thinking highways - europe and rest of the world edition - march/april 2014

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Europe/Rest of the World Edition

Volume 9 • N

umber 1 • M

arch/April 2014

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The intelligent choice for ITS

● INTERTRAFFIC PREVIEW ● CROWDSOURCING ● FINLAND ● CALM ● TWO NEW COLUMNS ●

thinkinghighways.com

Volume 9 Number 1 March/April 2014

Possessive caseBob Williams investigates the curious case of vehicle data ownership

Protect and survive

Made in Taiwan

Paul Hutton talks smart safety solutions with a panel of experts

How to reap the benefits of a user-pays ETC system


EUROPE AND REST OF THE WORLD

EDITION

INTELLIGENT TRANSPORT SYSTEMS AND ADVANCED TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

TECHNOLOGYKeeping a watchful eye on Marseille’s crucial tunnel network, p22

MOBILITYHow ecomobility is helping Europe steer towards a more sustainable future, p32

DESIGNWhat needs to be considered when creating a new traffic product, p52

RESEARCHElena de la Peña introduces the International Road Research Board, p66

Smart Safety Solutions documentary available NOW!

PLUS: Listen to our range of podcasts!

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Podcast LISTEN NOW ATthinkinghighways.com/podcasts

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Europe/Rest of the World Vol 9 No 1 thinkinghighways.com 1

THE VIEW Foreword Thinking

28 years after leaving school, I might have just discovered the value of ‘x’

Kevin Borras

At school I was never particularly good at algebra (or many other things other than English and

sports involving a round ball). I didn’t really see the point of it. I left school in the summer of 1986 and have never had to fathom the value of X, or any other letter, for that matter, since that day I walked out of the school gates for the last time and threw my tie in the pond.

I was never destined for a career of any kind in which deciphering algebraic formulae was going to comprise a significant part. I guess there has to be all manner of professions where working out if a+b2=a2 contains any fundamental flaws but I have never been involved with any of them. I have genuinely never had to solve such a riddle since but then again, my career path (subeditor for a defence publishing house > stand-up comedian > football journalist > rock singer > logistics journalist > 16-year veteran of the ITS scene) isn’t the most obvious for someone in my position and hasn’t included a stint as an engineer on a space programme so it’s no real surprise.

However, I have discovered the value of X in a Thinking Highways context, you will be relieved to know. Why has X become a letter associated with mystery and indefinability?

Take the phrase “the X factor” as an example. The X in this case means something that you can’t put your finger on, something you can’t quite explain, something you are looking for but won’t know what it is until you have found it. Hence the title of the frankly horrific TV show of the same name…yes it’s a singing competition (apparently, having never seen a second of it I am quite proud to say) but it’s not just about the quality of the singer’s voice. It’s that…well, X factor, that the judges are looking for. And it’s also the case with our brand new venture.

❝We are very pleased to announce that we are launching a new app- magazine called THx. So what does the X stand for? That’s just it. It can be anything❞

Listen now to the Thinking

Aloud podcasts at

thinkinghighways.com/podcasts

Join the Thinking

Highways LinkedIn group

at linkedin.com

We are very pleased to announce that we are launching a new app- magazine after Intertraffic, called THx. So what does the X stand for? That’s just it. It can be anything.

It can be eXtra articles that we just didn’t have room for in the printed edition of Thinking Highways. It can be eXpanded versions of articles that have appeared in the printed edition of Thinking Highways: the first edition features longer versions of our cover story, Bob Williams’ fascinating investigation into vehicle data ownership (it’s not lost on me that Bob’s company is called CSI), and Trevor Platt’s account of how Sweden deals with life-threatening traffic incidents, using data and reports from real incidents in which lives were threatened.

THx will also feature especially commissioned articles that need far more room to breathe than is possible in the pages of a printed publication. One of the first subjects to be tackled will be crisis management. Genuinely eXciting rich media elements will bring the stories to life in a way that the constraints of magazines that are made of trees just cannot do. And all presented in a really attractive app format that will mean you won’t just press an arrow key to go the next page, there’ll be all kinds of pushing, swiping and pinching to do.

And that’s not all. I’m not the editor of THx. Oh no. I figured that you had probably had enough of my ramblings and made the very sensible decision to appoint an editor with the gravitas, knowledge, writing skills and, dare I say it, contacts, to make THx the roaring success we are very confident that it will be. It wasn’t the most typical of interviews once we had decided who we wanted to take the reins.

“So what is THx then?”“It’s what you want it to be.”“Oh… right. I’ll take it.”That’s a rather simplified version of

events but we are really looking forward to seeing how THx develops in what are very capable hands. Whose hands are they, you ask? For now, let’s just call him Mr X.

Kevin Borras is editor of Thinking Highways and publishing director/co-founder of H3B Media. [email protected]; thinkinghighways.com

Editor in Chief Kevin Borras ([email protected]) +44 (0)20 3463 9482Art Editor Barbara Stanley ([email protected])Design and layout Ed Miller Contributing Editors Richard Bishop, Paul Hutton, Andrew Pickford, Paul VorsterContributors to this issue Max Azizi, Richard Bishop, Kenneth Button, Julie Castermans, Phil Charles, John Chipperfield, Carole Défosse, Kallistratos Dionelis, Peter van Dijk, Guy Fraker, Sonja Heikkilä, Fah-Siang Ho, Paul Hutton, Ralf Jakubowski, Sonja Koesling, Andreas Kossak, Iain Levy, Kristof Maddelein, Richard Mudge, José Papí, Elena de la Peña, Andrew Pickford, Trevor Platt, Nick Reed, Daniel Scholz, Chris Skinner, Vibeke Ulmann, André Vits, Bob Williams, Joyce de Winter News and Web Editor Gareth Hayward ([email protected])Sales and Marketing Luis Hill ([email protected]) +44 (0)20 3463 9485Duncan Ingram ([email protected]) +44 (0)1258 268561Julia Nelepa ([email protected]) +46 733 100 640Subscriptions and Circulation Kerry Hill ([email protected])Accounts/Office Manager Kerry Hill +44 (0)20 3463 9486 Group Publishing Director Kevin Borras Group CEO Luis Hillthinkinghighways.comThinking Highways (ISSN 1752-433XI) is published quarterly in two editions (Europe/RoW and North America) for £30/€40 (Europe/RoW) and US$60 (North America) per year by H3B Media, 15 Onslow Gardens, Wallington SM6 9QL, UK. This edition is distributed in Europe/RoW by Asendia and in the USA by Air Business as mailing agent. Periodicals postage paid at Kearny, NJ and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send returns to Thinking Highways, Air Business Ltd, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc, 156-15, 146th Ave, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA.Although due care has been taken to ensure that the content of this publication is accurate and up-to-date, the publisher can accept no liability for errors and omissions. Unless otherwise stated, this publication has not tested products or services that are described herein, and their inclusion does not imply any form of endorsement. By accepting advertisements in this publication, the publisher does not warrant their accuracy, nor accept responsibility for their contents. The publisher welcomes unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations but can accept no liability for their safe return.

© 2014 H3B Media Ltd. All rights reserved. The views and opinions of the authors are not necessarily those of H3B Media Ltd. Reproduction (in whole or in part) of any text, photograph or illustration contained in this publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Printed in the UK by The Manson Group

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Jan-June 2013, average total qualified circulation – 19,462

01 Foreword.indd 1 14/03/2014 20:06

thinkinghighways.com2 Vol 9 No 1 Europe/Rest of the World

CONTENTS Volume 9 Number 1

TECHNOLOGY FEATURES

COLUMNS, SHOW PREVIEWS & SERVICES

4SMART SAFETYPaul Hutton talks to five experts in the field of smart safety solutions to discover what’s reality and what’s fantasy14TRAFFIC CONTROL ROOMSModern display systems are so technologically advanced that complete overhauls are no longer necessary18 INCIDENT MANAGEMENTHow Sweden deals with potentially

1FOREWORDKevin Borras ponders the value of ‘X’58 SHOW PREVIEWITS Europe Congress 2014, Helsinki, previewed by Carla Coppola62 SHOW PREVIEWKevin Borras talks to Intertraffic product manager Joyce de Winter

EC PROJECTS & MOBILITY

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28COVER FEATURE: DATA COLLECTIONModern cars collect a whole host of data – but whose data is it? And who can use it? Bob Williams investigates38ETCFah-Siang Ho recouns Taiwan’s experiences of a new electronic toll collection systems 44SOFTWARE & MAPPINGSonja Koesling charts the

inexorable rise of crowdsourcing in traffic applications48ROAD SAFETYThe number of global road deaths is still decreasing, but at a slower rate. Chris Skinner wonders why52TRAFFIC PRODUCT DESIGNAward-winning designer Ralf Jakubowski outlines the considerations that have to be made when designing a brand new traffic product

32 ECOMOVEJulie Castermans on how Europe can back itself out of an unsustainable corner

54 FINLANDSonja Heikkilä discusses the promotion of Mobility as a Service in Helsinki

65 EVENT PREVIEWCarole Défosse looks forward to the ASECAP Study and Information Days68 ANDRÉ VITS

70 PROF PHIL CHARLES

71 KALLISTRATOS DIONELIS

72 IR2B: JOSÉ PAPÍ

73 IBEC: RICHARD MUDGE, KEN BUTTON, MAX AZIZI

74 RICHARD BISHOP

75 PAUL HUTTON

76 DR ANDREAS KOSSAK

78 THINKING ALOUDPaul Hutton with the latest news from the Thinking Highways podcast80AD INDEX

66 SMART MOBILITY: IR2B SECTIONElena de la Peña introduces the goals and ambitions of the International Road Research Board

*NEW OFFICIAL SECTION*

Podcast LISTEN NOW AT

thinkinghighways.com/podcaststhinkinghighways.com/podcasts

life-threatening incidents, by Trevor Platt22 MONITORINGMarseille’s tunnel network is kept safe and sound by over 150 watchful eyes24 AUTOMATIC INCIDENT DETECTIONVibeke Ulmann on how a British company is making significant inroads into Sweden’s AID programme

Contents.indd 2 14/03/2014 16:49

SWARCO I First in Traffic Solutions.

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� with its energy-saving LED-based products and systems in signalling and lighting;

� with its friendly and service-minded staff.

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STANDS 04.310 & 10.103

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SWARCO AD new 2014 210x260 lady- Thinking Highways v2.indd 1 11.03.2014 13:36:35Contents.indd 3 14/03/2014 16:49


TECHNOLOGY Smart safety solutions



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Hutton safety.indd 4 14/03/2014 20:14

thinkinghighways.com 5Europe/Rest of the World Vol 9 No 1

Smart safety solutions

Everything’s “smart” these days – our phones, the meters which monitor our energy use, our

televisions and now our vehicles and infrastructure. It’s all due to the rapid improvement in communications that allow data to be shared real-time.

When it comes to road safety, we’re constantly bombarded by so many pre-dictions and new technology announce-ments that it becomes difficult to differentiate between fact and fantasy, the present and the future.

Firstly, we need some definitions of what exactly “smart safety” is all about.

“For me a smart safety system is one that helps a driver to get to their desti-nation effectively, and unobtrusively guides them and ensures they reach their

destination without any undue problem” says Nick Reed, the Principle Human Factors researcher at TRL.

For Vitronic’s Sales Director Daniel Scholz, it’s about flexibility: “From our point of view a smart safety system is a system that is flexible in the way you can use it in the locations where you can use it and also in the traffic violation scenar-ios that you can enforce,” he says. “That means that for the product that we have – we have speed enforcement products, red light enforcement and beside that there are also other traffic violations that we can or will be able to enforce in the future, this includes for example weigh-in-motion scenarios, section speed con-trol and what we think is a smart safety system is a system which allows the authority or Police to enforce a whole range of different traffic contraventions.”

John Chipperfield, chief technology office for Swarco, defines a smart sys-tem is one which takes full advantage of technology: “I believe that smart is microprocessors, better use of data, inter-connection of systems and communica-tion to the travelling public.”

And Nick recognises the key fact that “smart” doesn’t depend on location. “A smart safety system could be something that has a guidance from infrastructure, or it could be vehicle-based,” he says.

Paul Hutton sets out to identify what’s real and what’s fanciful in the smart safety solutions sector by talking to five experts from different parts of the industry with a real interest in ITS

A safer future

“What we’re seeing now is more and more progression in vehicle-based systems as we

move towards semi-autonomous and eventually fully-autonomous vehicles but it’s

likely that infrastructure will play a role in supporting those systems as well”



“What we’re seeing now is more and more progression in vehicle-based systems as we move towards semi-autonomous and eventually fully-autonomous vehicles but it’s likely that infrastructure will play a role in supporting those systems as well.”

AFTERMARKET SAFETYBut what about the in-vehicle systems? Iain Levy is Director of Business Development at ADAS manufacturer Mobileye: “Today we work with about 85 to 90 per cent of the vehicle manufacturers around the world using our technology to integrate into their system and then provide them with the highest level of ADAS in the mar-ket today,” he explains. “As well as that, we’ve developed an after-market product that can be retro-fitted into any vehicle and provides the same level of technology that we provide to the top-level vehicle manufacturers.

“The system provides life-saving tech-nology such as forward collision warning, alerting the driver when there’s a vehicle

in front and there’s an imminent collision, lane departure warning and lane keeping when you go outside your lane without using your turn signal, unintentionally. As well as that with the after-market system we’re able to provide a safety apparatus called headway monitoring warning and what this is, is it measures the time to the vehicle in front of you to promote to the driver keeping a safe distance and ensure that we prevent the collision happening well before it is imminent.”

And Nick Reed agrees that in terms of safety, this approach is where the real improvements will come from: “Where we are now is starting to be diminishing returns from the traditional approaches. And if we look at the accident statistics we see that human error is a contributory fac-tor in probably more than 90 per cent of collisions on the road. And if we can start to address that, if we can start to look at ways in which we can reduce the risk of humans making errors, whilst driving we might get to reduce those casualty figures

even further.”For Iain Levy, one of his selling points is

the relatively simple interactivity his sys-tem has with the roadside: “We have what we call traffic side recognition, now this is where we can actually read the traffic signs for instance speed limit signs and send the driver a warning if they are going over the speed limit. Now unlike a GPS system where this has to be pre-mapped, we actu-ally read the speed limit sign and therefore can send the driver a warning if they are going over that speed limit and it’s accurate for that actual road rather than any kind of pre-mapping.”

Now let’s meet Guy Fraker, the Chief Learning Officer at a company called AutonomouStuff and also the CEO of the shared-mobility software company Get To Kno to put the importance of the subject into perspective: “Ever since the vehicle hit the road a hundred years ago the safety of the vehicles has all been largely depend-ent on human capability and at a very basic level humans can only see one direc-tion at a time,” he says. “With the autono-mous control systems you have essentially 360 degree view, a 360 degree perception of what’s going on inside and outside of the vehicle and the car can augment that human error and human judgement and prevent probably 85 to 95 per cent of all crashes.” This is vital, he says, to arrest a massive human tragedy. “Right now we’re losing about 1.2m citizens a year globally on the roadways. We’ve repeated the fatal-ity count of the Second World War twice since the war ended through car accidents and with the computer capabilities that we can connect these technologies to, the vehicle is capable of making judgements, preventing human error and preventing


Our panel of experts, from left: Daniel Scholz, sales director, Vitronic; John Chipperfield, chief technology officer, Swarco; Guy Fraker, chief learning officer, AutonomouStuff/CEO, Get2Kno; Dr Nick Reed, principal human factors researcher, TRL; Iain Levy, business development director, Mobileye

Mobileye provides life-saving technology including forward collision warning


2-3_TH413_EU_Contents.indd 2 14/03/2014 14:33


these horrible losses from taking place.”That’s a subject we’ll come back to, but,

as Vitronic’s Daniel Scholz says, at present most vehicles on the road have few, if any, smart solutions on board, so it’s important to maximise the quality of roadside solu-tions. “The networking of the system is an important feature which adds a lot of “smart” to these systems, because we see a lot of movement in the sector towards more and more networked solutions. The enforcement system, be it speed enforce-ment or red light is no longer sitting alone somewhere on the street and from time to time somebody stops by and gets the data from it, or even the wet film if you look back more than 10 years. Today these systems are more or less all connected to a central operations centre, to a central enforcement centre, therefore the author-ity can directly use the violations that are produced and has also a very good view on the status of the whole system and the status of the road safety situation.”

John Chipperfield agrees that technol-ogy need not only be used for sending out tickets, but is vital for real-time, “Swarco is a full-line traffic product systems and ser-vice provider. So we do everything from

traffic lights, which is certainly not smart, up to full Urban Traffic Control systems where we’re using adaptive traffic control algorithms which I do believe is an appli-cation of smart technology,” he says. “On the freeways, things like adaptive speed control are another very good example of smart safety solutions – slowing down the traffic as the volumes increase, using the overhead gantries, using information to the motorist, that’s how I see smart tech-nology and that’s a great application from Swarco.”

And he adds that technology continues to improve: “The area where this is improving with smart traffic solu-tions is we can now get data about what’s happening on the motorway not just from the fixed detectors which we’ve used in the past but from other new technologies like video, like Bluetooth and indeed from the vehicles themselves using cooperative systems.”

INFLUENCING BEHAVIOURDaniel reckons that by having a real-time view of the situation it’s possible to make even better influences on the traffic behav-iour. “So that means when we talk about,

for example, section speed control situ-ations an authority is able to set, by other traffic management systems like variable speed signs, set the speed limit applica-ble to the current traffic situation and by connecting the section speed control or even the spot speed system to this vari-able speed limit you can ensure that this speed limit is also obeyed by this traffic,” Vitronic’s expert explains. “This makes the overall traffic smoother and improves the traffic safety.”

Another way to improve safety, accord-ing to Iain Levy, is to help the driver spot moving obstacles outside the car, “25 per cent of fatalities on the road are what we call vulnerable road users, they are bicycles and pedestrians. Protecting these people is really an important part of our technology,” he says. “One of the biggest draw cards of the mobileye technology, and where we see is what we call pedestrian detection. This is actually pedestrian and bicycle detec-tion where we send the driver a warning that there is an imminent collision with a pedestrian or bicycle rider. Now this is very important technology where we’re actually able to identify a pedestrian on the road and rather than having false warnings

Safety systems: Vitronic’s PoliScan family of traffic enforcement measures (above), red-light enforcement (top right) and AutonomouStuff’s mobile speed enforcement application (right)



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Innovation for better mobility

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of poles of anything of those sorts we can actually identify what a pedestrian is.”

It’s not just the potentially unpredict-able behaviour of those outside the car that needs addressing. Drivers themselves can very much vary in their performance depending on their mood, the familiarity with their surroundings, how tired they are, or dare we say, how much they’ve had to drink.

Nick Reed believes letting the car take more of the decisions has a massive effect on safety standards, “Looking at the acci-dent statistics we know that alcohol and fatigue still play a big part in causation of collisions on the road, and fatalities,” he explains. “If vehicle automation can help reduce the impact of those so that the vehicle will support the driver and help to avoid collisions occurring in the first place, whether they’re impaired by alcohol, by fatigue or a driver wants to engage in an alternative task. We’re all very time-pres-sured these days, smart phone use is ever increasing, the automation might allow a driver to engage in secondary tasks and use their smart phone whilst the vehicle takes care of the less exciting parts of driv-ing, so in a traffic jam or on a monotonous highway journey that time becomes pro-ductive, useful and the vehicle takes care of the travelling.”

Guy Fraker thinks there’s even more safety-related opportunity to let a driver’s

car, effectively, become an ambulance: “What often happens with people who are impaired for whatever reason is that when they pass out or drop conscious-ness behind the wheel, their car continues to move, now totally uncontrolled very often crossing the centre line and causing a head-on collision. We have the capabil-ity – I know two auto manufacturers now who have developed prototypes where if somebody does just suddenly become unconscious the vehicle recognises it, the vehicle can reroute the person to an emer-gency room and the vehicle can take the person and can call the hospital ahead of time and tell that the person’s on the way, so that they can meet them outside. Well we’re going to have to set some lifestyle questions like alcohol or drug use aside and understand that yes these vehicles will enable some of those behaviours but they’re replacing the inability to be safe with the capability to be safe.

And Nick and Guy both think that autonomous vehicles do not only improve safety, but inclusiveness too: “The intro-duction of vehicle automation may help drivers who’ve had difficulties in, or had to stop driving. The less-able and older drivers may be able to gain access again to independent mobility that may benefit them socially, might benefit their access to healthcare and just greatly increase their quality of life,” explains Nick, while Guy’s interest is very close to home:

“Back in 2009 I thought I had a pretty good handle on the pace at which these technologies were evolving and it was my son who was 25 at the time, who’s autistic, brought me his laptop to show me the first New York Times video clips of the Google Car. I said, “Well Patrick, what do you think?” and he said, ‘Dad, it means I get to own a car someday.’ I realised that he was seeing potential for up to 15 per cent of the US and European adult households could suddenly be independent contributors to society with safe, on-demand autonomous transportation.”

VARIATIONS ON A THEMESo how do the advancements vary around the world? It’s become a theme in these features to discover that one of the main bugbears among industry experts is the lack of standardisation. In this case, John Chipperfield explains that it’s largely down to the fact that technology’s been imple-mented in different ways over the years, that some places are playing catch-up: “In the northern hemisphere, in places like Sweden, there is already a very good understanding and they’re looking for additions to systems they already have,” the Swarco CTO says. “They have most of

“If vehicle automation can help reduce the impact of those so that the vehicle will support the driver and help to avoid collisions occurring in the first place, whether they’re impaired by alcohol, by fatigue or a driver wants to engage in an alternative task”


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the traffic control systems, they’re looking to improve them, they’re trying to get the extra few per cent to improve safety. When you’re going into Africa or the Middle East you’re really starting in a lot of cases from Ground Zero so you are putting in much simpler systems, you’re basically putting in the groundwork, the framework that allows those people to build. The sys-tems are not so different, it’s more about whether they’re used just as the starting point, or whether they’re used as a devel-opment tool.”

