European Commission

A European Parliament/Council deal on a life-saving automatic emergency call system for cars, agreed on Monday evening, was backed by Internal Market Committee MEPs on Thursday. The in-vehicle eCall system uses 112 emergency call technology to alert the emergency services to serious road accidents automatically. This enables them to decide immediately on the type and size of rescue operation needed, helping them to arrive faster, save lives, reduce the severity of injuries and cut the cost of traffic ja

The EU's TEN-T Programme is to provide around US$500,000 to support preparatory and design studies for a network of safe and secure parking areas for truck drivers in Campania, Calabria and Sicily. The drivers will be able to pre-book parking and get reliable online information with the help of an integrated information service. The studies will be carried out in two phases. A preparatory study will identify the existing parking areas with the capacity for easy upgrade and potential new sites, while the

Organised by Ertico-ITS Europe and ETSI, the third eCall testfest was held at CTAG in Spain at the end of October, joined by new IVS (in vehicle system) and PSAP (public safety answering point) vendors from all over the world. The event was supported by CETECOM, the European Commission and the HeERO2 project. During the five days of the event, hundreds of pairing sessions were organised. Each session, lasting two hours, allowed one IVS unit to test with one PSAP unit or against a test system. This set

The EU's TEN-T Programme is to co-fund studies for the construction of an intermodal terminal at Timisoara International Airport in Romania with the aim of promoting the integration of freight transport within the air, rail and road TEN-T network. The project includes a feasibility study and technical, economic and environmental studies that will form the basis for the terminal's design and construction. Once completed, it is expected to contribute to the intermodal growth of freight transport, thus pro

The Transport Ticketing Central and Eastern Europe conference made its debut in Warsaw in October, welcoming 200 transport executives from across the region to discuss the ways to make paying and accessing public transport fast, efficient and flexible.

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Commission have concluded Galileo Exploitation Delegation Agreement which delegates a range of tasks for Galileo to the GSA, providing a framework and budget for the development of services and operations through 2021 and serves as an initial step towards the full Galileo exploitation phase.. Under the terms of the Agreement, which runs until 2021, the European Commission is responsible for the overall programme supervision, the European Space Agency (ESA)

Road safety campaigners and European traffic police have welcomed the agreement by EU transport ministers to back a change to rules on cross-border enforcement of traffic offences such as speeding. This comes on the heels of an Institute of Advanced Motorists report that 23,295 overseas drivers have escaped UK speeding penalties since January 2014. The European Commission published a revised cross-border enforcement law in July in response to a European Court of Justice ruling in May that said the exi

The European Commission has released US$15.3 billion of EU funding to improve European transport connections and invited Member States to propose suitable projects to use the funding. Proposals must be submitted by 26 February 2015. EU financing for transport has tripled to US$33.6 billion for the period 2014-2020, compared to US$10.3 billion for 2007-2013, under the new Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). This is the first tranche of the new funding for transport to be made available. The funding will

Germany's transportation minister, Alexander Dobrindt, has unveiled plans to introduce a toll on cars using the country's roads. However, it is not clear whether the proposal will meet with the approval of the EU. Germany has imposed a toll on trucks using its autobahns and other major thoroughfares since the start of 2005; the new toll would apply to all cars using all roads in Germany from the beginning of 2016 and could even extend to motorcycles. Dobrint said experts at the Transportation Ministry ha

The central European conference on eCall takes place in Berlin, Germany on 16-18 September, organised by ITS Niedersachsen. On 16 and 17 September, the conference will be held in English, and will give a Europe-wide overview of eCall deployment and implementation. The first day will see discussions on the current status of the upcoming implementation of eCall and third party services in Europe. Political representatives of the European Commission, HeERO 1 and 2 partners and other stakeholders will pre