2013 is finally here!
After weeks of festive fun holidays and New Year celebrations Europe returned to work this month and despite the fresh snow that has fallen across the continent 2013 looks set to be a bright year for the ITS community.
ERTICO Staff December 2012
Here at ERTICO we will be working on a number of new and exciting projects and we also expect to see many new ITS systems make the transition from R&D to become real-life products. In fact this is such an important trend that it is the main focus of the 2013 European ITS Congress and we hope that many of you will be able to attend in June in Dublin.
However before we explore the year ahead we thought it would be a good time to review the successes we have had over the past twelve months. What projects were completed in 2012? And what has ERTICO achieved its vision of bringing intelligence into mobility for people and goods?
Here are just a few of the highlights:
In June the euroFOT consortium held its final event and presented the findings of a four-year study focused on the impact of driver assistance systems in Europe. The EUR 22 million European Field Operational Test (euroFOT) project began in June 2008 and involved 28 organisations including car manufacturers automotive suppliers research institues and other European stakeholders. The study looked at existing driver-assistance technologies in cars and trucks and their potential to both enhance safety and reduce environmental impact on European roads. The euroFOT project revealed a link between these systems and improvements in driver behaviour fuel efficiency and traffic safety as well as overall cost savings.
In September the FREILOT project came to an end having evaluated the benefits of five urban freight ITS solutions. The project was a huge success and made significant contributions to the commercialisation of the first ‘cooperative road-side unit’ in Europe. Working with pilot sites in four EU countries FREILOT assessed energy efficient intersection controls adaptive speed and acceleration controls eco-driving support and real-time loading/delivery space booking.
FREILOT evaluated the benefits of five urban freight ITS solutions
The first International HeERO Conference on eCall took place in Zagreb on 15 November presenting the intermediate results of the HeERO (Harmonised eCall European Pilot) project. The eCall system is an extremely high-profile development as it will be mandatory for all new cars sold in the EU from 2015 and the meeting in Croatia allowed participants to focus on the outcomes of interoperability testing projects in nine countries (Croatia Czech Republic FinlandGermany Greece Italy the Netherlands Romania and Sweden). A number of recommendations for implementing eCall at European level were made and the project has been so successful that six additional countries will join the pilot from January 2013 (Belgium Bulgaria Denmark Luxembourg Spain Turkey).
Also in November the iCar Support project finished ending four years of excellent work in support of the European Commission’s iMobility Forum initiative which was one of the pillars of the Intelligent Car Initiative. In its final year the project hosted the second iMobility Awards ceremony which was presented by Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes. It also oversaw ten ITS forum working groups and presented the iMobility Forum to the world at the ITS Congress in Vienna. Between 2008 and 2012 the project has contributed a great deal to the development of safe smart and clean ICT-based transport technologies and we are delighted that this work will continue next year via the new iMobility support project.
The international VIAJEO project which focused on urban mobility management ended successfully with final conferences in each test site (Athens Sao Paulo Beijing and Shanghai) and closer to home two interoperability ‘test weeks’ were co-organised by ERTICO and ETSI. Each one contributed to the successful testing and validation of the DRIVE C2X reference system for cooperative systems (ETSIG5 standards)
And this is really just the beginning. Many other projects are still underway and the ERTICO Partnership continues to go from strength to strength with nine new partners joining over the year!
Finally no review of 2012 would be complete without a look at the 19th ITS World Congress in Vienna.
The World ITS Congress in Vienna was a huge success in 2012
The Vienna Congress truly was an outstanding event and proved beyond doubt that people from all around the world are completely committed to ITS. With more than 10000 participants from 91 countries the 19th ITS World Congress set a new record in the number of participants. In addition to this more than 3000 delegates and 195 journalists attended the event – helping to make ITS a real topic in everyday life.
Of the 23 technical demonstrations that took place during the week eight took place in the real traffic of Vienna and the Congress was also the first to feature a Ministerial Round Table with a top-class political cast including Vice-President of the European Commission Siim Kallas Efthymios Flourentzos President of the EU Transport Council and the German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer.
We have every reason to believe that we can build on this success in 2013 and will work closely with our partners in Ireland and Japan to ensure that the European and World congresses deliver.
Next month we will present a number of new ERTICO projects and explore the year ahead. We hope you will join us.
Ian Bearder.
For further information about ERTICO and the work of the ERTICO Partnership please visit www.ertico.com or email i.bearder@mail.ertico.com
Link to original Article
http://www.ertico.com/ertico-emagazine-a-review-of-201/
Original Publication Date: Mon 21 Jan 2013
