The SIMBA II project aims to increase RTD cooperation between the EU and its international cooperation partners: Brazil China India Russia and South Africa. In order to realise this objective SIMBA II organises a number of expert working group meetings the latest two of which were held on 18 November 2009 in Moscow Russia and 25 November in São Paulo Brazil.

The workshop in Russia was organised during the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in conjunction with ITS Russia and PAIRP (The Professional Association in vehicle Risk Prevention) and was attended by ERTICO Partners Egis Mobilité Kapsch TrafficCom and Satellic.

Vincent Blervaque Director of Development and Deployment at ERTICO welcomed the participants warmly. “SIMBA II is a first step in the international cooperation roadmap. European partners have shown a lot of interest in cooperation with Russia and the EC has high expectations regarding future project development”.

The workshop highlighted three mainaspects of EU-Russian cooperation.

Firstly ITS awareness and education can be usefully increased in Russia. Thus there is need for seminars conferences exhibitions and demonstrations in order for policy makers to learn about the benefits of ITS at national regional and city levels. ITS research of course is needed at national level but technical visits would facilitate a better understanding of ITS benefits. The ITS World Congress organised last September was given as an example as the theme was “ITS in daily life” thus demonstrating how ITS can be successfully deployed.

In the case of the EU the ITS Action Plan is a major success since it brings together stakeholders from different fields raises awareness and interest and speeds up market penetration of mature ITS applications and services in Europe.

Secondly recent developments in eCall and the Russian ERA/GLONASS project were of great interest and future cooperation was discussed. The issue will be raised at the next eCall Implementation Platform meeting.

Thirdly the growing challenge of urban mobility was fruitfully addressed both in general terms and also with special regard to the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympic Games 2014 where there is great Russian interest in applying ITS solutions. In these aspects the experience from the STADIUM and VIAJEO projects the two follow-ons to SIMBA II would be very useful.

The workshop was a great success and the ITS European Congress (Vienna 2010) and ITS Russia (Moscow 2010) events were identified for increased cooperation.

During the workshop a press conference also took place on “The safety problems on Russia’s roads” with the presence of Inna Svyatenko Chairman of the Commission on Security of the Moscow City Duma Igor Yamov Supervisory Board Member of ITS Russia and Chairman of PAIRP Gerald Connover Advisor of ITS America and Vincent Blervaque ERTICO.

eCall was one of the topics covered during the press conference and how the EU and Russia could synchronise the deployment of eCall. Also talking about international cooperation Gerald Connover Advisor of ITS America underlined “The addition of ITS Russia to the two decade partnership of ITS America ITS Japan and ERTICO – ITS Europe allows the creation of specific projects and the development of ITS on a global level”.

First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety
Organised with the support of the United Nations the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety took place. It aimed at exchanging best practice in effective road safety action programs and creating a common database of world experience that will strengthen every nations’ capacity to make roads safe. Ministers from more than 70 countries responsible for road safety as well as leaders from international regional governmental and non-governmental organizations from more than 140 countries participated in the conference. ERTICO participated in the Conference namely in the panels “Partnerships for road safety” and “Safe vehicles”.

Traffic Safety Forum
A Round Table on “ITS & Safety” was organised as part of the Traffic Safety Forum and Exhibition 2009. Moderated by Vincent Blervaque from ERTICO it included the presence of among others Leonid Kozlov – ICIE Vice President IRF board member Boris Tsiklis Chair of ITS Russia Nancy Karter Foster representative of USA State Department and Gerald Connover ITS America. The round table focused on several ITS aspects including the vehicle and infrastructure.

For further information including the agenda and presentations please click here

This article has also been disseminated by ITS America as part of the cooperation between ERTICO and ITS America – to see it please click here

Useful links

First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety

Traffic Safety Forum and Exhibition 2009
16th ITS World Congress
ITS Action Plan
eCall
eCall Toolbox
eCall Implementation Platform

 

 

Link to original Article

http://www.ertico.com/simba-ii-holds-russian-its-workshop-together-with-road-safety-events/

Original Publication Date: Tue 27 Jul 2010