But he adds that the simplest implemen-tation can have an effect on safety beyond its direct requirements, “As you start to install things like traffic lights and with them the systems that go over the top of them you also start to educate the driv-ing public about how to drive sensibly. One of the biggest issues we’ve had in the past is that drivers are supposed to stop at red lights. Once you start to get that kind of message over you can actually start to reduce road death.”

And Nick Reed thinks that, because of legislation, even in Europe there are differ-ent advancements in different countries: “My understanding is that the UK is in quite a unique position, certainly within Europe, in that although we have signed the Vienna convention on road traffic, we haven’t ratified the convention and that means we’re not quite so constrained to be guided by its principles,” he explains.

“It is quite clear that in the convention a driver has to be in control of a vehicle at all times and if we can step aside from that and make progress in systems where the driver isn’t necessarily in control at all times then we’re in a good position to make progress. In the US several of the states are starting to enact laws to allow companies to under-take research into driverless cars on their roads, whilst in Japan there’s more of a focus on driver support systems so drivers still in the loop, still involved in the driving task but with more support systems to help their safety.”

TO ASSIST AND NOT REPLACEIain Levy’s solution is not to over-prom-ise what his system can do: “In terms of

legality we say and are very clear with the Mobileye system that it is there as an advanced driver assistance system – it is there as an ASSISTANCE system and not there to replace the driver. Often you see in marketing information about Mobileye it’s seen as a third eye for the driver and not as a first or second eye. It doesn’t replace the driver, the responsi-bility is still there on the driver to make sure that they are paying attention and that they avoid the collisions and they drive in a safe manner.”

Daniel Scholz says Vitronic would love to see countries agree with each other: “The issue of legal background and cer-tification issues, if you talk about Europe or about other parts of the world, we’re always faced with sometimes very differ-ent rules for certification and in nearly every statement we make publicly we call for a more harmonised environment.”

John Chipperfield hopes it’ll all come down to common sense: “There is of course a duty of care on behalf of the supplier to make sure that they’re provid-ing something that if it fails doesn’t sud-denly cause, for example, green lights in both directions. And that’s why we work very hard to make sure that not only do our systems meet all the relevant speci-fications legally but we also test them ourselves to make sure that those kind of things can’t happen. Ultimately there is also a duty on behalf of the driver.”

And TRL’s Nick Reed hopes that common sense will prevail, “Vehicles

becoming more and more autonomous is competitively relevant for the vehicle manufacturers so they’re all keen to get ahead and be the first one to introduce more and more autonomous systems. So they’re keen to see this technology out there.

“If liability in the event of a collision ends up constraining the development of those technologies such that the social benefit isn’t achieved, that’s when you can look to policy makers to help and encourage the manufacturers so they can understand the level of liability to which they are exposed and then determine how much risk they’re willing to take on and hopefully you’ll see the full benefits of vehicle automation coming through.”

Guy Fraker doesn’t think it’ll be easy to overcome the vested interests: “No expo-nential technology has ever faced big oil, big insurance, government-funded regu-latory bodies.

“No technology of this kind of break-through has ever faced this powerful-a-collection of incumbent industries. The stakes are huge and the battle lines are being drawn.”


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Paul Hutton is associate editor of

Thinking Highways and presenter of all three versions of Thinking Aloud, the Thinking Highways podcast

[email protected]

thinkinghighways.com/podcasts

Assist, not replace: in Japan there is a focus on driver support systems rather than entirely driverless vehicles so drivers are still in the loop


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TECHNOLOGY Traffic control rooms

Faced with increasing demands and rapidly advancing technology, it is tempting to opt for a complete system overhaul when upgrading a TMS display. But, as Peter van Dijk highlights, such is the versatility of modern display systems that total replacement is not always necessary, nor indeed desirable, as one recent award-winning project in Italy illustrates

The rapid pace of technologi-cal advance combined with the demands of a fast-changing

world present particular challenges to the designers of traffic management sys-tems. Designing systems to have a work-ing life of 15-20 years in a world where the component technologies might become outdated in a fraction of that time requires an extraordinary degree of foresight. But even this pales in compari-son to the difficulties faced by systems integrators upgrading a system that has already reached the end of its practical lifespan, where they are often forced to work within boundaries imposed by the existing infrastructure.

WORKING WITH WHAT YOU HAVE GOTTraffic management infrastructure repre-sents a substantial long-term investment. Consequently, the opportunities for start-ing with a completely blank sheet of paper are extremely rare. In fact, when one con-siders the prohibitive cost of a total system refit and the need for a traffic management system to remain fully operational all the time the road network is in use, it is per-haps true to say that the only time an inte-grator will ever have such freedom is for new-build facilities. The rest of the time, they will always have to find a way to work within the limitations of the existing infra-structure and technologies.

However, along with limitations there are opportunities. Rarely do all the ele-ments of an existing system become obso-lete at the same time. Strategic updating of key equipment at the “pinch-points” of an existing system often allows existing hardware to be used more effectively and the performance of the system as a whole to be improved, bringing greater func-tionality, reduced cost of ownership and increased versatility. Through selective upgrading, performance improvements which are proportionally greater than the costs involved can be realised.

Such was the strategy adopted by Autostrada del Brennero SpA, operators of the A22 highway which extends from

Life lessons

mitsubishi.indd 14 14/03/2014 17:29


Traffic control rooms

Modena in Italy to the Brenner Pass. Connecting the Po Valley with Austria and Germany, the 314km-long toll road is one of the most important axes of the Italian motorway network. With its exist-ing analogue-based control room sys-tem becoming outdated and expensive to maintain, the company was keen to upgrade to the latest digital display tech-nology. Yet, its 200-camera monitoring system and the software platform con-trolling it were still perfectly serviceable.

Furthermore, the firm was keen to avoid the additional cost and disruption of having to retrain its operators to use a completely new system. Thankfully in this case, advances in display technology worked in its favour, enabling integrator 3P Technologies to develop a solution marrying the latest display technology with the existing analogue camera sys-tem and software platform.

The opportunity to bring the plans to fruition came with the commissioning of the new Autobrennero User Assistance Centre (Centro Assistenza Utenza or CAU) in 2013.

AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHINGThe new CAU sits at the heart of an extremely complex and advanced traf-fic management system consisting of around 200 CCTV cameras, monitoring devices and SOS contact points, all linked via optical fibre, radio links and landline

cables. Traffic, weather, visibility and emergency request information are all conveyed in real time to the CAU, which is manned by multilingual personnel around the clock. The Highways Police Motorway Operating Centre (COA) is located adjacent to the CAU.

The two centres operate closely together in order to minimise response times and maximise the efficient han-dling of emergencies. Management of the system is handled by a specially-developed software platform that enables operators to monitor any of the camera feeds or data inputs in the event of an incident. Also built into the system is an innovative Automatic Incident Detection (AID) function.

The system captures and analyses data from both cameras and sensors to pro-vide an automated response to unusual patterns. If a problem is detected, such as an accident, traffic jams, delays, or even a motorist driving against the flow of traf-fic, the image processing algorithms gen-erate an alarm which is then forwarded

to a control point at the headquarters. These systems also record the incident including a short period beforehand in order for operators to be able to recon-struct the dynamics of the incident which has occurred.

The “pinch-point” within this oth-erwise very advanced system was the control room screen on which the infor-mation was displayed. Based on analogue LCD technology, the existing screen had become woefully inadequate for the demands placed upon it. A total of 50 19” LCD displays were employed in the main control room display. With their intrusive screen borders, the LCDs were incapable of creating a truly seamless display surface and the switching system behind them gave little control over how information was displayed. The LCD dis-plays themselves had limited lifespan and required extensive maintenance.

Most modern control rooms are now based on DLP (digital light processing) rear projection cubes employing DMD (Digital Micromirror Device) technology

Upgrade work was carried out to the control room of the A22 highway in Italy while keeping its existing camera monitoring system. Information is relayed in real time to the new CAU (right)

“Traffic management infrastructure represents a substantial long-term investment. Consequently, the opportunities for starting with a completely blank sheet of paper are extremely rare”



TECHNOLOGY Traffic control rooms

developed by Texas Instruments. In this approach, a silicon chip surface comprised of hundreds of thousands of microscopic mirrors is used the reflect light from a light source onto a screen. Each mirror represents a single pixel, which can be turned on or off indi-vidually to create a fully digital display. Because the individual screens fit closely together, they create a virtually continu-ous screen surface.

The difference in clarity between this and the old analogue system is remark-able, enabling graphics to be displayed clearly and with greatly improved contrast levels. For the CAU refit, 3P Technologies went one stage further by installing DLP cubes based on the latest high-tech LED light sources.

The Mitsubishi Electric DLP cubes selected for the project use high-power LEDs rather than conventional mercury lamps. LED technology has advanced very rapidly over the last five years and now offers significant advantages over the older technology.

Mercury lamps have an average lifes-pan of around 6000 hours – less than one year of 24/7 operation - before they need to be replaced. At an average cost of €1,000 each, this represents a significant operating expense, which for the CAU would have amounted to a hefty €20,000 bill every year.

Mitsubishi Electric’s 50PE75 LED cubes, by contrast, have an expected lifespan of around 80,000 hours, or nine years of continuous 24 hour operation. Combined with Mitsubishi’s unique air-cooled design and low-noise fan units rated for 100,000 hours, this essentially removes the need for routine screen maintenance for the best part of a dec-ade. LED-lit DLP cubes also have a wider colour gamut and maintain a constant colour temperature throughout their life-time, meaning better colour reproduc-tion and greater stability.

BEST CASE SCENARIOHowever, the brighter, sharper display and significant cost savings were just

the start. The Bilfinger-Mauell proces-sor used to control the display sources enabled, for the first time, complete ver-satility of how and where content was displayed. Rather than being restricted to set display sizes, operators could now arrange content in windows, wherever they wanted on the screen.

A Crestron touchscreen controller allowed operators to recall these sce-narios with a simple touch interface developed by 3P Technologies. Five Bilfinger-Mauell decoders provided an interface to the existing analogue camera system, allowing operators to use their familiar pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) controls. Crucially, the Bilfinger-Mauell controller allowed the display itself to be controlled from the existing traffic management software suite, meaning that operators could continue to use exactly the same system as before, with no retraining necessary.

Behind the scenes, multi-level redun-dancy has been built into the system. The Bilfinger-Mauell controller has dual

Autostrade del Brannero adopted a cost-effective strategy of selective upgrading



Traffic control rooms

LAN connections, three SSD hard drives and hot-swappable power supplies. The Mitsubishi Electric cubes have built-in emergency signal switching, which means they will switch to a backup sig-nal feed automatically in the event of a processor failure. Signal distribution between the processor and display is via fibre-optic cabling for the highest signal quality and security.

The system has been further enhanced by the addition of four additional dis-plays in other parts of the building, based on narrow bezel LCD panels, also by Mitsubishi Electric.

Each 55” display is connected to the same image processor as the main con-trol room, enabling the operator to select any of the inputs for display. One panel is installed in the Highway Police control room, with two more in supervisor meet-ing rooms. A further panel is used in por-trait mode to display a real-time map of the highway showing incidents, weather and other information. The CAU’s tech-nical director is able to oversee the entire system using a 65” LCD display installed in his office.

The award-winning CAU project is a good example of the dramatic improve-ments that can be achieved with a limited system upgrade. And technology to ena-ble this kind of partial system revamp is become increasingly available. In January 2014, Mitsubishi Electric launched a new range of LED DLP projection engines, enabling customers to replace their older mercury lamp lit display walls with the latest high-brightness LED technology, dramatically extending the lifespan of their facilities and reducing mainte-nance costs to practically zero. Whatever advances in technology might lay ahead, reducing cost is one goal that will never become outdated.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Peter van Dijk is EMEA Business

Manager at Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V.

[email protected]

www.mitsubishielectric.nl

“The award-winning CAU project is a good example of the dramatic improvements that can be achieved with a limited system upgrade. And technology to enable this kind of partial system revamp is become increasingly available”

The 55” displays are connected to the same image processor as the main control room, enabling each operator to select any input for display



TECHNOLOGY Traffic management

How does a National Traffic Management System in Sweden deal with life-threatening incidents on its region’s roads? Trevor Platt has the details

The National Traffic management System delivers an integrated ser-vice for the whole of the Swedish

road network, managing at local, regional and national levels, through four regional

and coordinated management centres. It provides a comprehensive decision sup-port facility, bringing information from multiple systems together into a single platform and tool, automating many

services to enable operators to focus on critical decision making. It communi-cates with multiple systems and stake-holders, including highway operators and maintainers, public transport ser-vice providers, the emergency services, the media and third-party information system suppliers. This multi-layered and expert system has evolved over many years to become one of the world’s most advanced systems.

PIECES OF THE JIGSAWThere are over 50 subsystems today and their connected roadside devices total some 10,000 in number and include over 100 different equipment types, each with particular operational requirements.

They include SCADA systems for the control of tunnels, weather and climate control, CCTV and road condition cam-eras, traffic and radar incident detection, urban traffic signalling, lighting, vari-able message signing and lane control

Theory of evolution

There was a major accident between a lorry and a car at 7.00 am on Sweden’s busiest road, the E4/E20 at Essingeleden. All southbound lanes were closed directly after the collision.

After 30 minutes one lane (out of four) was opened and after 1 hour and 45 minutes all four lanes were opened. Massive queues occurred in both direc-tions on the E4 and all roads towards Stockholm from the north were congested throughout the morning. The Södra Länken tunnel closed all entries for over 1 hour for safety reasons. Disruption on southbound routes lasted for 12 hours.

This major incident was effectively

managed by only one operator at the TMC. NTS analysed the problem defined in the system and used its expert system to propose the best action plan to respond to the accident, helping the operator to take the most appropriate actions in a logical and agreed process to effec-tively resolve and close the incident.

NTS presented all alert and camera information to the operator when the accident happened and proposed the best camera to verify the incident.

The system helped the operator to distribute streaming video, information and alerts to the TCC co-operating parties including the police, fire rescue, emergency

assistance vehicles, the media, along with senior management at Trafikverket.

NTS coordinated response plan-ning which included changing the Stockholm city traffic signal timing plans and managing traffic on the motor-ways and strategic roads through lane signals and variable message signs.

Within the control room, NTS man-aged the video wall to display the right information to stakeholders including television and radio operators. NTS issued traffic information through the Trafikverket website and via SMS, fax and email. They were kept updated with the latest news throughout the entire incident.

INCIDENT ONE - 6 May 2013: major accident on Sweden’s busiest road

Operators can focus on critical decision making

Nicander.indd 18 14/03/2014 11:42

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TECHNOLOGY Traffic management

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Trevor Platt is Sales and

Marketing Manager at Nicander

[email protected]

www.nicander.co.uk

Sweden’s Södra Länken tunnel approach where integrated systems give remote operators complete control. Above right: monitors feeding information in a coordinated management centre

INCIDENT TWO - 3 March 2014: major tunnel fire

l A vehicle caught fire in the Södra Länken tunnel. One operator was able to safely close the tunnel in just over three minutes from verification. l The operator received a phone call from a motorist in the tunnel as well as a number of system alerts, the operator created an incident report, verified the vehicle fire using CCTV and executed an action plan. l NTS implemented 280 specific com-mands, closing tunnel entrances and sent commands to 11 different systems (VMS, sprinkler systems, fire ventilation, barriers to close tunnel, radio mes-sages, SMS and traffic information and emergency services notified). l The fire was quickly dealt with to prevent damage to the tunnel and no persons were injured, and to minimise the impact of tunnel clo-sure on the surrounding network.l The response to such an incident could not have been dealt with as swiftly without an integrated system.

signalling, radio and RDS TMC, road assistance and maintenance vehicles, emergency telephones, the list goes on.

The process of subsystem integration has been simplified through the use of an industry standard IP network, using standard and bespoke interfaces – eg Microsoft.NET remoting, web services, DCOM, XML, ASN.1 and ODBC.

By integrating these subsystems into a single platform it is now possible to mini-mise the number of items on the control desk to a single workstation, consisting of one virtual screen (comprising multiple monitors), one mouse and one keyboard, to optimise operator performance. Creating a single view of the network

enables an operator to effectively man-age major incidents and the system pro-vides them with high levels of decision support, taking many routine decisions automatically, guiding through a process of pre- defined action plans running in series and multiple parallel work flows, prompting the operator to take certain actions at certain times and when condi-tions occur, all allowing the operator the time and ability to take the critical deci-sions and actions when they are needed.

The diagram below shows the type of information that feeds into the Traffic Management Centre (TMC) and what information comes out of the TMC and where it appears.

Nicander.indd 20 14/03/2014 11:43

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TECHNOLOGY Traffic monitoring

More than 150 cameras in Marseille’s Prado tunnels are providing a total traffic monitoring solution for all types of incidents, as Kristof Maddelein explains

Marseille is the second-most pop-ulated city in France and has an extensive road network connect-

ing the city to the northern, eastern and western parts of the country. When you need to pass through the city, the 2.5km long Prado Carénage Tunnel will easily and quickly take you across without having to leave the motorway. The Tunnel Prado Carénage connects the southern districts of the city of Marseille and the eastern motor-way to the city centre. Via the Vieux Port tunnel and the coastal motorway, it makes a connection to the north.

The Prado Carénage tunnel is very popular with motorists, particularly at peak hours, so the tunnel concessionaries have always focused on safety and mobil-ity inside the tunnel. When the existing incident management system needed to be refurbished, a new technology partner had to be looked for.

At the same time of the Prado Carénage

tunnel refurbishment, Marseille was already making plans for a new tunnel: the Prado Sud tunnel. Conceived as a 1,500m tunnel with two superimposed levels, each with two lanes, the newly planned Prado Sud tunnel would extend the existing Prado Carénage tunnel towards the southern part of the city. After a first phase of engineering studies and relocation of utilities networks, which began in 2009, construction got under way in June 2010 and continued at a brisk pace in 2011. The tunnel was opened to the public in November 2013.

COMPLETE MONITORING SOLUTIONJust as for the refurbished Prado Carénage tunnel, the Prado Sud tunnel concession-aries had to look for a technology partner for a comprehensive incident manage-ment and surveillance system that would guarantee the mobility and safety inside the tunnel. After a thorough evaluation of

several companies FLIR ITS came out as the partner with the best technical offer.

“For both tunnels, FLIR Systems offered a complete detection and monitoring solu-tion, including automatic incident detec-tion, surveillance cameras, mobile cameras, recording capabilities and visualization,” comments Mario Pinto, area manager at FLIR Intelligent Transportation Systems. “FLIR ITS already had an extensive installed base of incident detection tech-nology in the city of Marseille. Therefore, with the addition of this contract, our tech-nology is now monitoring all current tun-nels in the city of Marseille, including the La Major, Saint-Charles, Vieux-Port and La Joliette tunnels.”

FLIR’s incident detection technology has been installed in hundreds of tun-nels around the world. Analyzing the video camera image in real time for any irregularity that is happening on the road, FLIR’s detection boards can detect stopped

Digital watch

“Conceived as a 1,500m tunnel with two superimposed levels, each with two lanes, the newly planned Prado Sud tunnel would extend the existing Prado Carénage tunnel towards the southern part of the city”

Fallen object detection inside

one of the tunnels

FLIR.indd 22 14/03/2014 13:59


Traffic monitoring

vehicles, wrong-way drivers, queues, slow-moving vehicles, fallen objects in a matter of seconds.

For the Marseille tunnels, FLIR Systems installed high-quality video servers with integrated video analytics, as well as an integrated automatic incident detection system. For Prado Sud, the choice of the technology fits into the growing trend of edge-based analytics, where the video ana-lytics functionality is positioned closer to the traffic camera, to the edge of the net-work, so to speak. An additional benefit is that the network traffic is heavily reduced when the analytics are running on the edge. In fact, there is no traffic as long as nothing relevant happens.

THE BIGGER PICTUREA total of 57 cameras in the Prado Sud tun-nel and 95 cameras in the Prado Carénage tunnel are feeding traffic information for all types of incidents to video screens in a central control room. There, operators keep a constant eye on what is going on in the tunnel. They can see both the tunnel entrance and the interior and sees events in real time. Whenever an incident is picked up by one of the installed cameras, an alarm is generated and sent to the control room. This allows the control room operators to react instantly and to take the appropriate actions: they can neutralize one lane of traf-fic, send a patrol person on motorbike or a recovery vehicle, and in serious cases call

the CRS (national police) or the Marseilles Marine Fire Battalion who will then take over the emergency operation.

All this information, provided by a com-bination of cameras and encoders, is col-lected and managed by FLIR’s Flux video detection management system. Flux col-lects traffic data, events, alarms and video images generated by the video detectors. The main goal of Flux is to manage and control all traffic information generated by these various detectors and to make it useful, meaningful and relevant to the user. Flux provides a user-friendly interface composed of a monitoring and a reporting application and enables real-time moni-toring of events and alarms.

