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Nashville meeting smooth path to Tokyo

Plans for each ITS World Congress to smoothly transition into its successor took a step forward at the April 2013 ITS America Annual Meeting in April. Dr Hiroyuki Watanabe, organising committee chairman for the 2013 event in Tokyo met Jim Barbaresso, his counterpart for the 2014 follow-on in Detroit, Michigan to progress high-level cooperation. Barbaresso, vice president for ITS at engineering company HNTB and a former president of ITS Michigan, told ITS International there will be a common focus on lesson
May 29, 2013 Read time: 6 mins
ITS World Congress Detroit 2014's Jim Barbaresso
Detroit 2014's Jim Barbaresso
ITS World Congress

Plans for each 6456 ITS World Congress to smoothly transition into its successor took a step forward at the April 2013 ITS America Annual Meeting in April. Dr Hiroyuki Watanabe, organising committee chairman for the 2013 event in Tokyo met Jim Barbaresso, his counterpart for the 2014 follow-on in Detroit, Michigan to progress high-level cooperation.

Barbaresso, vice president for ITS at engineering company HNTB and a former president of ITS Michigan, told ITS International there will be a common focus on lessons learned from “mega events” such as the 2011 Tõhoku earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan and 2012’s Hurricane Sandy that hit the east coast US. “Another topic will be the progress made by international automakers, auto suppliers, and non-traditional players - such as Google - on automated vehicle technology. We expect demonstrations in both Tokyo and Detroit”.

2014 Technology Showcase plans include a strand on connected vehicles – reflecting the involvement of many ITS Michigan members in the US$14.9 million Safety Pilot Model Deployment of connected vehicle safety applications, being run by the 5647 University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Barbaresso chaired the committee that worked up the winning bid for Detroit, to be run in partnership by ITS America and the State chapter.  He is already meeting the French organisers of the 2015 ITS World Congress in Bordeaux.

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ITS Bulgaria

Strategies plan

ITS Bulgaria’s Spring 2013 round table on ‘ITS strategies - best practices’ marked  the first step towards a national ITS strategy and action plan. Josef Czako, who chairs the 2015 International Road Federation’s ITS policy committee, held up sustainable transport as “a basic human right” which ITS has a key role in delivering. 

At the general assembly that followed, members were updated on the association’s role as a partner in the European Regional Development Fund co-funded South East Europe ITS (SEE-ITS) project. This aims to promote cooperation and interoperability between currently isolated road transport-based ITS deployments in the region. The assembly also decided to open up the association in a bid to attract more public-sector members.







ITS Austria/Portugal/UK


Best practice

Three associations - 5499 ITS Austria, 5501 ITS Portugal and 288 ITS UK – are working on a best practice guide for bilateral memoranda of understanding (MoU), members heard at their Spring 2013 meeting in Helsinki. The initiative aims to collect and evaluate current examples with a view to producing a common format. The meeting also discussed ways in which the Network can both promote and benefit from future world and European ITS congresses; future actions on the EC’s ITS Directive and ITS Action Plan; and the evaluation of ITS deployment in cities and regions. The autumn 2013 meeting will take place in Bilbao at the invitation of MLC-ITS Euskadi.


ITS Finland/ITS Ireland

Road pricing to drive Finnish fleet renewal

Traffic emissions and road safety issues are driving the introduction of Finnish road pricing, 7350 ITS Finland CEO Sampo Hietanen told 7075 ITS Ireland’s spring 2013 technical seminar.

Finland has relatively large vehicle import taxes which are a disincentive to buying new vehicles. As a result, its fleet is one of the oldest in the EU (average age 13 years) and arousing public policy concerns. The current plan is therefore to lower the tax in favour of a ‘pay as you drive’ strategy. ITS Finland is actively involved in a working group set up to map out a ‘fair and intelligent transport system’, following a commitment to explore road charging options in the current government’s programme. Chaired by 183 Nokia’s Jorma Ollila who says the group has approached its task ‘with an open mind’, this will report by 31 December 2013.
 
