Enhance your skills and seize the opportunity to learn how to best use ITS to enhance your citizen’s quality of life: join the new ERTICO Academy. This new service is launched today at the ITS European Congress in Brainport by Jacob Bangsgaard, ERTICO CEO with the support of Ronald Adams of Rijkswaterstaat, Sascha Westermann of Hamburger Hochbahn AG and Georgia Aifandopoulou of CERTH, who all confirm the need of Public Authorities to receive this kind of training.

The ERTICO Academy is an ad hoc knowledge base training programme to support and foster sustainable deployment of ITS and C-ITS across Europe among Public Authority officials across Europe. From January 2020, the ERTICO Academy will offer a wide choice of trainings to Public Authorities focused on a variety of topics, ranging from the benefits of ITS, C-ITS deployment (challenges including large scale deployment and gaps), MaaS, 5G/ IoT, access to EU funding and programmes (H2020, CEF, Erasmus+) and much, much more.

‘Thanks to the expertise of the ERTICO team and our network of 120 Partners, ERTICO is well placed to bridge the knowledge and experience gap for the deployment of smart mobility solutions. It has long been ERTICO’s ambition to share the knowledge that we have at our fingertips with the ITS Community. And now it is a reality,’ says Mr. Bangsgaard.

All trainings will be given by ERTICO’s experts and Partners, with customised modules depending on the level and needs of users. Furthermore, trainings will be prepared for targeted audiences working in different transport sectors, from traffic management operators to civil servants, legal departments, procurement departments, national experts and national decision makers, policy makers and more. What makes the ERTICO Academy unique is not only the quality of the selected topics and the trainers, but also that all lessons will be taught in different formats, guaranteeing a high flexibility in the learning process. On-demand and online interactive trainings, peer-to-peer collaboration, coaching, mentoring and tutoring, access to publications and material, teaching external staff and workshops are some of the many services offered by the ERTICO Academy, with training coming to the Public Authorities, guaranteeing more flexibility.

Ronald Adams (Rijkswaterstaat)

‘If we want to release the urgently needed full potential of ITS and smart mobility to make mobility safer, cleaner and more efficient we definitely need more skilled professionals in the public sector but also in the private and scientific sectors. Therefore, I will fully and actively support this important ERTICO initiative.’ says Ronald Adams, Rijkswaterstaat.

Sascha Westermann (Hamburger Hochbahn AG)

‘In 2016, Hamburg introduced an ITS Strategy that sets out the contribution that Intelligent Transport Systems can and should make to Hamburg’s journey towards becoming a model city for mobility. It is important that we exchange views with international Partners on new topics such as quantum technology, blockchain or urban air mobility and on how they can contribute to MaaS or Traffic Management. ERTICO already offers a good platform for this. The Academy will make another very helpful contribution, which we are very much looking forward to.’ says Sascha Westermann Hamburger Hochbahn AG.

Why focus on C-ITS?

Georgia Aifandopoulou (CERTH)

When talking about the deployment of C-ITS services, public authorities are among the key actors. The development and growth of an ITS community is fundamental to gather public authorities in an environment where they can share their knowledge and experience with others and foster the uptake, development and deployment of ITS and C-ITS services. The public community is expected to play a fundamental role, making sure these services take into account everyone’s needs and requirements for mobility. Through the ERTICO Academy more experienced stakeholders will share their best practice and experiences on ITS and related sectors with participants.