FLUX 2.1 VIDEO DETECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMAlthough a proven software system, the Marseille tunnel project required some additional new features that were specifi-cally useful for Prado Carénage and Prado Sud. To meet customer needs, FLIR added the following features: Advanced cameras and detectorsThe traffic camera installed base for the Marseille city tunnels includes cameras from several manufacturers. As such, the updated Flux is able to manage sources from any major camera manufacturer out there, not only from FLIR detec-tion modules. This way, the Marseille tunnel authorities can use Flux as a

comprehensive traffic and surveillance monitoring solution.Mobile camera supportFlux offers joystick functionality, so the mobile cameras inside the Prado Carénage and Prado Sud tunnels can be remotely controlled with the greatest precision.Record, export, controlThe new Flux has extended recording capabilities that allow operators to con-trol all their recorder units in their net-work, manage their recordings, playback and export their recorded session to a file type of choice.Video stream visualizationFlux allows operators to present their video sources, coming from any type of camera or detector, on a large video wall or on multiple video walls. Easy drag and drop functionality enables them to organize their display wall according to their own preferences.

CUSTOMER COLLABORATION “The collaboration with FLIR ITS has been perfect since the start of the project,” comments Dominique Monnier, Head of Equipment Maintenance at the Société Marsellaise du Tunnel Prado Carénage (SMTPC), the concessionary organiza-tion. “We also value FLIR’s responsive-ness in handling the Carénage project, as well as the fact that FLIR ITS has an office very nearby. This has certainly contributed to our close collaboration.”

The contract with FLIR ITS includes a maintenance period of five years, including preventive maintenance and repair services. “The FLIR video-based incident manage-ment system is very reliable and needs to be fully operational 24/7, all year round. Still, technical follow-up is very important,” comments Mario Pinto. “Certainly in the beginning, the most important job will be to monitor whether the calibration of the system is optimal, in order to have the best possible detection results.”

“Conceived as a 1,500m tunnel with two superimposed levels, each with two lanes, the newly planned Prado Sud tunnel would extend the existing Prado Carénage tunnel towards the southern part of the city”

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Kristof Maddelein is Editor/

Content Manager at FLIR Systems

[email protected]

www.flir.com

FLIR.indd 23 14/03/2014 13:59


TECHNOLOGY Automatic incident detection

Navtech Radar is a leading inno-vator and award-winning designer and manufacturer of

commercially deployed radar solutions. The company’s patented designs have been shown to be high performance, robust and reliable. All Navtech’s solu-tions are based on high frequency radar technology, which provides reliable, cost effective detection with a low false alarm rate – over long distances – in all weather and lighting conditions. The company’s radar detection solutions have been inte-grated with a range of control room oper-ator interfaces, SCADA and third-party cameras. The radar themselves are small, lightweight, and low power, bearing lit-tle resemblance to larger radar that are

generally found in airports or on ships. Over the past five years, the Navtech’s

ClearWay Automatic Incident Detection (AID) solution has been implemented in a variety of traffic management applica-tions. After pilot installations for the hard shoulder lane running initiative on the M42 motorway near Birmingham in the UK, ClearWay was chosen for the 1.8km (1.1 mile) Hindhead Tunnel on the A3 in Surrey. With six radars in each of its twin bores, the tunnel is a key element of the 6.5 km (four-mile) stretch of new road that completes the dual carriageway link between London and Portsmouth.

“The Hindhead Tunnel project is a mar-ket leading application that has generated a lot of interest from road authorities,”

Tunnel illustration showing the principle of the ClearWay AID solution in the Hindhead Tunnel, Surrey, UK

Safer driving, smoother flowing traffic

A British automatic incident detection solution has been chosen for a four-year Framework contract by Sweden’s Trafikverket. Vibeke Ulmann spoke to Dr Stephen Clark, Navtech’s Technical Director, about ClearWay’s emergence as a ‘de facto’ AID standard for vital road and tunnel applications

Approach to the A3 Hindhead Tunnel, in which ClearWay has been implemented

Navtech.indd 24 14/03/2014 11:37


Automatic incident detection

explains Stephen Clark. “The Nordic countries were especially quick to see the benefits of using ClearWay in their traffic management applications and, in 2010, we were contracted by the Swedish Roads Authorities, Trafikverket, to test ClearWay at two test sites around Stockholm – the Södra Länken Tunnel and a stretch of the E4. Deployment onto a 16km stretch of the E4 south of Stockholm followed shortly afterwards in late 2011.”

“Although this section of the E4 motor-way is all-lane running, it is still prone to congestion and accidents are common. In the absence of a hard shoulder, a reliable and accurate incident detection system is vital to quickly alert managers in Trafik Stockholm, the central control for all traffic around greater Stockholm. Traffic movement on the E4 is made even more difficult in the winter due to heavy snow, fog and low visibility. As well as rapidly detecting incidents in these conditions, Trafik Stockholm’s control centre also wanted a solution that would provide early detection of stopped vehicles, pedestrians and debris, particularly during times of low density, high speed traffic.”

WEATHER OR NOT…The ClearWay solution offers 360° scan-ning capability within a radius of up to 500 metres and can detect a person walk-ing on the hard shoulder or debris in the road as well as slowing or stationary cars. The solution is not affected by adverse weather conditions and has an extremely low false alarm rate – typically one per km per 24 hours.

Clark continues, “Although Trafik Stockholm’s principal objective was for an all-weather, long-range stopped vehicle

detection system with a very low false alarm rate, a number of other requirements were set out, including the ability to detect con-gestion during rush hours. Therefore, we established a set of speed thresholds, which identify slowing vehicles, flags this up in the control centre, and allows the opera-tor to generate Variable Messaging Sign (VMS) messages to warn drivers to slow down and/or of queues ahead. Because radar has a longer range than other tech-nologies, we were able to demonstrate that ClearWay offers infrastructure savings for surveillance and incident detection and virtually eliminates maintenance, as the radars are unaffected by rain, snow, fog or

changing sunlight levels.ClearWay’s successful deployment

over 16km of the E4 motorway led directly to Navtech Radar being awarded a four year framework contract with Trafikverket for further implementations throughout Sweden. The initial contract is for two years with a two-year exten-sion, awarded one year at a time. The next project involves a section of the E4 motorway north of Stockholm towards Arlanda International Airport.

It’s not just the Swedish roads authorities who have discovered that there are huge advantages and savings to be realised by implementing ClearWay AID solutions. Further motorway stretches in the north-ern part of England are in the pipeline and trials are due to commence on other European motorways later this year.

The Norwegian Road Authority- Statens Vegvesen - has also taken a keen interest, leading to the implementation of a 24-radar Navtech AID solution at the Mastrafjord and Byfjord subsea road tun-nels near Stavanger. This new ClearWay AID application was designed by one of

“Although Trafik Stockholm’s principal objective was for an all-weather, long-range stopped vehicle detection system with a very low false alarm rate, a number of other requirements were set out, including the ability to detect congestion during rush hours”

Radar installed on the E4 south of Stockholm

Navtech.indd 25 14/03/2014 11:37


TECHNOLOGY Automatic incident detection

the three largest ITS consulting firms in Norway, Multiconsult, which presented a paper on the choice of ClearWay at the 2nd Tunnels and ITS Symposium in Bergen, Norway, in September 2013.

According to Stephen Clark, “Multiconsult started evaluating a Navtech AID solution early in 2012. After a site visit to the Hindhead Tunnel, they specified ClearWay AID for the refurbishment pro-jects of both of the Byfjord and Mastrafjord tunnels. One of the key requirements was AID capability in very harsh weather con-ditions of snow, rain and fog. It is also particularly important to have AID capa-bility around the tunnel openings where sunlight can create problems for drivers. They also needed a low-maintenance solu-tion throughout the tunnel with a very low rate of false alarms and ClearWay is ideally

suited, typically giving only one false alarm per km per 24 hours.”

All 24 radars plus Navtech’s sophisti-cated analytical software, Witness, were integrated into the SCADA solution in the control room by Bergen-based systems integrator, Trafsys. Working with Mesta, one of Norway’s leading contractors engaged in the construction, maintenance and operation of onshore infrastructure, the Navtech AID solution was installed in three phases during the autumn of 2013. This comprehensive, radar-based solution will be presented to Statens Vegvesen in spring 2014.

“We’re incredibly pleased to note that our radar-based AID solution has been adopted as a ‘de facto standard’ in many countries,” says Clark. “In particular, the Nordic countries have introduced the

technology very successfully and the Mastrafjord and Byfjord tunnels are prime examples of recent projects that have embraced our technology.”

Norway has more than 1,000 road tun-nels, including the world’s longest - the 25km Laerdal tunnel. Based on the suc-cessful implementation at Mastrafjord and Byfjord, Statens Vegvesen has tasked Oslo-based Vianova Systems to conduct a feasi-bility study to investigate the possibility of making ClearWay the standard for AID in all applicable tunnels in the country over time. A comprehensive report is expected during the summer of 2014.

“We are strongly focused on the con-tinued development of our radar tech-nology,” Clark explains. “One of the results is the CTS350-X Radar, which we will launch at the Intertraffic Show in Amsterdam, from 25th to 28th March 2014. The CTS350-X is significantly smaller and lighter than previous mod-els and easier to install and commission into service. It is still very effective – sin-gle radar can cover up to a kilometre of motorway, over multiple lanes.”

“The increasing adoption of our radar-based AID solutions also means that our manufacturing volumes are increasing. We are determined to use our increased purchasing power to make our new radar, like the CTS350-X, even more cost effec-tive. For applications where fast and accu-rate detection is a must, such as multilane running on strategic roads with no hard shoulder, and in geographical regions where inclement weather is common, there are no other technologies that would be effective.”

The new CTS350-X ClearWay AID solution will see operational duty first in Sweden, on the E4 motorway link between Stockholm and the Arlanda International Airport.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Dr Stephen Clark is Technical

Director of Navtech Radar

[email protected]

www.navtechradar.com

CAPTION XXXXX XXXXX

solution will see operational duty first in Sweden, on the

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| is Technical is Technical is Technical is Technical is Technical is Technical

CTS350-X mounted at the roadside during trials in the UK

Mastrafjord Tunnel with radar in the foreground, installed on the tunnel roof

Navtech.indd 26 14/03/2014 11:37

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COVER FEATURE Vehicle data collection

Ford’s Vice President, Jim Farley, speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, tried to reassure Ford customers that the

company was responsible with the data it had available in current generation vehicles. “We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing,”… “We may know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you’re doing it.”…. “By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone.”

When Business Insider broke the news the next day, far from reassuring Ford’s customers, Farley’s comments opened up a can of worms about the amount of data that is collected in a current generation automobile. In fact, it opened several:

n What data is collected?n Why do automobile manufacturers collect this data?n Can this data be used against the driver?

n Who owns this data?n Who has a right to access this data?

WHAT DATA IS COLLECTED“It would be easy to say the modern car is a computer on wheels, but it’s more like 30 or more computers on wheels,” said Bruce Emaus, the chairman of SAE International’s embedded software standards committee.

But he understated the situation. Basic cars may have 30 or more computers, but some luxury cars may have more than hundreds. Electronics represent 15-20 per cent of the cost of a modern vehicle and it is increasing every year. Of course they are not normally called ‘computers’ but ECUs, ‘Electronic Control Units’, or systems such as ‘SatNav’, ‘electronic stability control’, etc. Computer programs base their actions on data. So now there is a lot of data collected and used in a modern car.

These electronic brains control dozens of functions,

Today’s automobiles create and collect an enormous amount of data – but who owns it? Who can use it? And what can it be used for? Bob Williams investigates a potentially thorny issue…

Proof of ownership

Bob W.indd 28 14/03/2014 12:06

including brake and cruise control and entertainment sys-tems. Software in each unit is also made to work with oth-ers. The operation of a modern hybrid or electric vehicle is dependent on computers, and the efficiency and pollu-tion control of hydrocarbon-based vehicles is dependent on computers.

That is the situation today. But as Thinking Highways readers are well aware, we are now fast moving into an environment of ‘connected vehicle and highway’ systems – cooperative ITS – in which significantly greater amounts of data will be generated, and stored for their legitimate use in service delivery.

SO WHY DO AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS COLLECT THIS DATA?Well of course much of the data collection is transient to in-vehicle management systems to assist in the provision of an instruction in the next few milliseconds, seconds, or minutes, to another ECU or computer within the vehicle. The data is then redundant, and then erased or overwritten. But the data collected a few seconds or minutes before an incident is still captured in the memory and could be used for forensic analysis of the cause of the incident

But remember the Ford Explorer rollover and tyre prob-lems? Ford had to pay out huge amounts of money based on the assumption that these factors were the sole cause of rollover

injury and damage. They simply had no facts with which to defend themselves.

“The more we know about the risks drivers face on the road the better we know how to improve safety,” stated a Ford spokesman (Sherwood). GM were the first to introduce event data recorders (EDR), back in 1994. They cost the vehicle manufacturer not much more than €15/US$20. The purpose of the EDR was originally to monitor the performance airbags. But EDRs record all manner of valuable safety-related informa-tion such as: vehicle speed; whether the brakes were applied in the seconds before an impact; crash forces; throttle setting and whether the seat belts were being worn.

It has been estimated that, today, as many as 96 per cent of the cars mass-produced in USA now have EDRs. EDR data was crucial, for example, in analysing the unintended accelera-tion issues that affected some Toyota vehicles, enabling them to remedy a situation that was potentially far worse than the Explorer problems, before many deaths and injuries occurred.

The information an EDR captures could also be invalu-able to not just carmakers, but insurance companies, high-way engineers and, most critically, could be of use to police investigators looking to establish the cause of a crash. This fact is also not lost on many automotive manufacturers nor government. EDRs will shortly become mandatory for vehi-cles sold in the USA. Under the new regulation, carmakers


Vehicle data collection

“Basic cars may have 30 or more computers, but some luxury cars may have more than hundreds. Electronics represent 15-20 per cent of the cost of a modern vehicle and it is increasing every year”

Access rights? Event data recorders produce information of use to vehicle manufacturers, insurance companies, highway engineers and law enforcement agencies

Bob W.indd 29 14/03/2014 12:06

will be obliged to provide a commercially available tool for copying the data.

WHY ARE ‘BLACK BOXES’ IMPORTANT?If all cars were fitted with data recorders, a major study com-missioned in 2009 by the European Commission estimated that drivers would be 10 per cent less likely to be involved in a fatal collision and their repair bills would fall by as much as 25 per cent, say ETA Trust. More importantly than reducing repair costs, EDRs can help change the culture of accountability when vulnerable road users are involved in a road traffic collision.

Traditionally, in the absence of electronic data from an EDR, police are forced to rely on witnesses and physical evidence such as skid marks and the position of vehicles. EDR changes that, however, police require special hardware and software to access the captured data. Carmakers have been known to ask for court orders before they release the information.

CAN THIS DATA BE USED AGAINST THE DRIVER?There are two potential ways that data can be used against the interests of drivers.

(a) Law enforcement agencies could have access to the data;(b) The car manufacturer could use data to prove that it was the driver and not a defect in the vehicle that caused an incident.

While both of these situations may work against the driver, it could be argued that they are not unfairly penalising, only iden-tifying the true cause.

However, what driver is going to volunteer to pay to have equipment in the vehicle to ‘spy’ on him? And even if provided as part of the base vehicle equipment, many may seek to dis-able such functions, so unless there are safeguards, this will be a disincentive to have an ITS-equipped vehicle.

The regulation, and up to now, current systems, involve cable-based retrieval of data, so there is a reasonable level of control over access and use of this data, but as can be seen by

the quotation from Ford’s Farley, automotive companies have been experimenting with wireless transmission of this sort of data - for example, BMW use it to schedule maintenance and alert dealerships of service needs. European automotive manu-facturers are leading exploiters of this opportunity. As these telematics applications become more common, safeguarding data integrity will become a much more difficult issue.

WHO OWNS THIS DATA?The most concerning aspect revealed by Farley’s pronounce-ments to CES in January is that automotive manufacturers act as if they ‘own’ this data.

This became an issue a while ago when telematics service provider OnStar said that it would continue to monitor the vehicles of owners who no longer subscribe to the service and was contemplating selling customer data to third parties. After media reports they were forced to withdraw.

After selling the car, the vehicle manufacturers still think they own any and all data associated with that car, whether or not the buyer agrees! Of course, what they really want to do is own the car owner. This is in part because they want to tie the owner into their service and parts supply chain, and they can use this data to limit their liabilities. But also, it now seems clear, because they think they can generate income by selling the data.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also admits that “complications may arise” when the ownership of the vehicle or the EDR is transferred after a crash. Even more alarming is the potential for unauthorized access, or even inadvertent access to the data. Take the recent example of Nissan Leafs (pictured opposite) sending GPS and speed data in unencrypted text to websites for voluntary crowdsourcing and tracking of fuel economy data.

WHO HAS A RIGHT TO ACCESS THIS DATA?The first concern is that the average driver is probably unaware: (a) that this data is being collected


“If all cars were fitted with data recorders, a major study commissioned in 2009 by the European Commission estimated that drivers would be 10 per cent less likely to be involved in a fatal collision and their repair bills would fall by as much as 25 per cent”

COVER FEATURE Vehicle data collection

Data ownership: many automotive manufacturers think they own the data produced by their vehicles in use

Bob W.indd 30 14/03/2014 12:06

(b) of the amount of data being collected(c) that the data is already being passed from the vehicle to the manu-facturer without explicit consent(d) that their vehicle probably already has an EDR.

In its proposal for EDR legislation, NHTSA acknowledges the public’s privacy concerns about event data recorders. But there is likely to be a significantly different legislative atti-tude taken between USA and Europe.

The US United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently produced a report on the privacy of location based services in vehicles which concluded that auto-motive manufacturers do collect location data to provide con-sumers with location-based services and most share location data with third-party companies, such as traffic information providers, to provide services to consumers. They report that: “all company representatives said that they do not share per-sonally identifiable location data with or sell such data to mar-keting companies or data brokers.” However, GAO added that the companies’ “privacy practices were, in certain instances, unclear, which could make it difficult for consumers to under-stand the privacy risks that may exist.”

GAO provides the opinion “We conclude that a motorist’s subjective and reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to her or his own vehicle encompasses the digital data held in the vehicle’”

So while vehicle owners may have been given the reassur-ance that they own the data, but legislation would not be being passed requiring this data if the car owner is the only one that can access it. Warrants can be obtained, data can be down-loaded: all there needs to be is a justifiable ‘reason’ to access it.

Europe is likely to take a much tougher line. Privacy is a strate-gically key issue for European regulators, and there is an “Article 29 Working Party” which provides formal interpretation of the

privacy requirements of European regulations.

Key to European data protection is the EU Directive 2002/58/EC .

It is no doubt only a matter of time before The Office of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) or the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) formally pronounce that the data is:

(a) Owned by the vehicle owner or driver(b) Is considered “personal” data and that(c) The tenets of the European legis-

lation on data privacy are paramount and(d) Data can be shared with third parties only by a very clear and specific prior written consent.

They may indeed go one step further and say that it cannot be shared, even with consent.

This will, in effect, categorise that what car manufacturers are currently doing is illegal. However, it may also have the con-sequence that some of the life-saving benefits of access to this data by vehicle manufacturers may also be lost. However, sev-eral countries are discussing “Open data in the transport area”. The French government has already committed to a national debate this year that will be will concluded by a law.

Vehicle manufacturers need to get a responsible grip on this situation, publish and abide by clear, fair and open statements of practice, and understand clearly that this data is the property of the car owner/driver. It is not theirs and they must stop their current abuses. Failure to do so will mean that they will finish up shackled by restrictive legislation and the benefits promised to all by connected vehicle highway systems will also fail to materialise. And we cannot afford for that to happen.


“In its proposal for EDR legislation, NHTSA

acknowledges the public’s privacy concerns about

event data recorders. But there is likely to be a significantly different

legislative attitude taken between USA and Europe”

Vehicle data collection

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Bob Williams is Group Senior Consultant, CSI (UK)

[email protected]

Bob Williams has been involved with Intelligent Transport Systems developments and standardisation since 1988. He is currently the CEN TC278 Convenor for eCall Application Standards, a key contributor to connected vehicle-highway standards, and ITS standards for commercial vehicles. He has several technical works published, including ITS Standards (Artech House), and is the author of several novels, including one concerning a competition for the development of a car powered by non hydrocarbon energy sources (www.dalecraig.co.uk).

Inadvertent access: Nissan Leafs sent GPS and speed data to websites in a voluntary crowdsourcing exercise

Bob W.indd 31 14/03/2014 12:06


EC PROJECTS eCoMove

Europe has little choice but to go down the path towards cooperative eco-mobility since every “business-as-usual” prediction seems to lead to an unsustainable future, with more or less severely restrained mobility for all, says Julie Castermans

The future is green...eCoMove green

In 2010, a multi-disciplinary consortium of 32 partners from across Europe came together driven by a vision that the application of cooperative

intelligent transport systems and services for energy efficiency in road transport could lead to a substantial reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

Indeed this is a hot topic within Europe, and even more so now than in 2010, with the 95g CO2/km limit by 2020 recently voted by the European Parliament. Vehicle manufacturers and suppliers put a lot of effort in the development of more fuel efficient powertrains. However, the rate of improvement of new vehicles energy efficiency or traffic management systems through technological progress alone is not able to keep up with the growth in demand for mobility. More and more people want to travel freely in their personal car, while society’s demand for an ever-expanding range of goods keeps road freight traffic growing.

The potential of vehicle-to-X or cooperative technol-ogies to achieve a greener mobility of goods and peo-ple is now unanimously recognized. Major carmakers

are working on their own model of smart and connected car while the US Department of Transport wants to make them mandatory by 2017, all convinced of the benefits and potentially big impact they will have on safety, mobility and the environment.

