Instant Mobility Special Session at ITS World Congress in Orlando

The Instant Mobility project organised a successful special session during the recent World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems & Services in Orlando (16-20 October 2011), on the theme of “Future Internet for ITS”. A capacity audience in Special Session 42 heard a wide-ranging presentation of the potential advantages offered by Future Internet technologies when applied for travellers, transport system operators and users and for traffic management.

Patrick Gatellier of Thales, Instant Mobility project coordinator, introduced the project and explained the FI-PPP context in which it fits. He described the many challenges facing the cities of Europe such as growing congestion, increasing car ownership and use, ever-stricter environmental legislation and need to reduce CO2 emissions and economic pressure to improve the efficiency of urban logistics.

Stéphane Petti of Orange Business Services highlighted “the Future Internet” and its features relevant for ITS (e.g. LTE, machine-to-machine communication, Internet of Things, cloud computing and services, data warehouses, Web 3.0, IPv6, etc), and how these might converge in applications for automotive services, for vehicle-infrastructure interaction and for next-generation traffic control services (“traffic control in the cloud”).

Rene Rembarz of Ericsson Eurolab discussed gaps between ITS standards and technologies and those for Future Internet, with reference to the comparison of LTE vs. 802.11p as ITS communication means. The CoCarX project had demonstrated the feasibility of using LTE for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, effectively combining short-range and wide-area functionalities with a single medium able to deliver high-speed mobile Internet connectivity.

Hossein Zakizadeh of Volvo Technology described a vision of urban goods transport in the future thanks to advanced Internet technologies: innovative services would be available for eco-driving support, vehicle and driveline control and city logistics. The intelligent connected truck of the future will talk to its driver, ensuring the vehicle is in efficient condition and then coaching him during and after each journey. Vehicle-infrastructure communication will link the truck with the traffic system, helping choose the optimum speed and acceleration profiles for least fuel use. Future city logistics will include load sharing and optimising amongst operators, and personalised parcel delivery dynamically adapted to the place and time that suits the recipient.

Finally, Paul Kompfner of ERTICO-ITS Europe described the five lead scenarios analysed in the first stage of the Instant Mobility project, and reflecting the interests of different key stakeholders:

  • multimodal travel made easy (travellers)
  • the sustainable car (car drivers and passengers)
  • collective transport 2.0 (public and other collective transport operators)
  • trucks and the city (commercial fleet and logistics operators)
  • cloud traffic & infrastructure management (road operators and traffic managers)

Innovations introduced in the project include always-on-tap information about trips, traffic, services and logistics; always-connected, always-located travellers, vehicles, goods and transport networks; and a mobility marketplace where you can find the “best” itinerary – personalised for your needs – for any trip.

Download the presentations: