The SEE-ITS project aims to establish cooperation for ITS deployment in South-Eastern Europe. One of the projects that is particularly relevant for the development of SEE-ITS is the ITS Observatory.
The ITS Observatory project aims to alleviate existing gaps and fragmentation of the European ITS landscape by providing decision makers and related stakeholders with access to reliable, understandable and coherent information on the outcomes of existing and ongoing ITS deployment.
SEE-ITS could deliver valuable information to the ITS Observatory such as “Who is who“ and “What is where”. The project could contribute to the collection of best practices across Europe and useful links to other sources of information. For SEE-ITS, the ITS Observatory could facilitate knowledge exchange and bringing together experts from different regions and ITS areas. This could facilitate harmonization in terms of systems and deployment in the long run.
This article provides a closer look at the SEE-ITS project.
SEE-ITS project: Insight for Southeast Europe ITS deployment
SEE-ITS is a transnational project which stimulated cooperation, harmonization and interoperability among isolated Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in South East Europe (SEE). Through SEE-ITS, the technical requirements for the assessment and the harmonization of the European Union’s ITS Directive (2010/40/EU), by the SEE countries were identified and successfully established.
The scope of the project was to enhance the interoperable use of ITS for traffic monitoring and control along road transport networks at transnational, regional and local (urban/peri-urban) levels. The project results set a long-term sustainable strategic and operational framework for institutional and operational integration of ITS in SEE countries.
SEE-ITS approach
SEE-ITS aimed at developing an institutional and technical framework of ITS implementation in SEE. Furthermore, seven targeted ITS demonstration activities took place, in order to assess the benefits and the impacts of harmonized and interoperable ITS deployment. SEE-ITS also established a permanent cooperation framework for ITS activities in SEE, through the development of an online “SEE platform for ITS“, with the active involvement of expert groups’ and stakeholders’ panels.
The project’s approach comprised of the identification of what had already been developed in SEE countries during the previous years (Past), the implementation of various typical ITS in different areas in order to assess their impacts (Present) and the definition of the short-term roadmaps of actions and investment plans for the years to come (Future).
On the first stage (Past), the existing ITS status was compared against international best practices in terms of operational and technical interoperability and the four priority areas of the EU ITS Directive were investigated from the viewpoint of their deployment in SEE countries.
Through the “Present” phase, after the Demos execution, all measured results were evaluated on the region of their deployment and their impacts were assessed, transferred to other regions and scaled up at larger geographic areas. Moreover, proposals for the revision of national ITS architectures were made and the basic outline for new architectures (user needs) was created, taking into account the interoperability of ITS among the SEE countries.
At the final phase, new integration scenarios of the National ITS Action Plans were created in SEE, ITS measures were prioritized for each country and new roadmaps for ITS deployment were created. Moreover, cost-benefit analyses were executed and new business models, for regional ITS implementation in the SEE area, were created. All reports and technical material will be provided to ITS Observatory.
Website: www.seeits.eu