Supported by a grant from the European Commission DG-CONNECT, this group of partners developed the eCo-Move system, designed to tackle the inefficiencies that have the biggest impact on fuel consumption, namely those:• related to the vehicle and the driver (private and

professional)• related to trip planning and routing (also specifi-

cally for freight logistics) • related to traffic control measures (influencing the

way vehicles are driven through the network)

To tackle these inefficiencies in an integrated approach and reduce emissions more efficiently, eCoMove sub-sys-tems are designed to target the planning, execution and post-trip phases of transport.

For private car drivers, this translates into pre-trip

EC Projects.indd 32 14/03/2014 11:56


eCoMove

information on vehicle conditions leading to a negative effect on fuel consumption, but also eco-routing support based on available traffic state prediction. On the road, the driver receives information about traffic problems to avoid, guid-ance on the most energy-efficient route and smooth driv-ing assistance to avoid stops at traffic signals. The route gets continuously recalculated by taking all available information into account.

Especially in urban environments, traffic congestion can have a severe impact on the daily operations of logistics fleets. An integration of traffic information into the planning and execution process provides an increase of planning reliability and reduces inefficiencies.

The back office tour planning system calculates the optimal start time and optimal route to minimize fuel consumption, based upon:

• Order constraints (e.g. delivery time windows) and other restrictions such as low emission zones in urban areas

• Fleet vehicles characteristics • depot/stop locations in service area• Traffic state prediction

PHASES OF PLAYDuring the trip execution phase, a strong interplay between, vehicle navigation and traffic management (traffic state and prediction) is needed to enable an efficient execution. By depending on the traffic situation, the back-office can send itinerary updates to the vehicle’s navigation system.

The post-trip phase places special attention to the evaluation of the driver’s and trip performances, both private and profes-sional. It gives drivers an opportunity to look back and improve their behaviour on the longer term. Fleet managers have a com-plete view on their drivers and teams and can use this support tool to manage action plans and incentives programmes to sustain the positive effects. Drivers could even be stimulated to compete with themselves and with other drivers through a sort

“Major carmakers are working on their own model of smart and connected car while the US Department of Transport wants to make them mandatory by 2017, all convinced of the benefits and potentially big impact they will have on safety, mobility and the environment”

EC Projects.indd 33 14/03/2014 11:56

,

The eco-driving support system, capable of communication with traffic lights, can lead to greater fuel reduction

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EC PROJECTS eCoMove

have to brake to standstill at traffic lights or could cross traffic lights at higher speeds and did not have to accelerate as much than without the system.

As several eCoMove network-related applications require a certain penetration rate to take effect, these were simulated in network simulations rather than demonstrated in reality2. In their vast majority, the simulation results confirmed the expec-tations especially concerning the reduction of CO2 emissions ranging up to (and sometimes beyond) 10 per cent.

The reduction realised by network and routing schemes depends on the traffic load of the network. If the network load is low or moderate, the reduction rate is expected to be rather small (around 4 per cent). In heavily loaded networks, the reduction can be up to 12 per cent.

Traffic light control should be as flexible as possible, i.e. giv-ing drivers a green light as quickly as possible, to minimise delays. However, for energy efficiency applications (e.g. speed advisory), it is more efficient to switch to predictable traffic light control programmes. More research is thus needed to find the right balance between flexibility and predictability, ie between fuel consumption/emissions versus travel time.

Other findings are the improved traffic safety (usage of the system often led to a better compliance to the speed limit) and a small increase of travel time, in situations (eg red lights, stop

signs and curves) where participants were advised to slow down much earlier than they would when driv-ing their usual style.

Studies revealed that the potential fuel savings achiev-able are highly dependent on the driving situations. Situations with the high-est potential were often in urban surroundings (speed limit 50-70 km/h) at traf-fic lights. Especially when approaching a red traffic

of playful contest for the best eco-driving performance. From the perspective of road operators and policy makers,

cooperative traffic management and control optimises time and energy efficiency simultaneously. The performance of the road network as a whole can be improved without impairing drivers’ interests. Traffic states and emission models highlight bottlenecks and hotspots; route and park advice evenly dis-tribute the load of the road network; speed and lane advice influence traffic flow dynamics. Improved traffic light control algorithms facilitate traffic better, based on its volume and vehi-cle characteristics.

HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO SAVE?Results1 show (see below) a range of fuel consumption reduc-tion between 4.5 and 25.1 per cent in cars. For trucks, fuel savings are ranging from 2.4 to 15.3 per cent in the driving simulator studies; 6% fuel savings on average was achieved in field trials. The two main variables greatly influencing the fuel consumption are the road type and the loading of the vehicle.

One important influencing factor in fuel consumption reductions for both trucks and cars is the decreased number of stops, mostly due to the communication between vehicles and traffic lights. Following the recommendations, participants in the studies could start decelerating earlier and thus did not

EC Projects.indd 34 14/03/2014 11:56

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“Ultimately deployment of such systems as those developed in eCoMove will not happen unless the industries involved collaborate to create solutions that are interoperable and harmonised”

NOTES1 The baseline was a first trip with all eCoMove applications removed or switched off. Each driver was then driving the same scenario, on the same route and under conditions as close as possible (weather, traffic situation, etc), with the eCoMove application switched on.2 The baseline for the traffic network simulations was real traffic data collected in Munich, Helmond and on French motorways, which was used for calibration of the models.

light that is about to switch to green, an eco-driving support system capable of communication with the traffic light can lead to great fuel reductions close to or in some cases even above 20 per cent, depending on the recommended target velocity. Using these mechanisms, unnecessary deceleration and acceleration and therefore unnecessary stops could be reduced significantly.

Most of the participants in the studies agreed that it was important to drive fuel efficiently and to reduce CO2. Moreover they believed that the system could help to achieve these goals and they would like to use it. Thus the application of eco-driving support systems might be a good approach to strengthen the driver’s awareness and the willingness to save fuel. However, most of them would not pay more money for the system than they could save through using it.

There were some situations, eg curves, stop signs or rounda-bouts where the drivers were a little bit more sceptical about

the support because they had the feeling that the system made them go slower than they wanted to. To avoid that the drivers feel frustrated and turn off the system, the HMI should provide information about the cause of the deceleration advice (eg the connection of the deceleration advice with the time of the red and green phases could help).

The HMI is thus the key factor to influence positively driv-ing behaviour, to convince drivers to invest a few more minutes every day and comply with the system. This should be obtained by means of motivation, giving the driver a true understanding of efficient driving both in terms of economic savings and of environmental advantages, eg through displaying the amount of kilometres which the drivers gain or the amount of money.

Drivers’ consciousness about the cost and pollution reduc-tion is fundamental to sustainably change driving habits. Moreover, drivers’ adoption also depends on the system com-

fort of use and effectiveness. The sys-tem needs to be adaptive to the level of eco-driving skills of the driver has (and develops over time).

Accuracy and reliability of the information needs to be high for drivers to trust the system. Finally the system features might also qualify for subsidies or discounted taxes where these financial incen-tives are in place. For commercial drivers, establishing teams to make individuals feel engaged and com-mitted to participate in a fuel saving programme, seems more motivating on the long term.

Ultimately deployment of such systems as those developed in eCoMove will not happen unless the industries involved collaborate to create solutions that are interoperable and harmonised.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Julie Castermans is project support manager at

ERTICO - ITS Europe

[email protected]

www.ertico.com; www.ecomove-project.eu

Highlighting hotspots and traffic emission data

EC PROJECTS eCoMove


EC Projects.indd 36 14/03/2014 11:56

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ELECTRONIC TOLL COLLECTION Taiwan

On 10 February 2006, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau performed its first electronic toll collection (ETC) transaction on Freeways 1 and 3,

the primary North-South routes in Taiwan. At that time, the stated objectives driving the introduc-

tion of ETC were clear: to improve safety and to improve toll plaza operations.

Since then, the population of vehicles has grown from 6.7 million to over 7.1 million1 and continued growth is predicted in line with population and economic forecasts. To reflect Taiwan’s ambitious environmental targets, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) promoted a new policy that required a change from conven-tional segment-by-segment charging to a fairer, greener ‘user pays’ policy of charging by distance travelled for the whole 1,054km length of the national road network.

Subject to consultation, a network of Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF) gantries and an extensive network of retail out-lets and web services were made available to all users from

January 2014 onwards. The use of MLFF enables vehicles to pay tolls at highway speeds, and the full benefits of con-gestion-free travel on the national road network were only seen when the toll plazas were removed. Also, in line with the original policy of using tolls to fund road operations and new infrastructure, the new tolling policy is being applied to all users on the national road network whilst continuing the toll-free status for short distances.

The introduction of the new tolling policy, the ena-bling systems and technologies to make it happen would not have been possible without the support of the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau (TANFB) and its competi-tively sourced service provider Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co. (FETC).

YDT Technology International Co. Ltd. (YDT) was selected as the ETC system integrator and solution provider and a broad array of international technology and compo-nent suppliers for vehicle identification, classification and enforcement subsystems and a range of other hardware

New paradigms for electronic toll collection: Fah-Siang Ho shares the experience of Taiwan

Going the distance

Taiwan.indd 38 31/03/2014 11:00

and software components for the back office and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) modules.

This is the story of how Taiwan became the first country to convert a national highway system based on plaza-based toll collection to an all-electronic distance-based policy – and how the number of road users that enjoy the benefit of ETC grew from 1.2 million to 5.4 million between 2012-2013, from a national vehicle population of 7.1 million.

CURRENT OPERATIONSManual toll lanes were introduced in 1974. The addition of ETC in 2006 added one more payment option to its 22 toll plazas (pictured above) although the limited adoption rate of On Board Units (OBUs) effectively meant that the benefits of ETC were only being realised by the minority of road users. The potential of ETC had been demonstrated nevertheless and, for short periods, lane throughputs of up to 1750 vehi-cles per hour were being achieved. A relatively conventional toll system was employed, based on a combination of dedi-cated ETC lanes and mixed (manual/ETC lanes). In 2012, a total of 573.5 million vehicles passed through the network of toll plazas, an average of 1.57 million per day2.

DRIVERS OF CHANGE The main reason for change to the tolling policy was to reduce the increasing levels of congestion at toll plazas, pro-mote environmental sustainability and to address concerns over fairness. For example, as a means of recovering the costs of infrastructure development and maintenance, the 22 mainline toll plazas covered road sections that had 171 interchanges. This meant that only 36 per cent of road users, responsible for 72 per cent of the Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT), were paying tolls. In other words 64 per cent were not subject to tolls at all.

Also, the ratio of the longest to shortest distance between toll plazas was 31 times, which could not be adequately reflected in the tariffs (see Table 1 below). The tolling policy could hardly be regarded as a distance-based charge.

Modifying the tariffs and the arrangement of toll pla-zas to better reflect current traffic patterns or moving to a closed tolling regime were not options. A higher granularity approach was needed - one that would be scaleable whilst achieving very high levels of . To ensure high level of pub-lic acceptance, potentially the most significant measure of success, the TANFB publicly announced that the introduc-tion of the new tolling policy would not directly result in an increased income, reported as NT$22bn (roughly US$750m) per year in 2013.

Therefore the new policy was to be revenue neutral and would necessarily require a fundamental review of the toll-ing strategy. Since its introduction, Taiwan’s national high-way network has been highly regarded internationally and, as a strategic asset, needs to be efficiently utilised on a sus-tainable basis. The new tolling policy needed to be closely aligned with this.

SYSTEM EVOLUTION: NEW SYSTEMS FOR A NEW POLICYGenerally, the use and application of vehicle identification technologies have been proven in tolling, since the world’s first commercial application of ETC in 1987, alongside its use in other traffic, transport and access control mar-ket areas. The range of technology options for ETC now includes Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), microwave Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), Infrared DSRC, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). As always,


Taiwan

Going the distance

Road segment Distance (km) Toll rate (NT$/km)

Wudu-Xizhi 4 10

Dasha-Wufeng-Puli 124 0.32

MLFF gantries in operation (left) and an existing toll plaza (right)

Table 1. Variation in per km charge

Taiwan.indd 39 31/03/2014 11:00

the technology choice for Taiwan was tightly linked to the intended tolling policy.

The initial implementation of ETC in Taiwan from 2006 onwards was regarded as an effective technical solution but the relatively high unit cost of the tag (an IR-based On Board Unit (OBU) with stored value card), limited the adoption rate. This resulted in higher costs for each user and meant that cash and tickets remained the primary means to pay tolls. Based on international experience, it was expected that a Multi-lane Free Flow (MLFF) would also require much higher levels of ETC account holders than plaza-based schemes. However, by mid-2012, only 15 per cent of vehicles had chosen to benefit from ETC, compared with an opera-tional target of 65 per cent.

For many years, international best practice has demon-strated the value of tag-based transactions to tolling opera-tors. This method of account identification is more accurate and, on a per-transaction basis, is lower cost than video-based tolling. However, operating cost differences between tag- and video-based tolling are narrowing, driven by recent innovations in image capture, the use of front and rear license plate capture (to reduce false positives) and improved Optical Character Recognition (OCR) techniques on which ANPR-based solutions depend. Nevertheless, the relatively low unit cost of the 18000-6C RFID tags (see pictures above) meant that FETC had the opportunity to focus on incentiv-ising tag usage, assisted by a current 10 per cent discount (funded by government subsidy) on toll rates for tag-based transactions.

Following the technical approval of the National Communications Commission (NCC) on 11 May 20123, the launch of the new tags started during the following week,

and tags were made available by registering for an account with an initial pre-paid balance of NT$400 (c. US$13.50) up to a maximum of NT$10,000 (US$340). The target usage rate could not have been achieved without a package of meas-ures including making tags available to users without charge (although the tag remains the property of the operator). By the end of December 2013 over 76 per cent of vehicles in Taiwan had been equipped – potentially the highest rate of any tolling scheme globally where tag usage is voluntary. This represented over 5 million customer accounts.

By July 2013, 319 MLFF gantries had been installed (see pictures, right), representing one gantry per road section. Each gantry is equipped with an array of RFID antennas providing kerb-to-kerb coverage, lane-centric camera-based enforcement (with illumination) and IR triggers.

Each gantry includes a walkway that enables devices to be swapped out without having to close a traffic lane. At the base of the gantry, a technical shelter houses YDT’s roadside system that spatially resolves tag positions with vehicles to determine which vehicles are equipped with a tag and which are not.

The proportion of registered users reached by the time that the MLFF scheme was ready for service had already indicated that the launch would be successful since the original target of 65 per cent had already been significantly exceeded. Initially, non-account holders are being regarded as debtors rather than violators and, if payment is not made within the period of grace, the vehicle owner is liable to be prosecuted. FETC’s focus on converting debtors to regis-tered account holders wherever possible, remains its long-term strategy.

Vehicles without tags may be unregistered in which cases these vehicles will be subject to enforcement, otherwise


Headlight and windscreen-mounted tags


Taiwan.indd 40 31/03/2014 11:01

a video toll charge will be made. The video tolling option was not been made available for the previous plaza-based schemes and all cameras used in toll lanes were limited to enforcement only.

The previous plaza-based system had already proven the use of digital images for enforcement. The MLFF system also depends on cameras for enforcement although they are now required to operate in exposed locations, rather than being protected by a toll plaza canopy. To mitigate any potential operating risk, the cameras and related illu-minators were fully proven, sometimes under challenging weather conditions, for over 24 months on the national highway close to Taipei.

POLICY EVOLUTION: FROM CONSULTATION TO OPERATIONPublic consultation started in 2013 and has continued through the introduction of the new MLFF systems. The higher granularity of the toll fees possible with the new toll-ing system provides the opportunity to recognise different user categories (primarily local traffic and long-distance traf-fic) and also ensures that charges are more closely aligned with distance travelled. The tariff model also reflects that long-distance traffic remains the main source of income. It is intended, subject to consultation, that the average toll rate for these road users will be lower than the current entry-based tolling rates.


The new MLFF system and gantries in operation

Taiwan

Tunnel exit at Keelung in northern Taiwan, onto National Freeway 1

Taiwan.indd 41 31/03/2014 11:01

The TANFB continues to consult on the threshold below which 100 per cent discount will be applied, currently defined as 20km to reflect the essential benefits offered by national highways to local traffic. Using the 20km threshold and constrained by the revenue neutral policy, it is estimated that about two thirds will pay less, mostly due to the impact of lower charges applied at each tolling point plus the initial 20km not being tolled at all (see Table 2 above).

The current high adoption rate of the 18000-6C RFID tags also meant that the level of compliance, ready for the start of the new distance-based charging regime, would be high. The 20% of users that have not registered for a tag-based account were offered a video-based option instead.

On the go-live date of 30 December 2013, all plazas ceased operation and simultaneously, tolling by the gantry-based system was enabled. All toll plazas have since been removed and currently over 13 million transactions are being generated by the MLFF scheme every day, which is about 10 times the rate of ETC transactions from the toll plazas. A charge to register an account may be introduced following the introductory stage. The public consultation on the new toll rates by is ongoing.

The technical changes to the front-end operation are vis-ible to all road users and (fortunately) less extensive changes were needed to the back office, including a new means of

calculating (rating) the tolls due. However, the planned switchover presented some challenges, mitigated by the sys-tem design, test and operating strategy:

• public understanding: road users needed to know how much they were expected to pay for different entry and exit point combinations (an on-line toll rate calculator will be provided);

• user understanding of where and how to pay: users could not rely on being able to pay at a plaza and need to maintain a pre-paid balance with no means of paying on the road itself;

• retail network readiness: each non-commercial user depends on an account card (promoted as a member-ship card) to refill their accounts on-line or at service points located at retail outlets and convenience stores;

• ensuring that all legacy OBU users had switched to the new tag (the old plazas supported both technologies prior to switchover);

• migration of each account to the new distance-based charging policy, including the current application of discounts and, for the first month only, plaza-based and distance based charges were listed on the first bill;

• ensuring high levels of billing accuracy after go-live to maintain trust in the ETC system, including correctly


NOTES1 Taiwan Statistical Data Book 2012, Council for Economic Planning and Development, Executive Yuan, ROC Taiwan, July 20122 The ETC Project of the Freeway in Taiwan, in Proceedings of 2013 International Green and Smart Mobility Forum, Taipei, Taiwan ROC, 21 October 20133 Installations of eTags to kick off Tuesday after NCC issues license, China Post Online, 12 May 20124 Real-time traffic monitoring and reporting: http://1968.freeway.gov.tw/

“The proportion of registered users reached by the time that the MLFF scheme was ready for service had already indicated that the launch would be successful since the original target of 65 per cent had already been significantly exceeded”

User category Users paying a toll Road users not paying a toll All users

Impact (quantity of users)

23.7% will pay more

76.3% will pay less 35.6% will pay more64.4% will continue

to have toll-free 31.3% will pay more 68.7% will pay less

é ê é çè é êAverage impact (NT$)

+27.4 –45.1 +17.7 No change +20.4% -18.0

Table 2. Impact assessment: old versus new policy. Source: based on [see Note 2 below]


Taiwan.indd 42 31/03/2014 11:01

recording trips under 20km that are granted 100% discount;

• ensuring adequate capacity was available at FETC’s call centre to deal with enquiries in the first few days of operation;

• technical readiness of gantries to ensure high levels of accuracy from the first day of operation, correctly iden-tifying vehicles not linked to a registered account;

• technical readiness of back office to ensure a seamless switchover from a per-plaza rating engine to a new dis-tance-based rating engine; and

• phased removal of existing plazas with minimal disrup-tion to traffic and reuse of land recovered.

THE FUTUREFrom the introduction of distance-based charging, the dis-tance-based approach to tolling will be extended further, to help fund the extension to existing national highways or new highways in future. The MOTC is not expecting to introduce tolls on the East-West highways, although this is subject to review after two years operation of the distance-based toll-ing policy. Further refinements following an introductory period, could also include the introduction of time-of-day differentiated rates2. TANFB also proposes:

• subsequent reviews will be based on overall tolling pack-ages, considering toll rates, East-West bound freeway tolls, toll-free mileages and total income;

• the introduction of one single toll rate for long holi-days and no free mileage toll plans, potentially being applied to regular holidays; and

• the introduction of distance-based toll charging regime onto newly-built freeways

The extensive use of gantries also permits a highly refined, granular approach to link distance travelled with fees, an essential component for distance-based tolling. However, the use of a gantry-based solution for tolling means that the capital expenditure of roadside systems will always be significant. However, the high adoption rate of ETC will result in proportionately low operating costs per transaction.

The number of tags in use provide a solid platform for the enhancement of existing ITS services on the national

highway including freeway management4, network perform-ance management, journey time measurement (based on aggregated journey times), incident detection, demand man-agement and. Secondary applications include parking and access control. To enable this, a commercial interface will be provided by FETC to enable third party application devel-opers and service providers to access data collected, subject to complying with privacy requirements. A separate project, initiated by the TANFB is currently focused on how the value of journey time information and traffic data extracted from the ETC system can be used.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONSThe unification of road operations throughout Taiwan is a stated aim of the MOTC and the transition to distance-based charging is part of the its strategic plans, alongside an exten-sive bridge reconstruction programme to improve seismic integrity, selective road widening, hard shoulder running, car pool lanes, typhoon protection measures, hazard mitiga-tions, ongoing slope management works and overall deliver-ing a ‘greener’ service. It is anticipated that the migration to distance-based tolling on the National Highways has resulted in a fairer, sustainable tolling regime and further demon-strates Taiwan’s ability to implement an innovative ‘user pays’ strategies, enabled by innovative technologies and also stim-ulate value added services.


