Category News

The UK’s trade body for Intelligent Transport Systems, ITS (UK) is opening doors for its members to work with companies from Finland and Estonia.

The organisation took part in a three-way online trade delegation meeting which involved it meeting with transport technology-related companies from the two countries to begin the process of introducing them to potential British partners.

Some 40 companies took part in the event which also included ministerial addresses from the three countries’ governments and a debate.

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With the online meeting of 31 March, the Working Group (WG) launched by TTS Italia and coordinated by 5T on MaaS, launched in January 2020, ended after more than a year: intense teamwork with the aim of analyzing, discussing, and defining the enabling conditions necessary for the development and dissemination of MaaS services in Italy.
Three core teams identified in the WG to come up with guidelines of 5 chapters: introduction to MaaS, MaaS, and business, MaaS and Governance, MaaS and Technology, the regulatory context at European level. And above all, 12 recommendations were drawn up which can be summarized with the following keywords: trust, openness, market, freedom, public governance, sharing, public transport, multimodality, data, interoperability, support for demand, sustainability.
The Group’s work went hand in hand with the institutional one carried out by the Association which, as announced in recent days, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Technical Mission Structure of the Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructures and Mobility (MIMS) to support the full diffusion of MaaS nationally.
Furthermore, TTS Italia was audited by the Study Commission set up by MIMS to propose interventions aimed at reforming the local public transport sector, on March 17th. The theme of the comparison, precisely the MaaS and the role of the public transport in the MaaS.
The guidelines created within the Working Group will be presented with a public event which, in collaboration with Club Italia and compatibly with DPCM and health situation, in Rome.

Following the last online meeting of the TTS Italia Board of Directors, the following joined the Association:
Bridge129 (www.bridge129.com): the company operating in the areas of access control, traffic monitoring, video surveillance, security systems, offering innovative and technologically advanced solutions by offering various products and services. Bridge129 is part of the TTM Group (TOP TECHNOLOGY MISSION), a financial holding that brings together different business initiatives.

Comark (www.comarkud.it): a company operating since 1994 and specialized in the development and production of products for monitoring road traffic, parking lots and cycle paths.

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The country’s trade body for the Intelligent Transport Systems industry is marking a year of providing online Forum meetings by promising to continue to stream content once the country gets back to face-to-face meetings.

The Young Professionals Forum meeting, the first of its kind to be streamed by ITS (UK) on Zoom, was uploaded to YouTube on 27 April 2020.  A handful of Coronavirus-themed pre-recorded discussion programmes had already been provided to members.

“One of the key services of ITS (UK) is its Forum meetings where we share best practice, lead discussions and network,” explained the society’s Secretary General Jennie Martin.  “When travel was prohibited last year, we quickly changed how we served our members by switching to streamed meetings. Although we haven’t been able to replace the networking aspect of meetings, we have seen some real advantages of having more online participants and being able to record and edit the content so it’s available for posterity.”

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The UK’s Intelligent Transport Systems trade association, ITS (UK) is drawing up a series of case studies, fact sheets and blog posts explaining the benefits of using technology to deliver safer, greener and more efficient mobility.

The campaign follows a series of criticisms of some aspects of technology use, often around smart motorways, which it is feared are beginning to undermine the whole value proposition for ITS, which is the use of computers, communications, positioning and automation technologies to improve the safety, management and efficiency of transport.

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SAMS Norway and ITS Norway are setting up a series of technical webinars about upcoming C-ITS technologies and standards. Recordings and presentations for two of them can be found at the links below:

• Key technologies considered in the C-ITS standardization and technology development
• C-ITS – The road ahead

The next webinar in the series is about C-ITS and it’s place in CCAM and will take place on 27th April. You can find more details and register here.

The UK’s enforcement technology industry is being urged to give feedback on aspects of legislation and approvals that it feels could be improved.

At a meeting of the ITS (UK) Enforcement Forum, David Davies, Executive Director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety suggested that there may be shortcomings in the Home Office Type Approval process.  “While it ensures high standards and evidence that will stand up in court, we are increasingly concerned that the system is just not delivering,” he said.  “Opportunities to exploit new technologies which do deliver significant safety benefits are being missed and even existing systems are at risk. We are not the experts on this – we need information from people who are directly involved, about what’s going on, problems arising or solutions – so please let us know.”

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The UK’s Intelligent Transport Society is beginning a campaign to boost the number of organisations involved, as it looks to attract “new mobility” companies to complement the vast existing membership across all forms of ITS.

ITS (UK) is the world’s oldest national ITS Association, boasting 150 members from across Government, consultancies, transport technology manufacturing and academia.

New providers delivering emerging solutions as diverse as electric vehicle innovations, smart parking, driver assistance systems and micromobility are also welcome, with ITS (UK) keen for them to become part of the membership.

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The UK’s Intelligent Transport Society, ITS (UK), is issuing a call for all major companies to honour the payment terms with their SME suppliers.

The plea follows comments from a number of ITS (UK)’s smaller members who have described how they have had to wait more than four times the agreed 30 days to receive payments totalling many thousands of pounds.  This delay in payment is putting a huge amount of strain on cashflow, which ITS (UK) says at best blocks innovative SMEs from participating in projects with long supply chains and at worst puts businesses at risk of bankruptcy.

The Highways England Fair Payment Charter commits to the organisation paying invoices within 30 days or receipt, and HE expects its contractors to do the same.  However, it has emerged some contractors are adding in a number of extra steps which delay payment, including an “Application for Payment” which can take several weeks to process before a “Payment Certificate” is issued.  Only then can an SME send an invoice and after that it may face the contractor’s payment terms of up to 60 days.

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The UK’s Intelligent Transport Society has recognised creative thinking amongst its early careers professionals, honouring an apprentice and a student member who have won the 2020 ITS (UK) Essay Competition.

The competition wanted candidates to imagine the speech they would give at their retirement ceremony.  They were asked what impact and influence on the industry they would like to envisage, and the legacy they would like to leave behind.

At an event hosted by ITS (UK) President Steve Norris, Lynsey Michelle Turner of AECOM was awarded the prize in the Apprentice category while Ethan Boys from Newcastle University won amongst the students.

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