The network of national Intelligent Transport Systems associations is looking to add to its knowledge sharing network by inviting country associations beyond Europe to join.

The comment was made at a breakfast event hosted on the UK Pavilion at the ITS World Congress in Dubai where the work of the 25-year old network was celebrated.

Nationals chair Donal Hodgins discussed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between ITS Ireland and ITS Australia and looked to bring the Australians, ITS Canada and other interested parties into the network.

“Our network complements the excellent work of ERTICO, who set us up a quarter of a century ago, as we share best practice among individual nations’ ITS societies,” Mr Hodgins explained. “We are here to make sure all of these associations support their members as best as possible, and so the more members we have, the more we can copy our best bits and help each other solve their challenges.”

The breakfast event, hosted by ITS UK was joined by the Chair of ERTICO Dr Angelos Amditis and its CEO Joost Vantomme and attended by more than a dozen of the Network’s 30 members who are at the World Congress this week.

(Picture shows ITS UK Chief Executive Max Sugarman, ITS Australia President Silje Troseth and ITS Nationals Chair Donal Hodgins)

The network for national ITS Associations, which is made up of 30 Intelligent Transport Systems organisations from across Europe, is launching a series of awards to recognise excellence in supporting transport technology businesses.

Five awards will be given out on 13 November during a dinner ahead of the Network’s plenary meeting in the Swiss capital of Bern (pictured).

“The awards are designed to get national associations thinking about what they do really well, so we can all use best practice as an opportunity to learn,” commented Network Chair Dónal Hodgins.  “All national associations are committed to supporting the organisations delivering transport technology  and these awards will help us do that even better.”

There are five awards:

1. National Policy Champion Award

The association most successful at influencing ITS Policy on a national level during the past year

2. Membership Champion Award

The association with the best testimonials from Members of how they have helped them from the last twelve months

3. Next Generation Champion Award

The association evidencing the most effective activities to support early careers professionals during the past year

4. Excellence in Transportation Award

The association which stands out as being the most active and effective during the past year

5. Network Person of the Year Award

The individual most valued by the Network for their contribution.

To enter one of the first four awards, associations should submit a short statement outlining why they wish to be considered for any of the awards, including evidence from members or relevant stakeholders, such as Ministries. An independent panel will judge the submissions and arrive at a decision.  That panel will also choose the winner of the person of the year.

The individual awards may be sponsored by any member company or public body.  Prices are from just €950 and, as well as continent-wide publicity across ITS National Member organisations, sponsors will get an invitation to the dinner, their name associated with the prize in all publicity, get to offer a few words about the winner and brand themselves as sponsors of the ITS National Network Awards 2024.  More details are available from ITS Nationals Honorary Communications Lead, Paul Hutton.

(Picture – Yay Images)

Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility (CCAM) encompasses a range of technologies that connect and automate transportation systems, promising to enhance safety, efficiency, and sustainability in urban and rural environments.  But, as the latest ERTICO World Congress webinar explained, to deliver it, there are remaining challenges around technological integration, infrastructure modernisation, legal frameworks, cybersecurity and public trust.

The webinar hosted by ERTICO on 27 June was the final one in a series of three focusing on the main themes of the 30^th ITS World Congress in Dubai this September. In this webinar, “CCAM – more than the sum of its parts”, experts from Belgium, the UAE, United Kingdom, USA and Japan delved into some of the intricacies of Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility, and the journey from innovation to real-world deployment.

Stephane Dreher, Lead of CCAM at ERTICO-ITS Europe lead the debate, setting the scene by explaining that as well as being in the spotlight in Dubai, CCAM is one of the main areas that ERTICO is working on.  The vision is that, by 2025, there are operational CCAM services integrated in the current transport system that are, he said, “accepted, inclusive and supported by infrastructure in order to achieve the policy goals of the European Commission in terms of decarbonisation and safety.”

Picking up on the European strategy, Max Lemke, Head of the IoT unit at the European Commission’s DG CONNECT directorate, explained that the vehicle of the future will be electric, connected, autonomous – or at least featuring a degree of automation – and it will be shared, which means a big disruption for the industry.  He warned that this comes with technological challenges, explaining: “We see the lines of software code increasing, I would say exponentially, and that means productivity in software engineering is a key issue.  There’s a lack of talent, lack of resources and low productivity because we have to customise everything.”  He talked about different ways components are supplied and used, how value chains are changing and how vehicles become “smartphones on wheels” and must be affordable, before detailing how Europe is delivering its innovation strategy, and how the European culture is delivering with safety.

CCAM vehicles now have around a hundred million lines of code, and may need a billion lines by 2030.  “It’s staggering,” commented Dr Steve Dellenback, Vice President R&D at the Southwest Research Institute asking, “Does that code work, how do you test it? How do you make sure it works in all different scenarios?”  He warned about the management of expectations from the public around operational performance and safety adding: “If we’re truly going to be getting to 500 million or a billion lines of code, we are kidding ourselves if we think that these vehicles are going to be perfect. And so part of the discussion we need to be having moving forward is at what cost are we willing to deploy this technology, we can’t sell it as simply being crashless, that’s not going to be true to our travelling public.”

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Europe’s Network of National ITS Associations (ITS Nationals) has elected Dónal Hodgins for a two-year period as its Chair.

The former chair of ITS Ireland is a Senior Engineer (Head of Sustainable Transport & Traffic Management) at Kildare County Council.  He was elected following a vote by the 30 members of the organisation, which has an objective to ensure that ITS knowledge and information is transmitted to all ITS organisations across the region.

Alongside Mr Hodgins, Marc Verhage of Connekt in the Netherlands has been elected to the position of vice-chair of the network.  Both are current members of the coordination committee and took up their roles on 1 July.

Outgoing chair Günther Weber welcomed the news saying: “My warmest congratulations to Dónal and Marc for being unanimously elected as Chair and Vice Chair of ITS Nationals.  I am really happy that both got a strong vote – a confirmation of their work to date, Dónal as vice-chair and Marc as member of the coordination committee.  Together Dónal and Marc are part of a strong and committed team that will lead ITS Nationals into the next steps of its exciting evolution.  Many thanks to both, in particular to Dónal, for the valuable and successful work to date, and all the best for a successful next period. For me, it was always a pleasure and very inspiring to work with Dónal and Marc.”

The new chair Dónal Hodgins paid tribute to Günther for his role in leading the ITS Nationals over the past four years especially throughout the period of the global pandemic. “I would like to acknowledge and thank Günther for his steadfast support for both myself and all the national ITS organisations belonging to the ITS Nationals. He leaves the group in an improved situation ready to face the challenges of the years ahead.”.

Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of the ITS Nationals, he added that he is “deeply honoured to be elected to this esteemed position and am excited for Marc and myself to add to the honourable tradition of the previous title holders.  This is particularly important as we continue to re-energise the Network and place it at the forefront of promoting ITS.”

When asked what his vision for ITS Nationals is, Mr Hodgins committed to: “setting out a pathway for a sustainable ITS Nationals entity that is independent, inclusive, equitable and one that provides a variety of benefits for all national organisations and our thousands of members.  I wish to continue to build up our capacity to provide improved cooperation, collaboration, and communication between the national ITS organisations and provide the members of each national organisations with tangible benefits.”

The Network of National ITS Associations will continue to work with ERTICO to support cooperation between the two entities and improve cohesiveness between ITS stakeholders across the continent and globally.

(Picture – ITS Nationals Network)