National ITS Associations hold Special Session in Aalborg
Creation date: 12 July 2007
“Justifying the investment and reaping the rewards – communicating the benefits of ITS installations”
Introduction
The Session was introduced by Jennie Martin of ITS United Kingdom, who had organised it on behalf of the Network of National ITS Associations. She noted that the intention was to use one particular topic, in this case how to identify and communicate the benefits of ITS to those outside, to highlight how the Network functions in bringing together a wide range of international experience and expertise.
Christer Karlsson of ITS Sweden, who is the Chairman of the Network, acted as chairman of the Session. He introduced the Network, which consists of 27 national ITS associations representing over a thousand organisations active in ITS.
Presentations
Steve George of telent contributed a United Kingdom perspective, taking MATTISSE as an illustration of how these matters might be tackled in the UK. MATTISSE is a regional partnership of local authorities and their selected industry partners, based in the West Midlands in the UK, and has been in existence for over ten years and commercially partnered for the last 5 years creating a wealth of experience of how to manage travel information. MATTISSE sits at the crossroads of England, in the middle of an extensive motorway network, several airports, and in an area which experiences the worst congestion in the UK outside of London. Research had been undertaken to show the position in 1996 through to that projected for 2016, which had clearly shown the problem that needed to be tackled. There were not just morning and evening peaks in travel anymore, but instead congestion throughout the day. The cost to the region of congestion was currently estimated at £2.3 billion. Bus use, cycling and walking were all in decline.
Steve said that the case for change in transport management had been made in the UK, and that what remained was to agree what shape the change should take. He mentioned current examples of Government-led measures to implement change such as Local Transport Plans, the Traffic Management Act 2004, and the new Traffic Manager Groups emerging as a result of the Traffic Management Act.
MATTISSE is a West Midlands regional partnership that will form part of the measures designed to tackle the increase in congestion. Some five years ago it became apparent that to realise the full potential of the system, each local authority could not act alone and the partnership was expanded to bring in private sector partners so that whole funding burden and the risk associated with the development of the system does not fall entirely on the public sector.
As a result MATTISSE now delivers improvements such as reductions in operating costs and increase in operational efficiency under a unique Partnering Agreement contract. It also links with police in real time, and provides multiple public information services. MATTISSE had been an early adopter of the UK Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) standards and best practice, Real Time Information Group (RTI) standards and championed the use of the Travel Information Highway (TIH), a Highways Agency initiative. The partnership is active in developing standards and best practice in co-operation with other UK organisations.
The public branding of the MATTISSE information is “Help2Travel”. MATTISSE has also developed the Travelwise web site for the regional office of the UK broadcaster BBC, when an office move meant that the BBC lost a lot of staff car parking spaces. This necessitated a cultural change regarding staff travel choices. The Travelwise site is on the intranet of the BBC for staff use, and also includes a community focus, with travel information relevant for shopping centres and other trip hubs. The appearance to the end user is seamless. MATTISSE monitors all these services very carefully, generating monthly reports to show trends and suggestions for improvements. The inter-agency cooperation with police and media etc is also carefully assessed for effectiveness. The standard of the monthly reports equate to the reports of Directors to a board in a private company and a Annual Report is delivered to the Local Authority Partners each year. Consultation exercises with stakeholders are also undertaken frequently, and the results of these influence the prioritisation of expenditure.
In the future, MATTISSE will work to further develop its UTMC platform, and will be a key element in a newly developed centre of excellence (that will be delivered as part of a wider UTMC Major Scheme) continue to operate to best practice, and work towards a common command and control system again as part of the UTMC Major Scheme. The West Midlands UTC Major Scheme is a £26 million scheme to be delivered over five years and is currently in its final stages of Government approval with DfT. The continuous development and improvement over time of the system is crucial. New targets are set, and monitoring of progress undertaken, the whole time. This ensures the continuous viability of the mature system, the continuity of the investment and the benefits derived.
Reinhard Pfliegl of Austriatech spoke about the policy perspective and infrastructure requirements relevant for Austriatech.
During the past fifteen years, ITS had enjoyed significant levels of R&D spending and the predictions for the future had been very optimistic. During the 1990’s the business prognosis had been for 200 billion Euros. The reality in 2005 /06 was that ITS has been sold as a solution to everything and anything, which is not always the best way. It is more effective to focus on particular gains and benefits such as safety, environment, and maximising the use of infrastructure. Here ITS solutions are an ideal fit both in the short term and for the future.
