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AustriaTech looks at the challenges you may face when integrating ITS and how to overcome them
ITS – Intelligent Transport Systems – are often seen as creative and innovative in terms of new product development, platform specification and service generation for end users. At the same time research results and related products are often conceived as technically sophisticated gadgets (toys for the boys), which can not fully convince or deliver the promised benefits to the customers.
If the reasons for this performance are analysed in detail, two specific challenges for ITS projects become visible: first the integration of new systems and functionalities into existing transport related landscapes of IT systems with their interfaces is a complex and underestimated process. Secondly the handover procedures between one project phase and the next development step of IT systems need special focus and attention, not only at the decision level of the projects but also in user interaction and communication efforts to the public.
A holistic approach
The three phases of an ITS project are first R&D and technical feasibility, secondly validation and deployment on a demonstration trial with user acceptance testing, inclusion of user groups for systematic feedback to developers. And thirdly large scale deployment on transport infrastructures with the roll out, setup, installation and operational phase is crucial.
Every single phase of ITS projects has its specific challenge and only if the right partners are working together the overall result is convincing. This can best be achieved if single phases of the ITS development are followed up in an integrated way in one company, which can guarantee the transfer of intermediate results to the next project phase.
Projects that work successfully
There are numerous European projects, which can refer to a successful continuance to the next project phase. Good examples are the projects, which deal with Infrastructure-to-Vehicle communication and traffic management.
COOPERS (Co-operative Systems for Intelligent Road Safety) for instance is an Integrated Project co-funded by the European Commission in the 6th Framework Programme for R&D and performed by 37 partners from 15 European under the co-ordination of AustriaTech. The objective of COOPERS is to connect vehicles on the motorway to the road infrastructure via continuous wireless communication to improve traffic management while simultaneously enhancing road safety and efficiency. It provides vehicles and drivers with real-time safety related information of the current traffic infrastructure status which is location-specific. The challenge is, to provide the COOPERS-System without any barriers, to be used in any cars and Europe-wide. The project already made the step from research to testing. The defined COOPERS service set will be tested in a comparative assessment and also the impact of high quality in-vehicle traffic information on driver acceptance and behaviour is validated with a number of more than 200 drivers all over Europe.
Involving operators
Another important area is the provision of data quality to realise a traffic related service for end users. The project In-Time (Intelligent and efficient travel management for European cities) is a pilot project setting up a large scale test of interoperable multimodal real time traffic and traveller information in six pilot cities all over Europe. This project, also co-funded by the European Commission in the ICT PSP program, will pilot previous developed solutions in Bucharest (RO), Brno (CZ), Florence (IT), Munich (GE), Oslo (NO) and Vienna (AT) under the coordination of AustriaTech. The main achievement of In-Time will be the agreement of infrastructure operators, service providers and technology suppliers on one commonly agreed standardised interface for the exchange of multimodal travel data. This model ensures the easy access to all urban traffic related data within one region resulting in the distribution to the end-users via several consistent information channels and in parallel enhancing user acceptance by enabling seamless and customised door-to-door on-trip services. The expected changes in the mobility behaviour of the single traveller will decrease the negative impacts of road traffic on the environment.
Implementation
The necessity of an established network can never be overestimated in this respect. Intelligent mobility shall be useful not only to a small group of people or countries. According to experience a high number of involved partners can be a lot of work. But a successful output also shows the advantage of European projects. One example is EasyWay, a project for Europe-wide ITS deployment on main TERN corridors driven by national road authorities and road operators. In EasyWay developed, tested, and validated ITS solutions are implemented with the main goal to deploy interoperable and seamless pan-European services along the TERN corridors. It also identifies the set of necessary European ITS services to deploy (Traveller Information, Traffic Management, and Freight and Logistic Services). In this respect it is working as an efficient instrument that allows the European stakeholders to achieve a coordinated and combined deployment.
ITS projects support intelligent mobility if the full development cycle of ITS from research and development are conceived via validation and user interaction to tender procedures for roll out and implementation. Each sequence of activities is necessary to be followed by one actor with overall responsibility for the final result. In this case the “ownership” and therefore responsibility for project related single steps are enhanced and focus on the requirements and needs of the final customer.
For more information
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