. Dr Johanna Tzanidaki, Chief Innovation Officer, shared more in-depth information on how ERTICO builds bridges through strategic partnerships with like-minded organisations across Europe and beyond.
Before proceeding into the dialogues of each focus area, and the Partnership’s work towards implementing the ERTICO Roadmaps, two guest speakers from the European Commission were invited to present their insights. Michael Glotz-Richter, Senior Project Manager for Sustainable Mobility, German city-state of Bremen & co-lead EC EGUM sub-group, presented the views of the public sector and more specifically, of Cities sharing information on what they consider as key challenges in areas of CCAM as well as within the context of urban and sustainable mobility. Suzanna Kraak, Policy Officer of DG RTD, European Commission, discussed the state of play of the CCAM activities in the EU, including the CCAM PPP. She highlighted some of the Commission’s research priorities and discussed the SRIA revision process, in which ERTICO is very much involved. In conclusion, she presented an overview of the Horizon Europe Calls for 2024.
On the second day, Dr Tamara Djukic, ERTICO Senior Manager of Innovation & Deployment, presented one of the key initiatives, the ERTICO Academy. She informed ERTICO Partners about the training tasks that ERTICO is able to undertake when having a role in proposals. The guest speaker of the day, Claire Depré, Head of Unit, Road Safety, EC DG MOVE, was invited to present the latest policies and initiatives on behalf of the European Commission within the context of road safety and explained the Safe System approach in addition to the broader overview of the Road Safety Package as well as the latest insights with respect to the legislation.
ERTICO representatives introduces the importance of the Focus Area Roadmaps
The first topic of CCAM, presented by Senior Manager Dr Stephane Dreher on day one, provided a comprehensive overview with remarks on the key milestones that have been set to achieve the vision of decarbonising transport and improving safety. He mentioned the importance of harmonised coordination tools, common evaluation methodologies, and increased societal involvement to understand the impacts of CCAM solutions. The development of new technologies, such as mobility data spaces, edge computing, big data and artificial intelligence were also emphasised as key components. On the second day, ERTICO Senior Project Manager of Innovation & Deployment, Coen Bresser, discussed the need to integrate and orchestrate heterogeneous actors in mixed traffic within the CCAM ecosystem. The main objective is to achieve safer, more efficient, and sustainable traffic management. The presentation highlighted the importance of a systematic approach encompassing various road network users, traffic management centres, public authorities, and service providers. The desired outcomes include proven orchestration schemes, governance and operational models for better collaboration, and mobility management tools to integrate CCAM systems and services seamlessly. Coen emphasised the significance of incorporating all stakeholders and automation levels, ranging from non-automated vehicles and pedestrians to fully automated systems and delivery drones.
Jean-Charles Pandazis, ERTICO Senior Manager of Innovation & Deployment, opened the session on Clean and Eco-Mobility by introducing its Roadmap priorities and the supporting projects and platforms. The presentation mentioned that all new cars in 2035 will be zero-emission and various activities for reducing vehicle emissions was presented. These activities focus on electromobility and electrification of transport, and CO2 emissions are ongoing.
The third focus area on Urban Mobility was presented by Dr Djukic, who explained that within ERTICO, urban mobility is perceived as a strategic step that connects and integrates all modes, including active and shared mobility, as well as the topic on Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) as a whole. Looking at the roadmap, she pointed out that this is a strategic vision which takes form through some of the ongoing flagship projects such as SHOW, SOLUTIONSplus and NAPCORE. The innovation platform of TM2.0 is also a key enabler for future multimodal mobility management in alignment with the strategic cooperations of mobility data spaces such as the MaaS Alliance and TISA. All the activities are integrated into the ERTICO Academy, which strives to provide training and capacity-building for public authorities and their stakeholders on innovative solutions for user/cities’ problems and needs within the scope of Urban Mobility. The ongoing work of the ERTICO Partnership and the wider network’s knowledge within the Urban Mobility focus area contributes to the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) guidelines on ITS, MaaS, and Urban Air Mobility (UAM).
Dr Eusebiu Catana, ERTICO Senior Manager of Innovation & Deployment, opened the fourth and final session on Transport & Logistics. He introduced the roadmap, including the supporting projects and platforms. Following the discussion on general outlines, scopes and expected outcomes of future Calls, he highlighted the important elements of multimodality and mobility of passengers for a more integrated framework at the European level for the physical internet framework and adding extra building blocks for the future of physical Internet framework and integrating different vertical standard original standards.
The workshops on day two were designed to gain a better understanding of the forthcoming calls, but also to discuss and share potential gaps and organise the work for future Calls of next year. This included questions relevant to the consortium building, identifying stakeholders, competencies and the different roles of proposal developments.
“It was a great pleasure to receive such a strong interest and participation from ERTICO members at this important annual event. We were delighted to welcome our partners to continue working with us and the wider mobility ecosystem to advance the smart mobility agenda and set the scene for future innovations. We are also very grateful to the European Commission, DG RTD, DG MOVE and the German city-state of Bremens’ representatives for their valuable insights and for sharing their priorities and vision for future improvements. The ERTICO Partnership’s close collaboration with decision-making bodies across the entire ecosystem is key for the wider community to achieve constructive exchange of knowledge and information for the future of mobility”, says Dr Tzanidaki.
Learn more about our work on Innovation & Deployment and download the 2023 Annual Review.
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