There is no single ITS solution – instead, there are many components and different ways of combining them. Technologies are progressing very fast, which time limits individual solutions. ITS technologies also require legal frameworks to enable, support and permit them.
A co-ordinated set of ITS implementations is more than the sum of its parts, so a framework of deployment is needed to maximise the impact of the investment. Each country or region needs a master plan leading from research and current requirements into future implementations. In Austria, a technology database is under construction, this will form a knowledge base for the experts and for the Governments they advise. Cost benefit analysis needs to be recorded and carried forward within such a knowledge framework, even though costs and benefits can, at times, be difficult to define and interrelate beyond dispute. Some benefits are indirect and wider than just within ITS or even just within transport. For accurate definitions of outcomes, consistent revisiting of the results after implementation is needed. These must include a number of factors such as safety outcomes, stringent records of costs incurred, weather influences, freight movements and so on.
Sustainable deployment requires a short, medium and long term strategy and continuous evaluation. Cost benefit analysis must be robust, but is difficult to make non-contentious within ITS. The Masterplan for Austria has identified a number of around 100 Measures which shall be implemented within a timeframe of 10 -15 years covering all modes of transport.
Andreas Blust of the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology spoke about the Austrian R&D programme I2-Intelligent Infrastructures which ran from 2002 to 2006. In overview, the programme commenced in 2002 with an invitation for expressions of interest and in four calls for co-operative R&D projects. The last one was a trans-national call in co-operation with the the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. There were also two lighthouse projects – technology for inland navigation on the Danube, and MOBILE, on overlapping transport management. The projects involved industry, universities, other research institutes, ICT providers, consultants, associations, transport authorities and public authorities. 16.1 million euros were provided by the Ministry, making 32 million euros in total including partners’ contributions. The result of the initiative is now a very lively Austrian community working on ITS projects, including a variety of partners, industry, academia, etc. – the very mix of people required to solve Austrian problems. Work is progressing on travel information systems, innovative mobility concepts like car sharing, sensors and measuring methods of different types, telematic applications in the railway system and public transport applications. The latter is very important in Austria – in Vienna 30% of trips are undertaken using public transport.
The current work is intended, among other outcomes, to build knowledge of ITS as basis for further research. It has already been established that ITS is essential in solving transport problems. There is always stringent evaluation of projects. Of the Intelligent Infrastructure projects, 5% yielded no results, 46% reached demonstration stage, 42 % led to field test stage, and 7% are already in use or ready for use. Some of these projects are generating income of their own from royalties. Evaluation is in an early stage, but during 2008 all projects will be evaluated in their entirety, and a presentation will be made at the ITS World Congress in either New York or Stockholm.
Martin Brandner of ASFINAG introduced his organisation, which is 100% owned by the Austrian Government. It consists of five holding companies undertaking different tasks on the Austrian trunk network on behalf of the Government. It has some 2000 kilometres of road in operation, making ASFINAG the fourth biggest motorway operator in Europe. Traffic situation in Austria is challenged by the nature of the road network with heavily used corridors running north – south and east – west, which are always heavily used by freight transport.
ASFINAG has implemented traffic control units in three categories depending on the requirements – light, medium and heavy. The “heavy control” units are located near the big cities, such as Vienna, Salzburg, and Innsbruck – heavy traffic control. Here, algorithms are deployed to meet the noise and emission reduction requirements of the local residents. There is extensive collection and processing of different types of data, used for internal management and planning, and to produce internet information for customers to access. The data is also used to manage traffic by instigating route diversions. Variable Message Signs (VMS) are used extensively. The benefits to society of collecting and disseminating this information are to provide high level information which helps making informed travel choices, environmental gains as traffic flows better, and road safety gains. These gains are to Austrian society rather than to ASFINAG itself. While ASFINAG pays for the traffic control units, it does also accrue benefits from the improved flows etc. It is also fully recognised within ASFINAG that its contribution to the national economy benefits all and is therefore also recognised as a benefit by ASFINAG itself. The only benefit for ASFINAG itself is the improved planning of maintenance, more efficient road service by using a special tool for construction site management. This is also very important for the customers because ASFINAG is able to inform its customer well.
