“The ERTICO Partnership has a clear vision of what mobility will look like in 2030: seamless, greener, safer, cross-border, digital and inclusive”. With these words, ERTICO’s CEO Jacob Bangsgaard shared ERTICO’s Vision 2030 on transport, in line with the EU’s Agenda for Sustainable Development at the ITS Networking Day in Helsinki organised by ITS Finland, the home of MaaS Alliance.
Explaining how ERTICO the organisation and its Partnership of over 120 public-private stakeholders across Europe looks differently at Smart Mobility, Jacob Bangsgaard presented ERTICO’s roadmaps towards 2030 with 4 focus areas: clean, safe, connected and autonomous mobility and transport and logistics. He explained how ERTICO and its Partners aim at working on a set of milestones that pave the way for the deployment of the Smart Mobility of the future. By deploying shared use of infrastructure, clean and sustainable vehicles, safer automation and connectivity, precise localisation services, better use of data flow and higher diffusion of new technologies, ERTICO aims at enhancing the quality of transport in Europe.
But in what way is ERTICO a driver of change? By gathering Europe’s leading public and private stakeholders and the ITS national associations, ERTICO has long functioned not only as thought leader and knowledge-sharing centre, but has also given voice to the problems of different national and local entities at European level. The MaaS Alliance is one of the many success stories that have benefitted not only Finland, in this case, but even other EU Member States. By bringing mobility needs at policy level, ERTICO has developed mobility solutions that have enhanced the quality of transport across Europe, such as e-Call, launched in 2001 and become mandatory in 2018.
Mr. Bangsgaard also spoke about the importance of embracing new business models and exploring alternative ways to deploy smart mobility. Start-ups in this sense represent an opportunity to deploy mobility in alternative ways, and therefore cooperation between them and the already established Smart Mobility community is an important opportunity to reach the goals set for 2030.
‘It is important for ERTICO to bring people together and embrace change,’ said Mr Bangsgaard. ERTICO offers precious opportunities to exchange knowledge and know-how on Smart Mobility through networking events. Next on the list is this year’s ITS World Congress, which takes place from 17 to 21 September in Copenhagen, Denmark. This will give plenty of opportunities not only to Finland, but also to the international ITS community to advance and explore new mobility solutions.