Setting the context for the event, ITS Ireland’s Scott Fennelly told ITS International: “With a population of 5.4 million compared with our 4.6 million, Finland has many similarities with Ireland in terms of a relatively rural motorway network and low population density; as well as a growing ITS industry as the home of mobile giant Nokia and 144 Vaisala, who supply most of the weather stations throughout the Irish motorway network”.

ITS South Africa

Sustainability success stories

6992 ITS South Africa heard at its spring conference on ‘Sustainability: Procurement and Contract Management’ an array of examples of how ITS can benefit the travelling public. 

Pierre Pretorius, principal and senior vice president of US-headquartered infrastructure consultants 422 Kimley-Horn Associates told delegates that improving traffic signal timings can deliver a 40:1 return on investment, with emissions cut by up to 22%. Combined with transit priority systems, smart signals can reduce fuel use for buses by up to 19% and cut emissions by up to 30%, he added.

Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Pretorius is a frequent visitor to South Africa, where he is working on the South African National Roads Agency’s Gauteng Freeway Management System. Drawing on North American experience, he cited studies showing that integrating traveller information with traffic and incident management systems could reduce emissions by up to 3% and improve fuel economy by about 1.5%.

Delegates heard that in the US State of Georgia the NaviGAtor incident management programme has reduced annual fuel consumption by nearly 26 million litres; and cut carbon monoxide emissions by 2,457 tonnes, hydrocarbon emissions by 186 tonnes and nitrous oxide emissions by 262 tonnes.

In the electronic tolling arena, E-ZPass had reduced fuel consumption across the US East Coast by almost 114 million litres and eliminated nearly 265,000 tonnes of emissions. The PrePass weigh station bypass system, which electronically verifies the safety credentials and weight of trucks, reduced delays in 2008 by more than 4.6 million hours, eliminated nearly 111,000 tonnes of emissions, conserved more than 42 million litres of fuel, and saved US truckers an estimated US$486 million.

  • ITS Africa CEO Dr Paul Vorster is inviting readers of ITS International to submit proposals for presentations at the biennial i-Transport Conference and Exhibition being held in Midrand from 3-4 September 2013. The theme is ‘Enabling ITS Integration’, with sessions on public transport, traffic management and operations, ITS lifecycle sustainability and funding, and road safety. Email: %$Linker: 2 Email <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkEmail [email protected] [email protected] false mailto:[email protected] true false%>


ITS America

Infrastructure tools service

The society has formed a partnership with US public sector research and publishing organisation Governing to offer both members and non-members a new Intelligent Infrastructure Navigator tool. The subscription-based service (discounted for 560 ITS America members) gives US-based ITS professionals personalised access to information on planned and active ITS procurement projects. This includes daily request for proposal (RFP) and request for information postings, background on developing opportunities prior to RFP release, daily customised email market alerts and both state and local information resources and contacts.

Governing provides US State and local government leaders with independent information and intelligence.


ITS Ethiopia

African expansion

Africa is about to get a third national ITS association with the emergence of 7351 ITS Ethiopia, which joins ITS Nigeria (launched in 2012) and the long-established ITS South Africa. ITS Ethiopia arrives at a propitious time, with the country planning cross-border public transport links with neighbours Djibouti, Kenya and Sudan.

ITS Denmark

Compass4D goes live in Copenhagen

5503 ITS Denmark has hosted the launch of the Copenhagen trial site for the 374 Ertico-ITS Europe co-ordinated three-year 7288 Compass4D (Cooperative Mobility Pilot on Safety and Sustainability Services for Deployment) programme.

The pilot will involve the deployment of cooperative vehicle systems on at least 90 city buses in the form of interoperable on-board communications units, and in 21 traffic signals along the route between Copenhagen Central and Østerport stations. Used by an estimated 77,000 passengers a day, this will be the largest test site in the project.

 The pilot is integral to the City’s plan to upgrade transport systems in accordance with its green mobility strategy and aim of becoming carbon-neutral by 2025.

Compass4D services is developing three CV-based services: road hazard warning (RHW), red light violation warning and energy efficient intersection.

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