As an example, the Tyrol traffic control unit, which is operating since April of 2005 has achieved a 3.4 cost benefit ratio, a 40% reduction in accidents, and a 20% reduction in traffic congestion, so the return of invest will take place after being in operation for 52 months. This proves the point to all concerned.
The customers are able to see the benefits in the internet choosing the ASFINAG homepage (www.asfinag.at). This was shown with a short video. There is shown the actual information: level of service, variable message signs, video, traffic massages. By using PDAs a part of this information is available on trip, therefore the customers of ASFINAG are well informed by using the Austrian motorways and expressways.
The advice to others would be to learn from the Austrian experience. When establishing the benefits of ITS, the priorities of Government should be borne in mind.
Environmental benefits are important and should be carefully measured. Cooperation between all public and private sector organisations involved or affected is very important. A push factor in continuous development has always been the Euro-regional projects. Knowledge transfer and common approach for implementation is crucial, and these projects have filled an important role in this regard. There are likely to be changes to the administration and operation of the road network in the next few years and these changes will have an impact, but it will remain essential to carry on collecting data to create good quality advice. The monitoring activities still need to be improved. It is important that advice given to the Government is as precise as possible, and underpinned by evidential data. The longer term is always important, and Austria has a continuous deployment programme through to 2030 to meet this need.
Olga Landolfi of TTS Italia reported that there now is nationwide recognition in Italy by both Government and Local Authorities that ITS is a necessary tool. ITS plays a leading role in improving efficiency and safety. This recognition leads to funding, but there is still work to be done regarding highlighting the opportunities of ITS for the benefit of Italian citizens. The trend in Italy is for the ITS market to grow, indeed the prognosis is for significant growth. To give some examples: major public transport companies are adopting ITS technologies for their fleets, and fleet operators are making savings and optimising the use of their fleets. There are certain communication styles which are most successful in promoting these results: publishing reports, using the internet, presenting at conferences, workshops and meetings. There should also be public meetings with stakeholders from different organisations about the benefits of ITS.
In Rome, the ITS system has been in operation from 2000, to integrate public and private transport, and provide advanced services to users, including public information services through mobile phones. The benefits of this are calculated as a 10% reduction in travel time through traffic management, a 15% reduction in emissions, and a saving of 12 million euros per year. The communications strategy adopted for this programme has been to engage with Ministries and Local Authorities through workshops on the benefits of ITS, and also through public conferences and meetings. Leaflet and internet information has been provided for the general public to let them know the benefits of this system.
The communications strategy is essential to the whole ITS implementation. It is essential to identify priorities and gains, and have the means of identifying objectives.
Steve Morello of the IBEC network, which is dedicated to the science of cost/benefit analysis for ITS, reminded the meeting that IBEC is a group of people who have worked together since late 1990s to improve evaluation techniques. Membership is free and there is no bias in the work. IBEC is entirely independent. (See www.ibec-its.org )
Steve also posed the question:- “Road users – who are they today across Europe?” He thought that these days, these individuals were customers, no longer “road users” – reflecting the EC “user pays” principle. They are no longer just another data object to the traffic engineer or ITS practitioner, they are the customers. There is also a paradigm shift, from construction engineering to investing in ITS for infrastructure maximisation, going on in Europe. There will be more vehicles in Europe in future, but with good information, the impact of this will not necessarily be increased congestion.
It was recognised during a general debate, that there is no simple international answer to how to evaluate a whole network from the ITS perspective. In Italy, it is done by estimating the travel times and reduction in congestion, but other countries have subtly different methods of evaluation. In fact, the Euroregional project includes an evaluation team which compares these methods. It was agreed that as yet, not enough academic experience is available to avoid a measure of estimation in the evaluation of ITS projects. It was also agreed that it is very unlikely that using just one measure will be more than very basically adequate. As the academic methods improve, it will be possible to use an increasingly sophisticated set of interacting measures to make ever more accurate evaluations.
Session Presentations:
 Steve George.pdf (6124 KB)
Reinhard Pfliegl.pdf (235 KB)
Andreas Blust.pdf (840 KB)
Martin Brandner.pdf (1069 KB)
Olga Landolfi.pdf (588 KB)
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