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Fah-Siang Ho is General Manager of YDT Technology

International Co., Ltd in Taiwan

[email protected]

The author wishes to thank YDT International, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co. (FETC), the Taiwan Area Freeway Bureau (TANFB) and Transport Technology Consultants Ltd, all of whom provided valuable contributions to this article

OTHER READING1 FS Ho, Electronic Toll Collection In Taiwan, in Proceedings of NeTC Industry Forum, Melbourne 20132 Dr YC Chang, Electronic Toll Collection In Taiwan, in Proceedings of NeTC Industry Forum, Melbourne 2013

Taiwan

Taiwan.indd 43 31/03/2014 11:01


SOFTWARE & MAPPING Crowdsourcing

It started out like Hansel and Gretel in 2004, when Steve Coast started to leave the first breadcrumbs with his newly purchased GPS device. He plotted his journeys

covered on a map, wrote the software to do so and encour-aged others to join him and so OpenStreetMap (OSM) was born. Today, his vision of a freely available world map is one of the most successful crowdsourcing projects and is both the basis and inspiration for others. This also applies to traf-fic quality and road safety.

Crowdsourcing, a term coined by the US journalist Jeff Howe, is an interactive form of value creation by a group of people – a crowd. Crowdsourcing has become popular in the Internet era and therefore usually involves a network com-munity in the World Wide Web. Crowdsourcing is based on the idea of group intelligence, which means that the deci-sions of a homogeneous group of individuals can achieve the same quality as expert opinions. Crowdsourcing also relies

Sonja Koesling on how crowdsourcing technology is making significant inroads into the advanced traffic management arena

Map ‘n’ tag

Making light work: Traffic-Check.at, an Austrian project, uses crowdsourcing to help rate traffic lights

Thanks to smartphones and apps, it’s now easy to record your own GPS tracks and upload them

to OpenStreetMap

PTV.indd 44 14/03/2014 11:34

on the enthusiasm of the people in the crowd. But what is the motivation of the crowdsourcees?

“Crowdsourcees such as the OSM mappers draw their motivation from their personal interests,” explains Coast. “They might be cyclists who want better cycling maps for various parts of the world or walkers who want to map their routes and many more. OpenStreetMap can be seen as the sum of the personal interests of all participants who want to see them recorded on the map.”

ALWAYS MOBILE, ALWAYS LOCATABLEThanks to smartphones and apps, it’s now easy to record your own GPS tracks and upload them to OpenStreetMap. “OpenStreetMap then shows the track in a Flash-based edi-tor called Potlatch”, explains Coast. “This editor provides a view of the map data, the recorded GPS track as well as satellite images provided by Microsoft for the project. This means mappers can then photographs roads, railways or riv-ers along the recorded points as well as adding objects such as letter boxes, trees or anything they have noticed as well as amending objects that have already been added.”

The key to generating high-quality map data is object tag-ging. While commercial providers follow very formal ontol-ogies and assign certain attributes to roads from a defined set, OpenStreetMap trusts in the wisdom of the crowd and that mistakes will be eradicated by the crowdsourcees.

RATING TRAFFIC LIGHTSA research project in Austria shows that the wisdom of the crowd can in fact yield good results. Inspired by rat-ing portals such as Tripadvisor, the project built an online feedback platform that allows road users to intuitively rate the traffic quality and safety of signal-controlled intersec-tions. TrafficCheck.at is the name of the project funded by

the Austrian ministry responsible for traffic, innovation and technology (bmvit). It relies on the mapping and tagging enthusiasm of its crowdsourcing contributors and harnesses this enthusiasm to rate traffic lights using a simple app.

With their smartphones, TrafficCheck contributors can track their positions on OpenStreetMap while underway and select the signal-controlled intersections they wish to rate. They enter their transport mode to provide informa-tion on whether the rating comes from the perspective of a motor vehicle driver, cyclist, pedestrians or public transport passenger. The crowdsourcing contributors can then report problems or enter a score, ranging from 1 star for an inter-section regarded as bad to 4 stars for one regarded as satis-factory. The score is based on factors such as waiting time and green time, visibility, conflicts between road users and system layout.

The feedback from the crowdsourcing contributors goes directly to the municipal authorities and is incorporated into the traffic planning process and the traffic control systems. This is intended to improve the level of service of the intersections and enhance road safety. Results from initial live tests show that the crowd can provide structured and systematic results even in complex situations and can recognise weaknesses at intersec-tions. Crowdsourcing projects such as TrafficCheck.at can also provide useful information to supplement objective criteria for managing the quality of traffic light systems.

CAN CROWDSOURCING IMPROVE ROAD SAFETY?The question is whether crowdsourcing can actually yield valid results for road safety. “I think that crowdsourcing projects such as TrafficCheck can capture subjective expe-rience and thereby increase awareness of critical points in the road network”, says Andre Münch, Director Business


Crowdsourcing

“Crowdsourcees such as the OSM mappers draw their motivation from their personal interests... OpenStreet Map can be seen as the sum of the personal interests of all participants who want to see them recorded on the map”

Coastal navigation: OSM founder Steve Coast

PTV.indd 45 14/03/2014 11:34

Development Safety at the PTV Group. “Of course, they cannot replace the detailed evaluation of traffic accidents by the police.” So crowdsourc-ing can’t do everything at that point. But mapping and tag-ging is also an issue in the police departments.

In recent years the police have adopted GIS as an ideal alternative to paper-based accident-type maps. Instead of large maps with lots of col-oured pins, software is used to link accident data directly to a digital road map. This allows the data to be analysed by the police and filtered by features. The main objective of this is to detect similar anomalies. For example, if an unusually large number of accidents occur at a specific location in combination with wet weather or icy con-ditions, this may indicate a problem with the road surface. If this suspicion proves to be correct, suitable measures can be taken and their effect on subsequent accident incidence can be observed.

In Germany, the police in 11 states all use PTV Euska to ana-lyse accident data. This software was developed by the PTV Group, in cooperation with insurance company accident appraisers, under the auspices of the Accidents Commission in Germany to support the joint activities of the police and municipal authorities. This product is also planned to be rolled out internationally in the coming months.

However, Münch cautions: “If our long-term vision is the zero-accidents scenario, the reactive approach we have taken up to now is not enough. We need a paradigm shift: road safety must become an integral part of traffic planning and be anchored more strongly in the strategic planning stage.” That is only possi-ble with closer collaboration between the police, who collect and evaluate the accident data, and the planning authori-ties, who plan the extensions and restructuring of the traffic infrastructure to accommodate future traffic demand. On the tools front, PTV Visum Safety can help these two organi-sations close ranks.

FROM REACTIVE TO PROACTIVELike PTV Euska, Visum Safety supports Black Spot Management, which means the identification and analysis of accident clusters and points with high accident rates. This allows individual accidents to be filtered by their attributes,

visualised in the form of heat maps, and analysed quickly. “A special aspect of Visum Safety is that it allows users to merge accident data with traffic volumes”, notes Münch. “This enables traffic planners and safety analysts to evaluate especially critical points in the network with regard to traffic significance as well as other aspects, and to use segment colour cod-ing and interactive tables to establish an urgency rank-ing.” In addition, the poten-tial safety benefit or urgency

of infrastructure measures in the susceptible network seg-ments can be identified and evaluated in financial terms – i.e. avoidable accident costs. Experts call this approach Network Safety Management (NSM).

NSM typically includes both reactive and proactive com-ponents. Identification of critical network segments requires historical accident data, which both traffic planners and road network operators can use to proactively develop and plan potential measures. The next level is Road Safety Impact Assessment (RIA). “RIA enables a risk assessment of existing

and future infrastructure”, says Münch. “Traffic planners already examine the economical and environmental impacts of planning options in the traffic mod-els for their infrastructure projects. With RIA they can expand the scope of exami-nation to include road safety issues.” On the tools side, this is facilitated by includ-ing simplified accident prediction mod-els for various road types in PTV Visum Safety.

By merging this information with the traffic volumes from the traffic model, traffic planners can draw conclusions about predicted accident rates for individ-ual roads or the entire network and study various scenarios. “In future RIA will be increasingly important, because the most effective way to prevent accidents is to predictively model accident incidence in order to choose the apparently safest planning option”, concludes Münch.

PTV Visum Safety supports transport planners with Black Spot Management. Heat maps show the areas with high accident rates


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Sonja Koesling is Manager PR & Marketing Traffic

Software for PTV Group

[email protected]

www.ptvgroup.com

“If our long-term vision is the zero-

accidents scenario, the reactive approach we have taken up to now is not enough”

SOFTWARE & MAPPING Crowdsourcing

PTV.indd 46 14/03/2014 11:34

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OPINION PIECE Road safety systems

Now well into the 21st century there is still no sign of any dramatic improvement in world road safety as cynically measured by road deaths and accident

statistics. The reasons for this lack of real progress, let alone the order of magnitude I believe is feasible, include the lack of coordination and collaboration among five significant stakeholders:

• Road agencies and regulatory authorities, including related standards development organisations [SDO];

• Vehicle designers and manufacturers and related SDOs; • Telecommunications systems developers, integrators

and service providers; • Human systems integration experts who deal with

reducing driver distraction for example; and • Classical road safety agencies who seek to educate driv-

ers and other road users and to influence the other groups.

There are many examples of cooperating among some of the above groups but none that I am aware of where all five are engaged. Even when they are there is such a wide range of issues on their respective agendas.

The consensus that a reduction in road fatalities is the big-gest challenge does not yet exist. Even when that does occur there are few candidates for concerted action to achieve a dra-matic improvement. The road safety people talk about a 30 per cent reduction when that is clearly inadequate. They do so because they cannot imagine how any greater reduction could be achieved.

Over the last two months two very positive events have occurred in this space:

• The United States Department of Transportation [USDOT] announced on 3 February 2014 that it would begin laying the foundations for a wireless network that allows vehicles to communicate with each other and

Chris Skinner ponders the reasons for what appears to be a flattening-out of the global road deaths improvement curve. What is hampering our progress?

One small step for transport; one giant leap for road safety

Skinner safety.indd 48 14/03/2014 11:28

with roadside infrastructure, referring to the Connected Vehicle Architecture based on IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 1609 Wireless Access Vehicle Environment [WAVE] standards

• The European Commission [EC] announcement on 12 February that the European Telecommunications Standards Institute [ETSI] and the European Committee for Standardisation [CEN] had completed the basic set of standards necessary to make connected cars a reality1

Together these provide worldwide support for development of safe, effective and sustainable vehicle connectivity – a giant step forward for transportation. On the other hand this only constitutes the first of a thousand steps to achieve the order of magnitude reduction in road deaths that I believe must be our goal. It is no good aiming to get half way to the moon – either we go all the way or we fail. So what are all the other steps needed to be taken? Here are some issues and work tasks that occur to me and there will many others that emerge as we go along:

• A concept of operations must be formulated. It is nowhere near good enough to establish the technical feasibility of some new technology – there must be an agreed operational concept that is open to verification and validation in every way practicable.

• Already I am hearing reservations being expressed on the effects of telecommunications congestion in the operating channels of WAVE 5.850-5.925GHz band. And the worst part is that this congestion may occur in

crowded road traffic conditions when there is greatest need for collision avoidance

• Secondly there is still an old-fashioned idea that the connectivity will be used to warn drivers of imminent or present dangerous conditions. The fallacy of this approach is that the human ability to receive and to respond to this warning may be far too slow to avoid the dangerous condition.

• This means a much greater degree of autonomy in the vehicle but this in turn requires a set of constraints and business rules that are agreed by the driver or vehicle operator and furthermore are sanctioned by the regula-tory and standardisation authorities.

• How can such approvals be granted? Only as a result of scientifically based test and evaluation leading to exhaustive verification and validation of concepts and performance criteria, plus a formal safety case based on detailed risk assessments and mitigations. Altogether this constitutes a massive undertaking that is not yet even acknowledged let alone planned or budgeted.

• Then there is the less onerous but universally relevant issue of driver distraction from their primary responsi-bilities as vehicle operator. Drivers have become accus-tomed to listening to audio signals at the same time as operating the vehicle and observing the visual signs and behaviours of other road users. Added to this we permit hands-free audio communication and now apparently may also permit visual reference to maps and other in-vehicle dynamic information on screens.

• Where does this end? When does this environ-ment exceed the acceptable level of distraction? How


Road safety systems

“The road safety people talk about a 30 per cent reduction when that is clearly inadequate. They do so because they cannot imagine how any greater reduction could be achieved”

Driver distraction: there is an obvious level of distraction (left) where drivers cannot be responsible for their vehicles. But where do you draw the line when it comes to audio and visual signals (right)?


indeed do we even measure such distraction in any objective manner?

• Even when we can measure and control such distrac-tion how can we improve the behaviour of drivers in such an environment? Have we reached the most com-pelling reason for driverless cars?

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ONThere is a predilection in the road transport community to resolve issue by demonstration of some new initiative in practical field trials as though this form of qualitative verification is sufficient. I don’t agree at all and furthermore point out that such imprecise approaches would never be sanctioned in air transport so why do we permit this in road transport?

The next most important development step after the concept of operation is to formulate the systems architecture and this has been done up to a point in the Communications Access Land Mobility [CALM] standards; however there is not yet general acceptance of this approach and indeed there seems to be an impression that other network services are unnecessary with WAVE even when the potential limitations of WAVE have not been disputed, let alone disproven.

The most important contribution from CALM is to recog-nise the wireless networking is a rich and ever changing tech-nological domain, and therefore cooperative mobility for road vehicles needs to embrace both the opportunities and the chal-lenges brought by this rapid development.

In the radio-frequency spectrum alone there are many bands that can be employed, using many available standards and technologies. It is unwise to settle on only one of these and thereby condemn the network architecture to rapid obsoles-cence as new encoding and bandwidth utilisation techniques become available.

CALM permits the integration of various wireless technolo-gies is a layered architecture that has been the underlying secret of success in most networking implementations, most notably the internet. This should be affirmed as the approach for coop-erative mobility in networked road vehicles.

The bottom line then is that the two inspiring announce-ments from USDOT and the EC in February open up a whole new vista and the real possibility of working towards an order of magnitude reduction in road deaths.

The sobering corollary is that there remains to be put in place a formal program including the development of a concept of operations, a versatile system architecture that avoids prema-ture technology obsolescence, a formal systems engineering management approach that includes formal and quantitative research, development, test and evaluation and concludes with formal verification and validation of the original concepts, goals and objectives.

My question then is who will do this? I would like to see the overall program subject to oversight of the United Nations though one of its agencies such as UNESCO. Why not?


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Christopher Skinner BSc(Eng) MEngSc MIET MIEAust

MACS CPEng is Principal of, DISplay Pty Ltd, based in Cremorne, New South Wales, Australia

[email protected]

“It is no good aiming to get half way to the moon – either we go all the way or we fail”

In safe hands: without being able to control or improve driver behaviour, are driverless cars the answer?

NOTES1 EC press release IP/14/141 dated 12 February 2014

OPINION PIECE Road safety systems


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INSIGHT Traffic product design

Award-winning traffic product designer Ralf Jakubowski tells Thinking Highways what considerations need to be taken into account to do the impossible – please everyone

Most people make daily forays into the traffic. Some even for many hours per day. The “public” design (architecture, road infrastructure, traffic monitor-

ing and traffic control systems and a variety of advertisings) therefore determines a large part of what we perceive every day, consciously or subconsciously.

And of course the trains, trams and automobiles – in the city, on country roads and motorways – are an important part of our daily perception. This means that the perception of “Public Design” is the perception of our environment. It is much more than benches, bus stops and street lamps. It is influenced by a variety of constantly changing trends in fashion and society. The result is a colourful mess: some of it is beautiful, but sometimes it’s dangerous for our safe orien-tation in this artificial world.

So what is the proper consequence? Traffic monitoring systems should make a pleasant contribution to the overall streetscape, being both visually cautious and friendly. A traf-fic monitoring system should be perceived as a helper – not a threat. Nevertheless, the design should gain respect in a positive sense. I also hope that in the long term well-designed products will contribute to a greater acceptance of traffic moni-toring and also have a positive impact on the subject of vandal-ism. The choice of the materials contributes significantly to a “visible solidity”.

In my designs for the German enforcement specialists Jenoptik aesthetic considerations are responsible for a desired ‘invisibility’ in the urban environment. Horizontal and vertical design elements ensure a seamless integration into architec-tural and urban structures.

Blending in: the Traffi-Tower (below right) raised the issue of design for traffic control systems and (main picture above), a design concept for the TraffiTower 2.0

Grand designs

“Traffic monitoring systems should make a pleasant contribution to the overall streetscape, being both visually cautious and friendly”

Jakubowski-NEW.indd 52 20/03/2014 10:28

TRAFFIC MONITORING SYSTEMS AS A DESIGN CHALLENGEThe product design of traffic monitoring sys-tems is always under the strict observation of application engineers and the department of mechanical design. To ensure the safe opera-tion of the different sensors, a variety of fac-tors must be considered. Optical sensors (like cameras or laser scanners) and radar technol-ogy require different conditions for optimal function. For example the shape, size and loca-tion of glass windows or panels is influenced by technical requirements and physics limita-tions. Disturbing reflections must be avoided, the mount-ing heights and the tilt angles of the sensors must be strictly observed and the objective is in all cases an optimal image quality and a 100 per cent accurate measurement. And – last but not least – after all these considerations, the sensors should also remain as “invisible” as possible.

The selection of colours and materials is also influenced by thermal requirements and by the usage of the devices in aggres-sive environments (such as desert sand or seawater). My long experiences in the design of equipment for HEC (Hazardous Environment Communication) and the collaboration with experienced design engineers in this field is also an advantage. Factors such as the risk of injury to road users or the cleaning possibilities of shapes and surfaces are also important factors for the whole product design. The idea to cover a complete measuring device with additional elements, which reduce the risk of injury to people (as well as protect the measuring system) has been developed in this context. It was used in the product design of the first “TraffiTower” (pictured opposite) for the first time and has been further developed.

Of course, today any new development is under enormous cost pressure. By the use of identical parts and a modular con-struction, the manufacturing costs can be reduced in many cases. A modular design should therefore be considered at the early design stage and of course at all aesthetic considerations. But also the cost of repairs (eg. after a traffic accident) can be reduced by modular, meaningfully divided housing elements and covers.

TRAFFIC MONITORING AS AN “EXCEPTION”The perception of public design by the citizen is not com-parable to the perception of consumer goods – it is more similar to the perception of architecture. Similar to architec-ture, every citizen is confronted with traffic products (street lighting, park benches or waste recepticles) every day. He is not involved in the selection or purchase. Normally, these objects are not (actual or “perceived”) a threat to the citizen. Probably the general interest for this reason is rather low and it’s reserved for a small circle of specialists.

The situation is different with traffic monitoring. Every new

device is highly and intensively evaluated by citizens - and it’s a subject of critical questions. Traffic monitoring systems therefore are much more the focus of interest than any other pub-lic design products and this will result in con-sequences for the product design. The product design should try to avoid any provocation and not give the citizens the feeling that he or she would be monitored or spied-on by these devices. The resulting products are trying to meet this requirement and, I think, with success.

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE ...A few years ago, the design of the so-called public space was limited on the design of benches, lanterns, paving stones, bus stops and many “passive” objects. Specifically, the design of traffic lights was – and it has not changed much since then – at the level of the 1950s. Existing techniques such as LED arrays or ways to improve road safety through “soft” ele-ments of public design were practically not used. Instead, the safety technology in cars has been continuously developed.

When I developed a study for a uniform system of traffic lights, street lighting, traffic control and traffic information in 1999, the perception of technical facilities was virtually non-existent as part of the issue of public design. Some parts of my former study, which was entirely based on existing technolo-gies, are reality today.

After the introduction of the first “TraffiTower” the issue of design for traffic monitoring systems was recognized by the whole traffic monitoring scene and it was taken for their own products. Since then, many (sometimes very expressive) designs were created. In most cases the idea behind these designs seems to create a strong visual positioning of the product and to pro-duce a very distinct product character. Unfortunately, in my view, not all these products make a positive contribution to a better public design and to a tidy streetscape.

My vision of the future is a combination of traffic-monitoring and -controlling. Such systems would be a great step forward, In my view, the future lies in a much more integrated consid-eration of both issues, but it would appear that that reality is still some distance away.


Traffic product design

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Dipl.-Designer Ralf Jakubowski is an award-winning

designer of traffic products

[email protected]

www.ralfjakubowski.com

Ralf Jakubowski’s red dot-awarded product “TraffiTower” changed the importance of product design of an entire industry in 2005 and is a part of the permanent collection of the “Transportation Center” of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Design for a solar-powered emergency call device, that could be build out of the author’s traffic control system

Jakubowski-NEW.indd 53 20/03/2014 10:28


COUNTRY FOCUS Finland

The introduction of information and communica-tion technology (ICT) in transportation will be something of a game-changer in the coming years.

Transportation is still immature in implementing ICT but nevertheless it provides a wide range of opportunities.

In the near future, public transportation users could receive timely information and purchase trips through mobile devices. Similarly, drivers could receive real time data and even predictions on traffic flow and parking space. Parking places could be reserved in advance.

