Australian ITS industry bids for cooperative research centre

Australia's ITS industry is lodging a bid with the Federal Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research to secure funding for a Cooperative Research Centre (CRC).
March 14, 2012
Australia's ITS industry is lodging a bid with the 3887 Federal Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research to secure funding for a Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). The industry's objectives for the CRC in Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) include ensuring Australia's position in the global development of ITS technologies and facilitating the deployment of ITS across Australia.

The preparation of the bid reflects the need for a strong government and industry partnership, as flagged in the policy framework for ITS in Australia that was endorsed by all Australian Transport Ministers at the 3889 Standing Council on Transport and Infrastructure (SCOTI) meeting in November 2011.

The C-ITS bid leader is 3888 Griffith University and the campaign enjoys significant industry support. 858 ITS Australia CEO Susan Harris said the Australian industry had achieved a high level of maturity in terms of both systems development and deployment creating widespread recognition of the safety, environmental and economic benefits delivered by the ITS technologies already have in place.

"ITS is an ideal industry to return important community benefits using the CRC model” Harris said. “Recognising this, both corporate and public sector organisations have committed funds to finalise the C-ITS submission to the Department. At the 'user' end of the CRC model, we have already experienced an outstanding level of commitment by companies, education and research organisations to fund individual research and development projects to an estimated value of $20 million,” Harris said.