ERTICO Forum on ITS for Urban Mobility

ERTICO, the network of Intelligent Transport Systems and Services stakeholders in Europe, hosted a forum on ITS for Urban Mobility at Le Châtelain Boutique Hotel in Brussels on December 1st 2011. The forum brought together representatives of public authorities, cities, infrastructure operators, ITS companies and others to discuss the needs of cities and how these needs could be fulfilled by ITS solutions. The issues of ITS deployment and existing success stories were also examined through actual experiences in the region Brussels-Capital, in Vienna and in Rotterdam. On January 12th 2012 there will be a follow-up webinar looking at the issues raised in the Forum.

The keynote speaker for the event was Mr. Pawel Stelmaszczyk, the Head of Unit at EC DG MOVE. Mr. Stelmaszczyk talked about the Expert Group on Urban ITS (EG UITS) consisting of 25 ITS experts that will focus on accelerating the adoption of ITS solutions in urban areas by preparing new guidelines and identifying needs for standardization. He also highlighted the Smart Mobility Challenge, launched at ITS Europe 2011 in Lyon, which aimed at eliciting new ideas on how to develop a real European multimodal journey planner. Over 20 good ideas were received, and a winner will be selected in early January 2012. A public vote will take place from December 5th to January 13th at the European Commission website.

Figure 1. Pawel Stelmaszczyk (right), Head of Unit at EC DG MOVE, giving the keynote speech at the Forum.

ITS solutions for cities were the topic of the first session. The city of Copenhagen, which aims at being the first CO2-neutral capital in the world by 2025, saw bus priority, eco-driving for lorries, traffic management for big events, green waves for cyclists and congestion charging as the ITS solutions that will be most beneficial for their city going forward.

In Bilbao, a representative of small and medium-sized cities, a growing need for system and data integration was foreseen in addition to addressing the longstanding lack of expertise, interoperability and standards. In the next five years, ITS solutions related to intelligent parking and cycling are seen as the next steps on the road to a smart urban city.

The city of Helmond is used as a large test site for the FREILOT project that aims at increasing the energy efficiency of urban freight through different ITS solutions. A key issue identified in the project has been the lack of a business model for the FREILOT service provider: fleet operators will pay for the on-board units, and authorities will pay for the roadside infrastructure, but who will pay the service provider?

In the discussion following the first session, political acceptance of ITS was clearly seen as the key issue that could open the gates for a wide field of different ITS solutions. The need for an ITS champion to promote and sell ITS to policymakers was echoed by many in the audience. To help win political acceptance, more impact measures and results on the impacts of ITS solutions are needed.

The second session focused on what ITS can deliver to cities. Pricing models for traffic demand management were discussed. As an example, the cost of time lost annually in congestion has been estimated at $87 billion in the United States and €233 billion within the European Union. This could be addressed by either pricing-based schemes, limited access schemes or parking management solutions. The fundamental message for cities was: decide the policy, select the best scheme for your city, and only then choose the technical solution – not the other way around.

The next generation of traffic management and control systems was introduced. These new systems must be adaptable and connected with changing traffic management policies. They enable giving priority to specific types of vehicles and implementing policy-based navigation where the traffic manager would have a say on routing traffic in an urban environment.

Figure 2. Richard Harris, from ACS, talking about the importance of showing the benefits of ITS solutions in reaching policy goals.

The importance of demonstrating the benefits of ITS solutions was brought to the forefront again in the context of ITS as a transport facilitator – it helps make transport simpler. The significant role of information technology was also mentioned as ITS can be seen as a variety of functions supported by one or more IT systems.

The discussion after the second session re-echoed the lack of data on ITS impacts and reminded that negative impacts need to be accounted for as well (e.g. traffic deviating around tolling zones). In general, the demand for quantified benefits was palpable. The importance of multimodal ITS solutions including cyclists and pedestrians was highlighted. Sustainable mobility was seen almost as a human right that should be fought for. The significance of political acceptance re-emerged as well: the bottom line for local policy makers is still WIIFM (What’s In It For Me).

The third session, held after lunch, dealt with deployment issues. In the Region Brussels-Capital in Belgium, the leading thought has been that streets with slower speeds make for better, safer and sustainable cities. Attentive listening of decision-makers and administrative officials has been found to be of utmost importance – the real needs of the city have to be understood in order to get the cities involved in ITS.

In Vienna, anachb.at offers a wide variety of mobility-related services to different modalities. A significant problem has been commuting from suburban areas to the city center. This has been solved by developing a new traffic model platform incorporating e.g. floating car data from taxis around the city to create a real-time snapshot of the traffic situation.

Figure 3. Paul Potter, from Connekt, talks about an ecological and economical urban distribution scheme.

A lean and green urban distribution scheme providing benefits in safety, reduced emissions and improved quality of life was also presented. The scheme is based on using long-distance trucks to deliver goods to hubs around the city, after which smaller electrical trucks are used for the final mile distribution. Privileges are a significant part of the scheme: trucks get priority in traffic lights and at loading areas.

In the following discussion, the importance of listening to policymakers and cities was underlined. The ITS community should 1) understand the vision, 2) find out the strategy, and 3) suggest the best tools to fulfill the first two. The need for a continuous initiative in taking ITS to administrations and cities was seen e.g. in the form of the ‘ITS Urban Mobility Forum’.

The forum closed with a session on existing ITS success stories. There was agreement over the thought that wider ITS adoption is not about the technology – the technology is already there. Urbanization, demographic change, climate change and the lack of resources were seen as the most important trends driving sustainable urban development. The mobility of people and goods should be treated with equal importance, and in logistics especially solutions addressing the last mile have significant potential. Innovative traffic & parking management and car-sharing solutions are being piloted in Berlin by Siemens. In Rotterdam, all traffic management functions within the city have been successfully merged to provide traffic controllers remote access to all roadside systems.