Furthermore, users of car sharing could see the availability and location of shared cars and make a reservation through mobile devices. In addition, new technologies would allow charging mobility users based on the actual time, location or distance of the use. These applications contribute to higher utilization rates and efficiency of transportation systems, as

well as explicitly improved convenience of use.Finnish authorities strongly promote the development

and implementation of ITS. The Ministry of Transport and Communications released Finland’s second-generation intelligent strategy for transport in 2013, four years after the original strategy was the first in the world of its kind. The City of Helsinki accomplished in 2013 a strategy for imple-menting ITS in Helsinki. Furthermore, the Helsinki City Planning Department currently conducts studies and gen-erates plans in order to deploy ICT in the transportation system, and to establish a fecund base for new services and service providers.

THE GENERATION GAMEIn addition to the powerful entrance of ITS into the mobility arena, other trends prevail in the field of mobility. In fact,

Sonja Heikkilä discusses the reorganization of Mobility Service Provision in Helsinki and the promotion of Mobility as a Service

A time for action

Helsinki: a 40 per cent population growth inside 35 years is forcing the Finnish capital to develop and implement a more intelligent transport system

Finland.indd 54 14/03/2014 12:10

the entire paradigm concerning personal mobility is shifting. The drivers for change comprise an altering mindset, urbani-zation, and scarcity of resources.

Demands are changing, as the young generation is extremely savvy with technology, and they expect everything to work conveniently, immediately and through the Internet. Research also states that the younger generations deem the possession of a driving license or a car less important than the earlier generations did. The young seem to appreciate easiness and spontaneity, and desire a transportation system where trips do not need to be planned beforehand.

The young are decreasingly dependent on the actual travel mode; instead, the importance of creating access grows. Access becomes increasingly important when the orienta-tion of moving changes.

Statistics on the mobility of the citizens in the capital area of Helsinki show that the number of work related trips is strongly decreasing, whereas the quantity of trips related to

shopping, personal business and leisure time are increasing, hence increasing the variety in destinations and travel hours. The transportation system has to adapt to the change in the requirements.

Urbanization is a global trend that affects Finland, as well. A new master plan, which is currently being designed, outlines an increase of 40 per cent in the population of Helsinki by year 2050. Thus, as the maximum capacity of the infrastructure is already in use, it is clear that the current city structure and transportation system will not serve the future demands. In addition, environmental impact has to be decreased.

At the same time, the state and municipalities struggle with the scarcity of financial resources. Due to the lack of funding, and environmental and other aspects, the transport policy aims for a more efficient use of the system, instead of extending infrastructure. However, minor improvements do not suffice, but the mobility sector needs to be radically

transformed.

MAAS TRANSITIn order to generate a transpor-tation system that meets the aforementioned requirements, the city of Helsinki is conducting studies and developing action plans for the application of ITS solutions and the reorganization of the mobility service provision. Concerning mobility service provision, the city promotes the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS).

MaaS refers to circumstances in which comprehensive sup-plies of mobility services are provided by mobility operators.


Finland

“The younger generations deem the possession of a driving license or a car less important than the earlier generations did. The young seem to appreciate easiness and spontaneity, and desire a transportation system where trips do not need to be planned beforehand”

Finland.indd 55 14/03/2014 12:10

That is, customers may purchase all services, including pub-lic transport, taxi, car sharing, and bicycle hire, through sin-gle channels. The operators would purchase services from service producers, integrate and package them, and sell them to customers through convenient, simple interfaces. Thus, each customer could use any services individually and flex-ibly, according to the present mobility need. The use of services could be charged automatically every month. Such reorganization of the mobility service provision would allow the inclu-sion of mobility services that are currently underutilized and unknown or difficult to access for the general public into the mobility service supply. These services include car sharing, ride sharing and bicycle hire.

Currently, only one operator, Helsinki Region Transport (HSL), provides tickets for public transportation, and their supply lacks the aforementioned services. Provided that all mobility services could be accessed through single channels, it would be much easier and more conven-ient for customers to be multimodal and use a wide range of services. Research shows that multimodality would be pre-ferred among young; however, the current mobility provi-sion supports it poorly.

The renewed organization of mobility service provision would create business opportunities for mobility service opera-tors, developers of technology, services and customer portals, and enterprises producing complementary services to trans-portation services. In addition, it would contribute to the use of sustainable mobility modes and a decrease in the need of private cars by raising the utilization rate of cars. Fewer cars, in turn, would allow allocating space for other uses.

A PLAN OF ACTIONThe city of Helsinki has widely examined the implemen-tation of the MaaS concept in Helsinki. The city aims to discover the best approach to successfully perform the transformation. A recent study reveals the necessary actions for a successful transformation, based on previous experi-

ence with transformations in other industries, such as telecommunications, energy, and air-

line industries. The study aims to identify the significant practices, actions and

roles in the transformations, conse-quently gathering the actions for the best practice.

Based on these actions, the study proposes an action plan for the pub-lic administration to be completed by

2025, which is the target year of the transformation in the mobility sector. This action plan is going to be adhered

by the city. However, the fulfillment of the plan requires presence of and cooperation with

other authorities, such as the Ministry of Transport and Communications, as well as companies and users. Nevertheless, the city is eager to begin with the progress, and a number of pilots, as well on the MaaS concept as on ITS, are being executed.n This article is based on a master’s thesis that was produced by Sonja Heikkilä for the city of Helsinki in March 2014.


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Sonja Heikkilä works for the City Planning Department

of the City of Helsinki

[email protected]

“Only one operator, Helsinki Region Transport (HSL), provides tickets for public transportation, and their supply lacks mobility services”

for public transportation, and their supply

Sustainable mobility services would see fewer cars and in turn the

utilisation of space for other uses

COUNTRY FOCUS Finland

Finland.indd 56 14/03/2014 12:10

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SHOW PREVIEW 10th European ITS Congress

The 10th ITS European Congress is on its way with most of the over 4,000 sq m area of the exhibition taken by European and International leaders in all the

automotive industry sectors, from mobile network operators to service providers, from road operators to system integra-tors, from telecommunications to transport and regional authorities and national ITS organisations.

As organiser of the ITS Congresses in Europe, ERTICO has the remarkable opportunity to get a first-hand insight into what some of the 10th ITS Congress participating companies are planning to do at the upcoming Congress. Mika Rytkönen, Director of Industry and Government Relations at HERE, Mirka Dworschak, Sales Account Executive at T-Systems, and Pierrick Le Puil, Marketing and Communications Manager at Sanef ITS, talk about their expectations and how they are looking forward to the European ITS event of the year.

HERE is among the sponsors of this year’s Congress, what convinced you to invest in this event?

Mika Rytkönen (MR) - 2014 will be a busy year for the ITS community with Helsinki hosting the European Congress

in June and then Detroit hosting the World Congress in September. In both events, HERE will show its products and activities related to Intelligent Transport Systems; these include real-time traffic information services, eco-driving, connected and automated driving. HERE is a Nokia business with roots in Finland, it seems obvious but we are thrilled to welcome the ITS community to Finland!

HERE is also sponsoring the “ITS in your pocket” App con-test. Could you give us some more details on the concept behind it, on your decision to run such a contest and what are the outcomes/results you are hoping for?

MR - “ITS in your pocket” is also the theme of the Congress; this is very relevant as it focuses on the users. ITS is now con-cretely in the hands of consumers via smartphones and tablets and this is why HERE is offering a complete set of location plat-form services and APIs for app developers via developer.here.com. Once an app developer innovates on the HERE platform, by default the app is ready for international markets. We are expecting that many new ITS innovations will be powered by HERE location platform.

T-Systems is one of the major exhibitors in Helsinki, as you were at the Dublin ITS Europe Congress in 2013. Why did you decide to exhibit again this year?

Mirka Dworschak (MD) - As a member of the European road charging and telematics community, we see the ITS European Congress as the industry’s central and most important event. Both the Congress and the related exhibition provide an

ERTICO presents an ITS Helsinki preview from the exhibitors’ side

Spectacular Finnish

Xxxxx

ITS Helsinki.indd 58 16/04/2014 18:49

excellent atmosphere for fruitful exchange with experts on what Intelligent Transport Systems needs in Europe in terms of deployment, technology and political support. Exhibiting at this event is a must for us.

What about Sanef ITS? You were also a sponsor in Dublin last year, are you considering sponsoring at the Helsinki Congress as well?

Pierrick Le Puil (PLP) - Last year Sanef ITS celebrated its years of involvement in the ITS market in Ireland. The Dublin ITS European Congress was the best occasion to show the industry our achievements in the country that is leading in Europe in term of free flow tolling and ITS implementation such as the IMSP hub project. Our presence in Helsinki as an exhibitor is kind of compulsory as it is in line with our efforts to support a fast-growing industry and promote our innovative solutions in this field.

Sponsoring packages offer a great visibility in different media and targeted events. It gives us the possibility to communicate more about our new brand Sanef ITS. It is always a challenge to position ourselves as a new brand capitalising around our long business history and experience, and sponsoring ITS European Congresses is a good way to do so.

Could you give us a taste of what we are going to see this year at your stand? Are you showcasing any particular new product or service?

MD - We will be demonstrating our Satellic Tolling Platform, which is a comprehensive, modular, next-generation platform for implementing modern road charging programmes. The platform includes all of the necessary customer service and bill-ing modules together with an electronic booking system, as well as a high-quality GNSS-based front-end. The latter includes an easy-to-install on-board unit (OBU) and a self-service web portal for quick and simple customer access. We will be giving

an overview of all of the key processes in the life cycle of a toll collection system – for both end users and the OBU.

The electronic booking module complements the platform to accommodate tolling schemes with low revenue per vehicle and high data privacy demands – typical in the private passenger car segment. In these scenarios, the electronic ticketing solution that we will be presenting has many advantages, such as much higher fraud resistance and higher flexibility at lower distribution costs compared with existing paper vignette-based systems.

Our Satellic Tolling Platform is the basis for T-Systems’ toll-ing as a service offering: road-charging organisations can out-source their toll detection and calculation processes to one of the world’s most experienced GNSS system operators, allowing them to concentrate on customer relations and value-added services. Its open and modular design allows the easy integra-tion of existing as well as current and future third-party system components, paving the way to EETS interoperability.

PLP - Sanef ITS will focus mainly on efficiency and customer satisfaction. Our industry evolves quickly and our concerns are more and more customer-centric. The efficiency is another important factor because current financial support to infra-structure is scarce. Sanef ITS wants to prove that cost efficiency and road user satisfaction are not at odds with each other.

Is there any particular session, demonstration or technical visit you are looking forward to or in which you are involved that you would like to highlight?

MR - My favourite ones would be the iMobility Challenge, the best ITS application award ceremony and the Executive Session “From Connected to Automated Vehicles” where Ogi Redzic, VP Connected Driving at HERE is speaking. I am also moder-ating a Special Interest Session titled “Towards Novel Transport Service Ecosystems”. During the whole week I will enjoy inter-esting presentations, the exhibition and will also meet many customers, colleagues and friends.


10th European ITS Congress

Left: Helsinki, venue of the 10th ITS European Congress and above, packed out at the previous event in Dublin


MD - T-Systems will show the Satellic Tolling Platform in action with two typical application scenar-ios. Firstly, a demonstration tour in the vicinity of the conference centre has been planned to illustrate both the technical principle and the ease of use of a GNSS-based system for fair, usage-based charging in the logistics and transportation vehicle segments. Insights will be provided into the quality of the GNSS toll detection and cal-culation algorithm, and into the direct feedback given to users. The demonstration takes the form of a test drive in a challeng-ing urban environment.

Secondly, at the exhibition stand we will demonstrate a modern electronic ticketing system for tolling schemes that do not require vehicle equipment, most fitting for the passenger car segment. In this demonstration the booking and manage-ment of electronic tickets will be possible at a stationary point of the sale terminal as well as via mobile access. In addition, we will present our vision of the road-charging future with the following presentations at the congress: “Co-existence of pri-vacy keeping traffic flow information and road charging” and “Secure road charging in mobile application eco systems”.

And are you hosting any networking event or cocktail dur-ing the event?

MR - This year HERE is very proudly sponsoring the VIP Dinner on the opening day (Monday 16 June).

MD - During ITS Helsinki our clients and partners will be invited to join our evening get together, the “WIES’N PARTY,” with Bavarian music, beer and food. All details will be provided with the invitation sent out soon.

In your personal opinion, what is the biggest value of these events for large companies? Why should other companies join?

PLP - The exhibition represents an utmost value as it is an opportunity to explain what we offer to our clients and to show

our services. But it is also a good moment to gather together with our partners and suppliers, and share our positions on many subjects.

MD - This international event gives participants the oppor-tunity to exchange their views, experiences and challenges with professionals and experts in the ITS sector. At the same

time it has a clear focus on the needs of European customers and countries.

For us, the Congress is an excellent forum for learning about and contribut-ing to the current hot topics in the tolling and telematics industry. The exhibition opens doors for talks about cutting-edge products, future projects and new smart cooperation opportunities.

MR - The ITS conference brings all key stakeholders together and it is a great

opportunity to exchange ideas, promote and demonstrate ITS in practice and learn from experts. Today, there are many things impacting the traffic and transport sector; these include the Internet, location technologies, connected cars and many others. These ITS congresses are great events to stay tuned on what is going on in ITS.

As HERE will be ‘playing at home’, is there anything spe-cial you would like to point out about the ITS European Congress in Helsinki?

MR - Let me highlight the connected driving concept, which is one of the key innovation area in the ITS. HERE is uniquely positioned to provide key technologies enabling connected driving, like the highly accurate and always fresh 3D maps and cloud services. This is one of our key messages in Helsinki and also in Detroit.

Finally, some words on Finnish hospitality; the 10th ITS European Congress will finish at the Midnight Summer week-end, which is an awesome opportunity to experiment the magic of White Nights, bonfires and of course, saunas! n The 10th ITS European Congress is organised by ERTICO - ITS Europe and the European Commission and is hosted by ITS Finland, the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the City of Helsinki. The full list of exhibitors is available on the congress website (http://www.itsineurope.com/its10/index.php/sponsors-and-exhibition/floorplan).


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Carla Coppola is media communications officer for

ERTICO - ITS Europe

[email protected]

SHOW PREVIEW 10th European ITS Congress

T-Systems are once again exhibiting and (right) HERE will be pushing its location platform services in Helsinki


They could discover when and where journeys were quicker for them and for their friends and competitors. Not only would a player be competing to capture a station, they would also see who was getting to that station fastest. What was emerging was the possibility of crowdsourcing intelligence on routes and times, as part of game play.

The future of gamifying transport is to personalise the experience of any journey to each user. To attach reward to valuable activities for the network, like going to stations less affected by rush hour congestion, easing pressure on key hubs, to be more ecological in their transport modes, and to see the transport network as a living thing comprised of individuals that they can also influence.

The most difficult aspect is incentivisation and the funda-mental thing to keep in mind is that one size does not fit all. Not everyone likes games and even those that do don’t like all games. To incentivise you have to give the right rewards to the people who will respond to that kind of activity. But we believe the more you can give an element of ownership of the experience to the user. The more that they feel that they can customise or share in the development, the more you can get people to come along with the game you want to play with them.

Creating the liveable city

The smart city should

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SMART TRANSPORT FOR CITIES AND REGIONS

Launch issue

Decem

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ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH

IN TRANSPORT How Belgium’s Living Street

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● BARCELONA ● CHICAGO ● FRANKFURT ● GHENT ● LONDON

● MILTON KEYNES ● ÖREBRO ● ROTTERDAM ● SÃO PAULO ● TOYOTA CITY ● TURKU

MOBILITY, MULTIMODALITY

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Why social media is generating a

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SAFETY & SECURITY IN

TRANSPORT Intelligent technology is making

our cities safer, p78

SOCIAL & ECONOMIC

CHALLENGESUniversal transit systems are

open for business, p66

thinkingcities.com

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SHOW PREVIEW Intertraffic Amsterdam 2014

Kevin Borras caught up with the human whirlwind that is Joyce de Winter, product manager of Intertraffic Amsterdam 2014, to ask what visitors can expect in the way of innovation

The smartest show on Earth

deWinter.indd 62 14/03/2014 14:08

For the fourth week of March, the RAI Convention Centre will be home to over 800 exhibitors from around the world,

who will be showing off their products and solu-tions throughout six halls, taking up an area of approximately 60,000m². This year, the show lay-out is segmented into five themes: Infrastructure, ITS traffic management, safety, parking and smart mobility.

The central theme of this edition is the fifth of those segments, ‘smart mobility’. “The emphasis is on urban accessibility, personalized mobility ser-vices and making better use of roads,” says show manager Joyce de Winter (pictured), taking the helm for her second Intertraffic, “and on the role that advanced technol-ogy can play in developing innovative solutions for urban accessibility and traffic flow, with a keen eye for liveability and the environment.”

As H3B Media has just launched the Thinking Cities multi-media project, it seemed rather timely to ask Joyce about the show’s new focus.

“The show this year is exploring the complexity of urban mobility and the role advanced technologies are playing in providing innovative solutions that support smart, liveable and connected cities,” she says. “We have therefore especially created the Smart Urban Mobility Platform in a dedicated

hall. The emphasis is primarily on cooperative smart city solutions demonstrated through the Dutch pavilion. We are proud that all important Dutch parties, both private and public, will be present. The Netherlands envisions presenting a blueprint for cooperation structures and inno-vative urban solutions to deal with urban chal-lenges worldwide. It is our aim for Intertraffic 2016 to add other cities and countries with their smart solutions to the programme so we can be a podium for a variety of global urbanization solutions.”

SMART MOBILITY CENTERIn Hall 9 of the Amsterdam RAI a Smart Mobility Center has been created featuring the latest products and services, mobility projects as well as trends and developments in the field of smart, safe and sustainable mobility. Attendees will see and experience virtual traffic centres, tools for optimal traffic guidance, multimodal journey planners, personalized in-car travel information systems, new forms of data collec-tion, innovative cooperative technology for communication between roadside units and individual vehicles and between vehicles, driver assistance systems, congestion avoidance initiatives, parking applications, electrical vehicles, charging infrastructure etc.


Intertraffic Amsterdam 2014

deWinter.indd 63 14/03/2014 14:08

Always a question to get out the way early on is just how big the show is in comparison to previous years in terms of exhibi-tors, delegates, square meterage? De Winter is rather pleased with the fact that she can answer in a positive fashion.

“The show is equal in size to the previous edition but we are actually rather pleased with that, as we are aware that other international shows are affected by the current economic situa-tion and see a decrease in their square meterage and exhibitors. Fortunately it has not had an impact on Intertraffic and we are proud to stage yet another wonderfully all encompassing event.”

So how does the Intertraffic team ensure that visitor num-bers can remain so steady in an era where many shows are see-ing dwindling numbers?

“We offer many visitor benefits at no cost. Apart from the enormous display of exhibits, a comprehensive free-to-attend seminar and theatre programme is available to both visitors and exhibitors. The Smart Mobility Seminar, Theatre and Demonstration programme offers something for everyone. To name a few: examples of regional and urban traffic manage-ment, virtual traffic centres, presentations on social media and traffic management, big data and mobility, open parking data, the car park as a hub for mobility services – it’s a very long list, I am pleased to say!”

She continues “It’s a matter of making choices for profes-sionals as well which event(s) to go to and it is nice to see that our authority in the market is reflected in the visitor attend-ance. We have the active support of our exhibitors to market the show and can rely on a steady base of key stakeholders. In addition, our spin-off events play a role in giving the brand a greater reach.”

STRUCTURAL CHANGESWith a show with as much history as Intertraffic Amsterdam (the first event was held in 1972), implementing changes in the structure of the show can be a delicate process. Is it a case of Joyce and her colleagues seeing what can be done differently and acting upon it or do they rely on feedback from exhibitors and visitors alike?

“It actually works in both ways,” she replies. “As far as show content is concerned we do extensive research among exhibi-tors and visitors and use their feedback to meet and exceed future expectations. We also have regular meetings with an Exhibition Committee team consisting of industry repre-sentatives to keep a constant finger on the pulse of the market. Moreover, as professional exhibition organizers with a range of flagship events across various industries (such as water

technology, professional cleaning) we are able to copy best practices across the company’s activities.”

Exhibitors come back to Intertraffic show after show – it seems, to a relative outsider, like an easy process but just how much work goes into ensuring that you look after their long-standing clients as well as trying to woo new ones shouldn’t be underestimated, as De Winter points out.

“We hold our customers in high regard and value a good personal relationship with them. Apart from visiting them and potential new customers at various trade shows we do engage in international road trips to pay personal visits. We try our utmost to attend to specific needs and requirements and of course we also keep a close eye on the developments of the market and as a result we often do further research to see whether a new theme should be introduced or a new target group should be approached,” she explains.

INNOVATION STATION In addition to the Smart Mobility Center, Intertraffic 2014 also sees the debut of the Innovation Lab, an activity platform located in the RAI Elicium. The Innovation Lab will be the stage for the Intertraffic Innovation Award announcement and visitors will be able to browse through the individual nominee’s details via iPods. Throughout the show the podium will be host to seminars, workshops, debates and presentations from 11.00 to 16.00 hours daily, Tuesday to Thursday. The sessions will last from 30 to 60 minutes and are free to attend and there is no need to sign up in advance. The schedule will be published online, is available onsite and via the Intertraffic app. And, to help visitors (and exhibitors) get around the halls without get-ting lost, a new indoor navigation app has been launched.

“This brand new application uses the latest technologies to give access to all the uploaded exhibitor information, a QR code-based precise location and destination navigator and much more. The app has been available for download since the middle of March and has proved to be very popular,” concludes Joyce. And don’t forget when you see her on the carpeted aisles, stop her and tell you what you think of the show. It’s the smart thing to do.


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Joyce De Winter is product manager, Intertraffic

Amsterdam

[email protected]

www.intertraffic.com

“We hold our customers in high regard and value a good personal relationship with them... We try our utmost to attend to specific needs and requirements and of course we also keep a close eye on the developments of the market”

SHOW PREVIEW Intertraffic Amsterdam 2014

deWinter.indd 64 14/03/2014 14:08


The role of tollsCarole Défosse looks forward to an event in Athens to be remembered

Over the last 40 years ASECAP, the European Association of Tolled Road Infrastructures Operators, has actively working, together with the European

Institutions, to better shape the European policies in order to deliver a more efficient, safe and sustainable mobility to European citizens. Every year ASECAP organizes the ASECAP Study & Information Days to share its knowledge and long-term vision for the development of the road transport sector by gathering road transport experts, policy makers, public and private stakeholders to create an unique forum for discussion.

The 42nd ASECAP Days will be held in Athens under the Greek Presidency underlining ASECAP’s firm intention to help both European and national authority to move forward. The title of the Conference “Ensuring sustainability in times of dwindling traffic: the role of tolling” perfectly explains the great issues toll road operators are confronted with and the urgency to develop innovative and smart solution to meet these chal-lenges. Over two days (26–28 May) a wide range of subjects will be discussed and analyzed such as road safety, ITS and sat-ellite technologies, ICT services, bearing in mind that all these innovative and smart solutions are only possible because of the tolling and concession model that have proved to be the most valuable option to deliver concrete benefits to road users.

DAY ONEThe first day will be devoted to the technical discussion providing to the ASECAP members the opportunity to pre-sent and share their best practices (concession model, road safety, ITS solutions, new services…) followed by an open debate with the participants. These technical sessions will present many successful cases and initiatives carried out on the European motorways underlining the great know-how acquired by tolled road operators and the excellence of the service they provide. In particular the debate around the sustainability of the concession model will be extremely interesting providing some foresights of the European motorway concessionaires in the light of the new rules on public procurement and concession put forward recently by the European Commission. The need to set up common EU standards on concession contracts with the final aim of fostering fair competition by introducing new award criteria that place more emphasis on environmental considerations, social aspects and innovation has always been the core of ASECAP members’ activities. Indeed, tolled road operators have been the major actors in the setting up and develop-ment of the concession model by making it a concrete toll for sustainable and efficient mobility in Europe.

DAY TWOThe second day will focus on the current discussions within the political arena and the main political challenges faced by the road transport sector. The debate will be opened by the Greek Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Network who will address the audience highlighting the work carried out by the Greek Government during its presidency of the EU. European high level representatives from the European Commission, European Investment Bank and European GNSS Agency, together with high-level member of ASECAP, will put for-ward their vision for smart, innovative and clean transport in Europe. There will be a specific session focusing on the REETS Project, where many ASECAP members are currently engaged, which aims at investigating the main administrative and tech-nical hurdles affecting the deployment of the EETS in Europe. The project partners will address the audience by shedding more light on the challenges they faced and the potential future solutions to implement such important tool across Europe.

Besides all these very interesting technical and political insights, the ASECAP Study & Information Days will be also a key opportunity to meet and network with top level CEO of the tolling industry, road transport experts, EU decision-makers and ultimately develop valuable professional rela-tions. Furthermore the participants will have the possibility to visit the exhibition area where some of the more innovative European companies operating in the transport sector will pre-sent their technologies and services.

If you do share the idea that “motorways bring us together” and if you are willing to learn from the very interesting debates and have the chance to voice your ideas and inputs, do not hesi-tate to participate to the 2014 ASECAP Days in Athens – it will be a very enriching experience you cannot miss!

EVENT PREVIEW ASECAP Study & Information Days

Need to know EVENT42nd ASECAP Study & Information Days

DATE26-28 May 2014

VENUEDivani Caravel Hotel2 Vas. Alexandrou AveGR-16121 Athens

REGISTRATIONRegister by 6 April 2014 and you will benefit from early bird fees!

SPONSORSHIP & EXHIBITIONYou want to become sponsor and/or exhibi-tor? Visit the ASECAP Days website without delayto view all opportunities www.asecapdays.com

Asecap.indd 65 14/03/2014 12:23


SMART MOBILITY Beyond ITS

Over the last few years, the use of the term “smart” has become a widespread practice at all levels: now we use smartphones, there is hardly a city that does not

aspire to be a smart City, technology tends to become smart in numerous areas, new buildings are smart buildings and even energy is smart.

In our opinion, roads must transform themselves in order to play a relevant role in this “revo-lution”: there cannot be a smart city without a smart road and together a smart city with smart roads can provide citizens with smart mobility.

The road sector faces a major challenge for this century: the definition of a new paradigm that makes Smart Roads and Smart Mobility a reality.

Public perception of roads has been subject to a “degen-erative” process, in the form of decreased international social, media and political presence. In short, there is an increased association of highways with exclusively negative attrib-utes such as noise, pollution, acceleration of climate change,

accident rates and external costs.The efforts deployed by the road infrastructure sector are

largely ineffective; at the same time, the quality of service pro-vided by these transport infrastructures in developed countries is currently decreasing, as it suffers from massive spending cuts. Meanwhile, alternative transport modes (whether air, rail

or other) have been subject to systematic improvements and heavy public investments.

These other transport modes have successfully incorporated both structural improvements and emotional attributes into their efforts. They have also come to be disassociated from the cost-benefit analysis con-cerning the public spending

allocated to their benefit, as political decisions have often taken precedence over economic rationality.

ROAD TO PERDITIONWhile the other transport modes have continued to propose a range of solutions (high-speed and commuter trains, light

“While other transport modes have continued to propose a range of solutions, no major

improvements have been made to the road networks”

The smart revolution

Elena de la Peña introduces a new regular section from the International Road Research Board with a look at how smart “smart” technology actually is

IR2B.indd 66 14/03/2014 12:14


Beyond ITS

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Elena de la Peña is Chairwoman,

Smart Roads Programme for the International Road Research Board, IR2B.

[email protected]

www.ir2b.org

rail transit, short sea shipping, low-cost flights, etc), no major improvements have been made to the road net-works available to users, likely as a result of overestimating the central role of roads in the movement of people and goods in countries around the world. Over time, political decision-makers have consequently turned their interest away from roads, acknowledging only the negative aspects of these trans-port infrastructures.

The time has come, however, for the road infrastructure sector to identify all positive aspects inherent to its use and bring them to the attention of society, the media and the politi-cal authorities, by showcasing the high profitability of spend-ing on road infrastructures as an economic driver providing the general population guaranteed access to other infrastruc-tures, services, health facilities, cultural and leisure attractions, administrative centres, etc.

A NEW WORKING APPROACHThe approach proposed is based on the definition of a broader, all-inclusive concept incorporating all parameters contributing to the amelioration of road infrastructures: mobility efficiency, environmental performance, advanced traffic control technology, life-cycle analysis of construc-tion and maintenance costs and energy inputs, user-oriented designs, safety and security performance, and long-term financing solutions. At the end of the day, Smart Roads must address the people’s highest expectations in relation to road transport and, in so doing, define a model for “The Highway of Tomorrow” that adapts to societal requirements just as it has done since the earliest days of roads.

The challenge lies in identifying the various positive attrib-utes of Smart Roads from an infrastructural, technological and social perspective with a view to then redefining the concept of a road itself. This approach supports the proposal of road-based solutions for transporting people and goods which are more attractive, safer, more interesting, more reliable, more comfortable, etc., whilst also providing for a better sustainable, environmental and economic performance, both in the urban and the interurban contexts.

Furthermore, this concept must not only encompass the design, construction and operation of new infrastructures, but also contribute to the improvement and adequate maintenance of existing road networks, with the objective of ensuring that all highway upgrade and modernisation efforts take into account the attributes of the Smart Roads concept.

THE KEY ATTRIBUTES OF SMART ROADS

We must distinguish the attrib-utes with a direct influence on

road design, construction and maintenance – we will call them structural aspects – from those

aspects related to the sub-jective perceptions of users driving through our roads, to

then reconcile those structural aspects with the users’ expectations.

STRUCTURAL ATTRIBUTESSmart Roads are associated with structural aspects such as, although not limited to, the following:

Optimal environmental integration and energy efficiency.Optimal service quality. Economic sustainability.Improved safety. Coverage of externalities.Assurance of regional cohesion. Focus on co-modality. Adaptability of services offered.Social commitment. Economic contribution. User-oriented roads. Technology and innovation.

EMOTIONAL ATTRIBUTESIt is also possible to identify a series of emotional attributes associated with the Smart Roads concept, insofar as they are linked closely to the structural aspects set out above, notably:

Reliability.Safety. SecurityComfort.Modernity. Freedom.

In future contributions to the IR2B section of Thinking Highways we will detail the features we propose for the 18 attrib-utes listed above, as they summarise the guiding principles that will allow us plan, build and operate The Highway of Tomorrow.

IR2B.indd 67 14/03/2014 12:14

Vol 9 No 1 Europe/Rest of the Worldthinkinghighways.com68

THE VIEW From Technology Creation to Deployment

Connected vehicles are in the pipeline but what about road-to-infrastructure applications?

André Vits

In October 1999 when the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) decided to allocate

75 megahertz of spectrum in the 5.8 GHz band for ITS applications, Europe reacted with surprise at the size of bandwidth provided. The allocated frequency band would facilitate the deployment of a new generation of short-range communication between vehicles and infrastructure.

In Europe spectrum has been traditionally managed by the individual Member States and a common (narrow) frequency band has been difficult to allocate, in principle only for safety-related communication. The first applications pursed by the automotive industry were car-to-car based.

Very early on the choice was made to have a hybrid communication platform, where both DSRC (WiFi) and UMTS (and RDS) would be integrated above a single application level. Thanks to the joint efforts of industry and with the support of the European Union, research projects such as Coopers, CVIS and Safespot, followed by large-scale validation projects like Drive C2X and FOTSIS have resulted in draft technical specifications and the necessary input to the standardisation bodies. Recently ETSI (European Telecoms Standards Institute) and CEN (European Committee for Standardisation)1 have confirmed that the basic set of standards needed to make ‘connected cars’ a reality, has been fully completed. Connected cars, able to communicate wirelessly with each other (V2V) and with road infrastructures (V2I), are expected to

appear on Europe’s roads in 2015.What also became clear from these

projects was that the benefits become substantial when a reasonable fleet of vehicles is equipped, estimated to be around 5 per cent, but this represents a considerable fleet!

Without the involvement of road operators, this fleet percentage could take some time to be achieved. For this reason the German industry, with the support of the Ministry of Research, took a complementary initiative and moved forward into a large-scale development and demonstration project called simTD. Tests were performed over the period July-December 2012 with some 100 roadside stations installed (80 on motorways, 23 at traffic lights) and 500 drivers with 120 vehicles participating in the tests with in total of 1.6m kms travelled. Extensive analysis of driver acceptance and system performance have been carried out. Although a large number of applications have been included in the tests, warning messages at roadworks and green wave support are the most relevant applications of interest for the road operators, coming under the banner of motorway or urban traffic management.

❝The statement of NHTSA of 3 February of this year is a strong show of support for the deployment of the C2X technology❞

A report of the project objectives and fact sheets of the different components of the project are available on the simTD website2. One can only hope that more detailed information will become available over the next months.

In the meantime, an agreement has been ratified between Germany, the Netherlands and Austria to create a North-South V2X corridor with the focus on roadworks and congestion areas. It would be beneficial if other countries could take similar initiatives to involve more brands and system suppliers.

The statement of NHTSA of 3 February3 of this year is a strong show of support for the deployment of the C2X technology not only for the US, but also for Europe. It recognises the fact that C2X extends the “safety horizon” of the driver, and thus contributes to road safety, but also to comfort and fuel-saving. NHTSA’s announcement is directly linked to the major demonstration tests launched in 2012 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where nearly 3,000 vehicles were deployed. In its press release, NHTSA announced that it is currently finalising its analysis of the data gathered as part of its year-long pilot programme and will publish a research report on V2V communication technology for public comment in the coming weeks.

As these reports will be published, both from simTD and NHTSA, but also the available reports from DRIVE C2X and FOTSIS, a challenging task remains for our research institutes to compare, assess and summarise the findings of all these efforts in view of convincing public authorities to include C2X in their investment plans and to convince the consumers of the benefits.

André Vits is the former Head of Unit of the European Commission’s DG [email protected]

NOTE1 http://www.etsi.org/news-events/news/753-2014-

02-joint-news-cen-and-etsi-deliver-first-set-of-standards-for-cooperative-intelligent-transport-systems-c-its

2 Sichere Intelligente Mobilität Testfled Deutchland: http://www.simtd.de/index.dhtml/deDE/index.html

3 http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/USDOT+to+Move+Forward+with+Vehicle-to-Vehicle+Communication+Technology+for+Light+Vehicles

68 Vits column.indd 68 14/03/2014 11:59

The 42nd annual ASECAP Study and Information Days will explore the role of the tolled roads in ensuring sustainability in times of dwindling traffic. It will be the occasion for high-level panellists representing toll road infrastructure operators, EU decision-makers and ministers to discuss sustainability issues related to infrastructure financing, operation, maintenance, safety and the environment, while considering how Intelligent Transport Systems contribute to the achievement of the goals set.

The conference will reflect the interconnection, under the umbrella of sustainability, between questions regarding tolling and concessions, road safety and security and Intelligent Transport Systems, and will exploit the added value of combining the unmatched technical expertise and field experience of ASECAP Members with top-notch political considerations.

42nd ASECAP Annual Study and Information Days:

Ensuring Sustainability in Times of Dwindling Traffic:

The Role of Tolling26–28 May 2014 • Athens, Greece

SPONSORSHIP & EXHIBITIONYou want to become sponsor and/or exhibitor? Visit the ASECAP Days website without delay to view all opportunities.

www.asecapdays.com

Day 1The first day of discussions (Tuesday 27 May) will therefore be marked by subsequent plenary sessions with a full day of expert presentations, with time for Q&As about subjects falling under the responsibility of ASECAP’s different Permanent Committees (COPERs) affecting smart mobility.

Day 2On the second day (Wednesday 28 May), the various developments in the EU road transport sector will be examined from a truly political angle. High-level EU decision-makers and ASECAP personalities will first debate about the current economic situation in the EU and the role of concessions as a lasting key factor for growth.

The discussion will be followed by a serious technocratic analysis on where we are in the present tolling technologies. Selected representatives of REETS consortium – the key pan-European project on regional tolling interoperability funded by the European Commission – will draw the relevant conclusions and develop the ensuing key messages, thus laying the basis for continued action in support of Europe’s toll road infrastructure operators, their customers and the well-being of society as a whole.

Do not miss this opportunity to exchange views with the speakers and conference delegates about the extraordinary developments taking place in Europe’s toll road infrastructure sector.

REGISTER NOW!

ASECAP Mar 2014 ad.indd 68 14/03/2014 12:012-3_TH413_EU_Contents.indd 2 14/03/2014 14:46

Vol 9 No 1 Europe/Rest of the Worldthinkinghighways.com70 thinkinghighways.com

THE VIEW Australasian Perspective

How do you measure the success of transport programs? Use program logic.

Prof Phil Charles

Measuring the success of transport projects and programs is poorly done.

Post-implementation monitoring and evaluation is rarely conducted.

Transport planning and delivery agencies are accountable to governments and the community for effective use of public funds. It is also in an agency’s interest to demonstrate the success of past investment in moving towards desired transport outcomes, when requesting funding for future programs.

The logic of connecting the investment in a project or program to the desired outcomes needs to be carefully thought through.

Transport programs can be developed either as a response to transport problems or issues (bottom up approach), or to move towards future strategic objectives (top down approach). The best approach is a combination of both. To be able to measure success, transport professionals need tools to help them design the logic of the programs they plan and deliver.

Logic program development has been in use since the 1960’s, so it is not a new concept. My concern is that the concepts are being lost with the turnover of professionals.

The Logical Framework Analysis, or some variation, is used by international funding agencies such as the World Bank, DFID and Asian Development

Bank1 to make development aid more effective and accountable, by providing greater rigour in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating programs. Logic Mapping, promoted by the UK Department for Transport2, is a similar approach.

The basic concept of program logic is that delivery of projects is a systematic, sequential process: plan – manage – review; from context (responding to problems); to inputs (such as funding); to actions (project delivery); to outputs (transport infrastructure and services); and culminating in desired transport outcomes (reduced congestion, improved safety, reduced emissions, etc).

The logic, based on assumptions from past experience, is that actions such as delivery of a transport project or service … will result from the inputs provided, then infrastructure and service outputs are expected from these planned actions, and desired transport outcomes are predicted based on those outputs.

Each step along the sequence can be monitored to ensure the project is tracking to the desired objectives, rather than waiting for everything to be finished and some years down the track before being able to measure outcomes. For example, did the inputs produce the activities and result in the outputs predicted?

Program design starts with describing the key transport challenges being

❝However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results ❞Winston Churchill

faced and then going to the other end of the program logic process, defining the desired transport outcomes.

Using program logic the process can be reverse engineered to develop outputs that result in those outcomes, and then the activities to deliver these outputs and hence the inputs required. It is an iterative process to match available funding and priorities.

It should be remembered that the ‘what gets measured gets done’.

By designing the program logic and identifying performance indicators for each stage of the sequence of events, then those involved in managing the delivery of a transport program will have a clear focus on what is important. If we know that each critical component is going to be measured and reported, we will ensure they are monitored closely.

Program logic can help establish success criteria, and also data and information needed to assess progress, as well as help visually communicate the benefits of a project to key stakeholders.

The bonus of using this approach is it makes it easier to get projects approved!

Decision-makers can readily understand what a project or program is about, what it will deliver and how it contributes to a government’s objectives, as the logic process enables a clear, concise summary to be presented. If well done, the program logic approach also gives decision-makers confidence that assumptions and risks have been adequately considered and documented and that a performance monitoring framework is available.

As transport professionals, let us commit to measure and report the success of our transport projects and programs.

Phil Charles is Professor of Transport at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. [email protected]://transport-futures.com

NOTE1 Asian Development Bank (ABD) 2007. Guidelines for Preparing a Design

and Monitoring Framework. (http://www.abd.org/publications)2 Department for Transport (DfT) 2010. Logic mapping: hints and tips for better transport

evaluations. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/logic-mapping-hints-and-tips-guide)

70 Charles column.indd 70 14/03/2014 12:00


THE VIEW Tolling the Highways of the Future

Our new columnist examines HORIZON 2020 but questions the wisdom of “From Vision to Reality” and asks if one gram

of reality is much better than a tonne of vision

Kallistratos Dionelis

Transport is mobility or, more simply, an environment where vehicles are driven (at least so

far) by drivers. I trust we all agree that our objective is to help drivers to assess “normality” and make good decisions without curtailing their freedom.

I have a tendency to simplify things, to read between the lines, to dig into the vague terms trying to quantify them; so I finally agreed to start contributing to Thinking Highways. Talking aloud may appear disrupting, but I am convinced that this is a step in the right direction; I intend to have a long–term role so in my present first contribution I will try to define in a common way the terms we use.

THINKING ALOUDI start from the magazine title: Thinking Highways. No-one objects that it is good to have thinking roads, but surely not enough… So, to get the full view, I added “thinking drivers, and thinking vehicles”. All these three “thinking entities” made me feel more confident about getting a better and holistic innovative environment of technologies in the roads, in the vehicles (there is no objection that human minds are surely intelligent).

Theoretically everything is perfect but we still see traffic congestion, wastes of energy, road accidents, etc. So why do all these thinking parties lead to a non-smart (synonym: stupid) transport reality?

In the real world everyone knows that the “many” are smarter than the “few” when it comes to making analyses and predictions. But a

decentralised decision-making network cannot be equally effective in solving complex coordination problems. Reflecting – without any cost – on daring future visions is easy, but deciding on what to do is linked to expensive risk. For this, we need the coordinating structures of the few, the players, the doers,the ones who will run the system.

HORIZON 2020 is the new vision that, as the EU declares, is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever, with nearly €80 billion of funding available over seven years (2014 to 2020) – in addition to the private investment that this money will attract.

In brief, HORIZON 2020 promises to invest in research and innovation fields. The EU objectives remain in broad terms the same, although the work plan, the road maps and the terms proposed have changed. The phrase “good intentions are not enough” applies 100 per cent in this case as HORIZON 2020 offers no means to build the bridges we need to connect the great visionary ideas of the laboratories to the “complex” market reality where every Euro counts.

All of us are desperate to return “research” to profitability. And we all know that talking endlessly about future horizons is an EU habit associated with boring open consultations and summits.

Policymakers like using words such as “expect” “anticipate,” “plan,” “would” and similar forward-looking statements. Nonetheless, researchers are surely needed for research

❝All of us are desperate to return “research” to profitability. And we all know that talking endlessly about future horizons is an EU habit associated with boring open consultations and summits❞

scenarios, expected performance, and innovative, strategic plans that, however, are based on untested assumptions, predictions, intentions or beliefs about future targets.

ALLAYING THE PRIMITIVE FEARITS appears to be the key element in the future period where every action in the field of road transport will be filtered by its acronym (whatever it might mean at the time). In spite of their “primitive fear” in front of the changes that technology brings, the policymakers and the doers follow (as far as they can) the developments in the “research-oriented world”. Every serious CEO and political leader is convinced that research in technology is the key to open the gates of growth towards future global challenges.

EU programmes always help to describe future targets; but we must always remember that our citizens must see the practical benefit of ITS in their daily lives.

Markets and civil societies live in “todays” which should not be tested by “innovative developers” every day. We have to be prudent because in pursuing our future success we don’t know what is being lost with the “todays” now “yesterdays”.

It is time to understand that we need to slow down our pursuit of future money and future development, and there must also be a few of us who cast an eye backward and judge accordingly.

What we fail to foresee, our successors will discover by experience; they will have to learn from our past mistakes and adjust their future dreams accordingly.

Kallistratos Dionelis is Secretary General of ASECAP. [email protected]

71 Dionelis column.indd 71 14/03/2014 16:39


THE VIEW Thinking the Highway of the Future

Roads must adapt their role in a smart, green and integrated transport system that successfully tackles

the main challenges faced by the sector: efficiency, safety, security, sustainability and a long-term financing

José F Papi

Welcome to our new column. Every year public and private organisations

invest billions on applied R&D related to new methods, materials and technologies applicable to road infrastructures. Recognising the value of efficient knowledge-sharing and pooling of resources at the trans-national level, in April 2013 a group of founding organisations with an extensive international background resolved it was high time to launch an international catalyst of expertise and skills devoted to improving the sustainability and efficiency of road infrastructures worldwide.

The idea behind this move was to establish a new body whose guiding principles were 1) technical and scientific rigour, 2) neutrality and 3) a truly “global vision” beyond the advocacy of mere national or corporate interests.

With headquarters in London and a representation office in Brussels the International Road Research Board, IR2B (www.ir2b.org) has therefore initiated its first steps as a global collaborative platform for road infrastructure innovation.

Specifically, the IR2B is implementing an ambitious work programme targeted at:

• Defining a long-term vision for

the scientific and technological activities of innovation leaders active in the field of road infrastructures;

• Promoting the amelioration of technical standards in roads worldwide;

• Identifying R&D guidelines and priorities, in cooperation with national and international bodies;

• Stimulating stakeholder cooperation by optimizing existing R&D investments and promoting new R&D projects; and

• Encouraging knowledge transfer and good-practice exchange.

With the motto “Thinking the Highway of the Future”, IR2B’s mission is to promote Smart Roads that play a pivotal role in a smart, green and integrated transportation system.

During its launch phase, the IR2B has concentrated its efforts on:

• Defining a long-term vision for the scientific and technological activities of road innovation leaders, an effort that has resulted in a publication entitled Smart Roads: An IR2B Vision; and

• Identifying specific R&D priorities to make the Vision above a reality, which have been compiled into a publication named Strategic Road Research Agenda 2013-2025.

We are of the opinion that the aforementioned publications

❝The challenge now lies in proceeding with implement-ation from a scientific and technological perspective ❞

(downloadable from the “Publications” section of the IR2B website) represent a major step ahead for the sector at the international level.

The first publication sets out the principles behind the Smart Roads concept, a concept that explores and highlights the positive attributes of highways and proposes a road transportation model that is adapted to the needs of the population, and in addition plays its rightful role in the framework of an integrated transport system.

The second one maps out a complete set of 116 research priorities to bring the Smart Roads concept to reality. Each research priority is classified into an innovation topic (Smart and Green Road Construction & Operation, Road Infrastructure Safety and Road Mobility & Modal Integration) and inserted in a calendar framework for its optimal market deployment.

The challenge now lies in proceeding with their implementation from a scientific and technological perspective.

At the IR2B we strongly believe roads must continue playing a central role in tomorrow’s transport system.

Yet making the “Highway of the Future” a reality will require more coordination and pooling of scientific and technological efforts at the international level.

The challenge is ahead of us and we have decided to accept it. We will keep Thinking Highways’ readers posted of our ongoing activities in future editions in the new, regular IR2B section.

José F Papi is Chairman of the International Road Research Board, [email protected]; www.ir2b.org t @The_IR2B i (LinkedIn) http://goo.gl/zTiMj7

72 Papi column.indd 72 14/03/2014 12:18


THE VIEW IBEC: ITS and Evaluation

Evaluating congestion mitigation and active traffic management strategies1

Richard Mudge, Kenneth Button & Max Azizi

Transportation agencies spend considerable time and resources in efforts to manage traffic

congestion and to reduce its economic and societal impacts. In recent years, many of these efforts have focused on improving operations rather than simply adding new lanes. These actions often involve technology and many (not all) are relatively low in cost.

A recent study funded by FHWA’s Office of Transportation Policy Studies focused on Active Traffic Management (ATM) strategies, a set of techniques that are dynamic in nature, such as the temporary use of shoulders during peak periods. Limited information exists regarding the actual impact of this family of operations-oriented techniques on congestion. Most studies seek to estimate the effect that a particular technique has on traffic congestion within a defined geographical area and under specific conditions. However, what is missing is a more systematic review of the overall effectiveness of various traffic mitigation techniques in general. This study uses meta analysis to address this deficiency.

Meta analysis provides an efficient method to summarize and compare the results of many previously completed studies. Meta analysis uses statistical regression to combine the results from different studies in order to identify patterns and produce a single, robust estimate of a likely effect. This type of analysis is common in medicine and environmental analysis and has begun to be applied in transportation.

For this project, we pooled prior studies that contained data on congestion both before and after a particular

traffic mitigation technique was implemented. Before and after studies typically use one of three measures of traffic congestion: speed change, percent speed change, and percent travel time change. These studies miss more relevant measures such as reliability and total congestion costs.

To gain insights from practitioners, two expert panels of state and local leaders in traffic operations were organized.

The analysis revealed that ATM strategies have a positive impact on congestion. The results vary widely across strategies and should be interpreted as suggestive, rather than precise estimates. Before and after studies are limited in number so the sample size for several strategies is quite small. As a result, the error can be sizable reflecting in part variation in local conditions and in how individual projects are carried out. This project only used studies carried out in the US. The full report provides more detail on the analytic technique and on factors that may change the results2.

HOT lanes often combine new capacity with variable prices and also show the largest impacts (100 per cent speed increase relative to the general purpose lane; 21mph increase).

HOV lanes restrict usage to certain types of vehicles and thus show smaller

❝ATM tools are attractive because of the underlying logic of improving operations and relative modest cost ❞

impacts (11 per cent speed increase; 27 per cent change in travel time).

Reversible lanes had the highest absolute increase in speed (45mph), perhaps because they add capacity during rush hours.

Temporary shoulders also add capacity during peak periods and do well, with 27mph gains, but the sample size is limited.

Ramp meters show solid but not spectacular gains of 7-16mph and 26 per cent improvements in travel times.

Signal coordination has somewhat lower absolute impacts (10mph increase; 15-16 per cent decrease in travel time) perhaps since they focus on arterials that have slower speeds.

Park and ride also had one of the lesser impacts, with a 7 per cent decrease in travel time. Due to a limited number of useful before and after studies, these numerical results have significant margins of error.

Dynamic speed limit showed a 5-8mph gain, but results depend on enforcement and are better than other experience in the US.

ATM tools are attractive because of the underlying logic of improving operations and relative modest cost. The expert panels and interviews that were part of this project, however, showed that most decisions regarding ATM were based on intuitive experience rather than analytic results.

More data regarding actual impacts is needed, particularly if these can shed light on how results vary across local conditions, the scale of investment, and operational details. Similarly, information on congestion-related benefits is an important first step but data on costs to implement and operate are needed for a full analysis.

Richard Mudge is founder of Compass Transportation and Technology Inc; Kenneth Button is Director of the Center for Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia; Max Azizi is team leader of the FHWA’s Transportation Policy Studies team

NOTE1 This research was funded by FHWA’s Office of

Policy. The research was carried out by Delcan Corporation, George Mason University, and AECOM.

2 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/policyanalysis.cfm

73 IBEC column.indd 73 14/03/2014 12:19


THE VIEW Automated Vehicles

Bite-sized vehicle automation…but for trucks?

Richard Bishop

We’re inundated in the media with stories about automated cars, which come

drenched in speculation about what it all means, but while the cars are in the limelight, there’s also a surprising amount of activity going on in the trucking sector.

In recent years, the highest profile action was the truck-car platooning concept developed and demonstrated in the European Commission’s SARTRE project that ended in 2012. Plus, the Japanese “Energy ITS” project that ended last year, developed advanced platooning techniques and evaluated improvements in fuel economy and emissions. Since then, truck manufacturers and governments have taken note, unleashing a new wave of projects that have ramped up this year.

The technical approach, generally termed Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, relies on radar-based ACC to sense inter-vehicle distances, plus 5.9 GHz DSRC V2V communications so that braking or any other vehicle control actions in the lead truck are immediately communicated to the electronic controller in the following truck. Paired electronically, the trucks brake and accelerate virtually simultaneously. This takes human reaction time out of the loop, so that the trucks can operate closer together and thus realize improved aerodynamics to save fuel. In some approaches, only longitudinal control is automated; in others, steering is automated as well.

Scania, Volkswagen and others have teamed up in the EC’s COMPANION project, which runs through 2016. With over €5m in funding they are

addressing the issues noted above and will conduct demonstrations on European roads in multiple countries. In the UK the Department for Transport has commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the potential to operate a road trial of heavy goods vehicle platoons on UK roads. This project is led by Ricardo plc and includes TRL and Transport, Travel and Research Ltd.

In the US the Federal Highway Administration has funded two new projects in this space, both funded at about US$1m and expected to run through 2016. Both projects focus on longitudinal control only, as this is where the fuel economy benefits accrue. In one project, California DOT, along with the University of California PATH Program, Volvo Trucks and others is developing an experimental heavy truck platooning system and will conduct field testing to assess the technical and operational feasibility of the concept, as well as quantify possible energy savings.

In the other project, Auburn University is leading a team including Peterbilt Trucks and Peloton Technology which is identifying metrics, levels of technical performance, operating strategies, and effective HMI approaches. An additional partner, the American Trucking Association’s American Transportation Research Institute, is spearheading engagement with the trucking industry to bridge the concept of truck platooning from research to a real-world system approach focused on near-term commercialization. In the Auburn project, the team has redefined the function into a term more understandable to potential

❝Given the potential for double-digit improve-ments in fuel economy, the truckers are undoubtedly jumping at the opportunity, right? Not so fast❞

future users: Driver Assistive Truck Platooning (DATP).

Given the potential for double-digit improvements in fuel economy, the truckers are undoubtedly jumping at the opportunity, right? Not so fast. Questions abound when it comes to bringing this radically new way of operating to truck fleets. How can my driver find another equipped vehicle? How do I know the other vehicle is trustworthy? How robust is the system to sensor failures, dropout of the wireless data, and/or cut-ins from cars? In the Auburn project as well as others, addressing these questions will be key to engaging end users and defining a system approach that is truly practical on the road.

My view is that DATP will start with large fleets who operate in a hub-and-spoke manner; these fleets have large numbers of trucks following regular routes. On some highways in the US, you can see trucks for the same company travel past about once per minute. It’s reasonable to expect that these fleets could link with their own vehicles and define their own data standards and operational approach. This will be the first wave of implementation; cross-fleet operations will come later as interoperability and trust issues are addressed.

DATP and similar systems are a superb example of an incremental process in bringing this technology forward. We can look at longitudinal control supported by inter-vehicle communications as a “bite-sized nugget” of automation for the trucking industry. Automated parking is an example for the car market.

A range of applications will continue to roll out over the rest of this decade and beyond, as we gradually transition to automated road transportation.

Richard Bishop is principal of Bishop Consulting and Associate Editor of Thinking Highways North [email protected]; www.auvsi.org; www.vehicleautomation.org Follow Richard at #ThinkingCarsH3B

74 Bishop column.indd 74 14/03/2014 14:08


THE VIEW Taking the Initiative

Are our speeding deterrents actually fit for purpose? And how do we know they work?

Paul Hutton

Last summer I was caught speeding on a road not far from where I live. I was doing

34 miles per hour in a 30 limit (so about 55km/h in a 50) which is hardly Sebastian Vettel speeds, and it was in a steady flow of traffic on a main road, but even so I was going over the limit and I got caught. Fair cop.

I had two choices, one was to accept the £60 (€75) fine and penalty points, the other was to attend a “Speed Awareness Course” which would teach me the error of my ways. Of course, I chose the latter.

I kind of expected the course to be a bit of a waste of time, but I have to say it was excellent. And despite having to explain to the room (including the instructor) how average speed checks work, I did learn a lot and was glad I went. I wish others who happen not to have been caught out could also go, or it could be made into a TV series that actually teaches people why speed limits are there and some of the tragic cases that have happened when people stray marginally over.

But to me the speeding situation in Britain, and I understand across the world, is one where muddled thinking and mixed messages have got in the way of enforcing it properly, and that’s affecting safety.

Firstly, to the average motorist, many speed limits just do not make sense. In Britain our motorway limit is 70mph, while on winding, narrow country roads it is 60. How can it be that you can only drive 10mph faster on a road built for speed, with a central barrier and wide lanes than you can on a road

which was probably first mapped out when people rode horses. Then there are some areas where all limits are 20, others where they are 30, and then you get roads that are, for reasons not explained, designated 40 or even 50.

So basically, people drive at a speed that isn’t necessarily safe, but what they think they can get away with. They’ll slow down for speed cameras (usually) yet they then read in the newspapers that most of the speed cameras on London’s Orbital M25 motorway have not worked for years.

And then there are average speed cameras. When I get into those zones on goes the cruise control at exactly the designated speed and along I, and most other drivers, trundle. Then you get the people who either don’t understand what “average” means, or simply don’t care, who drive way above the limit, sometimes braking as they reach the cameras (for reasons I never quite get) and then zoom off again.

❝To me the speeding situation in Britain, and I understand across the world, is one where muddled thinking and mixed messages have got in the way of enforcing it properly, and that’s affecting safety❞

When they drive past as though they own the road and rules do not apply to

them I just hope that they will be slightly less smug when the fine hits their doormat in a week’s time.

But that’s just it, I – and the rest of us who tend to stick to the limits – hope that they get caught. I don’t know whether they do, and I don’t know if I’m the one who’s being an idiot (and being gestured at by others when I stick to a limit and they’re a millimetre off my back bumper wanting me to go faster) for generally sticking to the rules.

Surely with the ITS technology we have these days, there must be a way we can automatically show the amount of people who have been caught speeding in a controlled zone? If you drive at the limit you’ll be safe in the knowledge others’ recklessness hasn’t gone unpunished and that it was worth sticking to the rules.

So long as it doesn’t affect safety by doing so, you could even have a variable message sign flashing up the registrations of the cars who have been caught which would immediately make them slow down and, again, in effect praise those who have been sensible.

We know the technology exists to do this, surely it’s not hard to do? Perhaps readers in other parts of the world know if this is done, and what effect it has? As someone who was caught by a mobile camera in a one-off, it would certainly make me feel better if I knew serious speeders were getting caught too!

Paul Hutton is the head of H3B Media’s Broadcast Services Division, founder of PH Initiatives and presenter of our Thinking Aloud podcast. [email protected]; www.phinitiatives.com; thinkinghighways.com/podcasts; thinkingaloudpodcast.com

Hutton.indd 75 14/03/2014 12:22


THE VIEW European Transport Financing

Neglected options for efficiently sharing knowledge on transport infrastructure financing

Dr Andreas Kossak

On occasion of the Symposium Series in relation to the World Exposition on Transport

and Communication Expo ’86 in Vancouver, Canada, I addressed (by request) the topic: “Neglected options for the effective dissemination of knowledge on transportation matters”.

“Neglected Option No 1” referred to the fact, that even on such a level as the respective Symposium Series, participants and experts use the same words for different subjects and different words for the same subject. According to my experience the discussion about “Congestion Pricing”, “Road User Charging”, “Mileage based User Fees” and so on strongly suggests that this has been the case for several years and is actually hampering the progress of deploying adequate solutions for solving a great variety of problems.

The above stated first option explicitly relates to the lack of state-of-the-art “Technical Dictionaries and Compendia”, in which the subject, background and intension behind the used terms are clearly and comprehensively defined and made available in (at least) the internationally most used languages. Taking full advantage of that option requires its connection to additional options:

• Neglected Option 2: State-of-the-art surveys/knowledge bases

• Neglected Option 3: Guiding principles/Summaries of “Lessons learned”

• Neglected Option 4: Guidelines for Decision-maker and Practitioner

• Neglected Option 5: Surveys of Examples (“best practice”)

In Germany the relevant lobbyist groups and the general public broadly anticipate user charging still as a threat and only an additional burden for the road user respectively and not as a viable alternative to the conventional tools of financing and managing the interurban as well as the urban road infrastructure. In fact, road user charging is an efficient tool for solving problems of traffic management, congestion, traffic safety, environment (including urban design) and of fair and sustainable financing of the transport infrastructure.

In Germany the top Automobile Club in terms of membership (19m) classifies the supporters of road user charging as “Toll-Clique”, their arguments as “paroles of armchair strategists”, and the stated advantages as “myths that do not comply with the facts”. Contrary to that, the director of the UK Royal Automobile Club Foundation (RAC), Prof Stephen Glaister, closes his foreword of the RAC sponsored publication The Acceptability of Road Pricing (2011) as follows: “We should be willing to embrace the message of this report and recognize the benefits that new charging systems for roads have delivered in…many countries… Far from being a vote-loser, the evidence is, that if it is introduced in the right way road pricing can be perfectly acceptable for the majority of the population.”

The author of the respective publication, John Walker (a contributor

❝Internal discussions with stakeholders in Germany mostly end with the statement: ‘Privately speaking I am in favour of road user charging, but officially speaking I am against it’❞

to Thinking Highways’ Tolling Review) summarizes the results of his work as follows: “It is generally accepted amongst transport professionals that…the potential for benefits from a well-designed, large-scale road pricing scheme is unrivalled by any other intervention…Road pricing contributes positively to the environment as well as reducing road traffic congestion, thereby benefiting the economy.”

The principal item of the conclusion is a confrontation of “myths and reality”. The respective arguments are obviously yet not strong enough to convince the stakeholders and to induce them to support or even demand direct road user charging – or the arguments or facts are not known nor disseminated efficiently.

Internal discussions with stakeholders in Germany mostly end with the statement: “Privately speaking I am in favour of road user charging, but officially speaking I am against it”. This proves that there is a distinct lack of information for convincing non-expert decision-makers and politicians.

The variety of possible solutions regarding interurban and urban road user charging is substantial. The gained knowledge from existing schemes and research work worldwide in this regard is substantially richer than mostly anticipated.

However, the disposable knowledge potential is still not made available appropriately for practitioners, stakeholders and decision-makers. That refers to Guidelines, Lessons Learned, Recommendations, Practical Examples, and Communication Strategies - readable and comprehensible for the different target groups – politicians in particular.

Dr Andreas Kossak is Principal of AK Research & Consulting, based in Hamburg, [email protected]

76 Kossak-column.indd 76 14/03/2014 14:13

Reinventing Transportation in our Connected WorldSeptember 7-11 | Detroit, Michigan

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thinkinghighways.com78 Vol 9 No 1 Europe/Rest of the Worldthinkinghighways.com

The voice of an industry

“The spoken word goes into the brain with one less function than the written word. It’s why many of the most successful TV commercials are actually memorable because of the words spoken rather than the pictures they go with”

Have a listen to yourself while you’re reading this.

That may sound silly, but really listen. What you may not have ever realised before is that when you read something your brain converts it into sound before making sense of it. So you really do have a “mind’s ear”. Next time you read a fiction book you’ll notice you give the narrative a different voice to each of the characters, who in turn have different voices. It helps you follow the story.

That’s why radio remains such a powerful medium because the spo-ken word goes into the brain with one less function than the written word. It’s why many of the most successful TV commercials are actually memorable because of the words spoken rather than the pictures they go with.

Of course pictures remain very impor-tant, as the bright, striking images throughout Thinking Highways demon-strates. But the spoken word is a fantastic complement to the written one.

Which is why our sponsors love Thinking Aloud, the podcast of Thinking Highways. They can complement their printed message by getting an audio mes-sage straight into the brain. Our sponsors not only get their name and branding “strapline” frequently referred to in the

programmes, but they get a profession-ally-produced radio-style commercial too. And then they get the written word – on email, website, within the magazine and social media.

And it’s not just the sponsors that love it – we have a growing band of more than 3,000 Thinking Aloud devotees who down-load or stream each edition to keep them up to date with what’s happening in the ITS industry. We talk to speakers, senior delegates, exhibitors, organisers and other interesting people at conferences and also to other key influencers during our studio-based programmes where we really look at key issues in depth.

There’s a wealth of knowl-edge on our archive pod-cast pages on the Thinking Highways website and we bring the latest news, comments and opinions from the major ITS shows.

This year we have already been to TRB in Washington – featuring our guest inter-viewer Shelley Row – and ISE in Amsterdam and we’re back there for Intertraffic before trips to Athens for the ASECAP Days, Helsinki for ITS Europe and the World Congress in Detroit, among others. Plus more shows as they come along during the year.

Thanks to our sponsors, featured on this page, and thanks to you for listen-ing. To find out more about sponsor-ship of the programmes and how they offer such a fantastic multimedia adver-tising opportunity, or just to give your feedback, get in touch with us at either [email protected] or me directly, [email protected].

And, as always, thanks for listening… even as you are reading this!

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Paul Hutton is the head of H3B

Media’s Broadcast Services Division

[email protected]

thinkinghighways.com/podcasts thinkinglaooudpodcast.com

For more information about sponsorship opportunities for Thinking Aloud, email Paul at [email protected]

H3B MEDIA BROADCAST SERVICES Thinking Aloud podcasts

Paul Hutton on why our Thinking Aloud podcasts, in all their guises, are still steadily gaining in popularity

Podcast LISTEN NOW thinkinghighways.com/podcasts

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