For global oversight of ITS trends, few people are better-placed to comment than Joost Vantomme, CEO of Ertico – ITS Europe; Laura Demeo Chace, president and CEO of ITS America; and Ace Yamamoto, secretary general of ITS Asia-Pacific. The three regional leaders took part in a discussion of their perspectives and common themes in global ITS in a conversation, hosted by Agne Vaitekenaite, Ertico partnership development manager for the Connecting Dots and Talks podcast.
Whilst regions differ in degree and approach to specific areas – for instance standardisation, integration and disaster preparedness - the importance to all regions of data, trust, breaking down silos, automation, generative AI and future mobility was clear.
Integrating emerging technologies – connectivity is key
There is increasing integration of emerging technologies into intelligent transport systems, according to Ertico’s Vantomme. Developments in 5G, AI and IoT are inevitable and intertwined: “Thanks to technology we can bridge the gaps.”
By this he means the gaps between the four major modes – road, rail, water and air - and also between the wide range of users of these modes – from boats, trains and cars, to ‘soft’ and active mobility.
“We integrate the modes and this relies on connectivity – the roads with the cars, the traffic lights with control centres, the centres with safety messaging,” Vantomme says. “Connectivity means you need both short- and long-range connectivity and spectrum availability for this. It’s key to IoT - the Internet of Things – which joins all these together, and to automation and generative AI.”
Equality and accessibility
Meanwhile, Chace discussed the role ITS America plays in promoting equity and accessibility in transportation adoption across the region.
“We develop policy at national scale to help guide the integration of transportation technologies,” she says. “One of the core functions we bring to the community is policy development on key issues. For instance, in July, ITS America released a new set of AI policy principles for policymakers, employers and even developers to shape how we should be thinking about implementing AI solutions in our transportation system in order to deliver the benefits we seek for society. In short, benefits in terms of improved safety for travellers, reduced climate impact from transportation, improved equity and accessibility in mobility.”
“We need a sustained and certain funding stream for ITS technologies so that you can plan for them” Laura Chace, ITS America
Beyond policy, enabling people to adopt these solutions really requires knowledge sharing, capacity building and enhancing training and experience among the transportation practitioners. They make daily decisions on investment in technology and its integration with existing systems and try to ensure that the desired outcomes are achieved. Chace adds: “ITS America creates a lot of resources to help practitioners, federal government and other partners think about how these technologies can be integrated and ensure the latest technologies can reach all communities.”
Unique trends in Asia-Pacific region
At ITS Asia-Pacific, Yamamoto echoed many common themes other regions face – not least that all the countries within his region have their own unique geo-political cultures, histories and industries – he pointed to their common struggle with disasters as a unifying theme.
With record-breaking rainfall and attendant disruption due to the effects of climate change in addition to the existing geological vulnerabilities to earthquakes, ITS plays an important part in disaster resilience.
Connected vehicles and systems are increasingly prevalent in Asia, so ITS services contributing to disaster resilience – for instance to determine which roads are passable in times of earthquake or flood – will have a higher profile in future.
Cross-border collaboration and standardisation
Europe has one distinctive feature – the European Union (EU). The European Commission founded Ertico to bring innovation in transport and mobility across the region. Whilst EU countries are very different, there is a strong impulse to transfer learning across the area. Ertico has a practical role in developing European-funded projects to deliver connected and automated mobility across different countries. It champions interoperability and enables standardisation protocols as well as promoting links between cities to exchange use cases and best practice.
The federal system in the US dictates ITS America’s approach: creating national strategies and visions that all states and entities can work towards. Standardisation enables ITS to scale up, and reassures the private sector that products will work across all state contexts. This is true across technologies - automated vehicles, connected transportation, emerging technologies, digital infrastructure and data sets.
“The huge amounts of data involved in self-driving vehicles and development of future applications through generative AI will enable cars, infrastructure and people to communicate” Ace Yamamoto, ITS Asia-Pacific
National and shared data sets are a key enabler of national transportation systems to create safer and more efficient mobility – however, the US is not at the point of standardisation. It is rather at stage of determining what the data points are, how they could be collected and shared, with standardisation as a next step.
The future funding of road infrastructure is also in play. As electrification moves forward and the tax funding from fuel duties reduces, a different way to fund infrastructure is needed. ITS America is active in this discussion, as road usage charge would need data, interoperability and also cross-border working to be implemented.
Privacy and security in world of data-sharing
With increasing numbers of connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs), Yamamoto pointed to the need to balance technological development with privacy and security concerns. “The huge amounts of data involved in self-driving vehicles and development of future applications through generative AI will enable cars, infrastructure and people to communicate,” he says. “However, these developments can also be vulnerable to failure and to attack by hackers.”
Protecting connected mobility from security breaches is crucial but the scale of development and of the threat implies that this should be a cooperative issue requiring skills and engineering that are in short supply. Collaboration on the security of ITS will require collaboration with Europe and the US, he notes.
Key pillars in development of future mobility
In the US, the challenges of moving to smart connected transportation system are funding, business models and adoption. Chace explains: “Technology in transport is currently funded through competitive grants – and that is not a recipe to scale these solutions and maintain. We need a sustained and certain funding stream for ITS technologies so that you can plan for them.”
This also implies that new business models and different types of public-private partnerships are needed. At the same time adoption of new technologies requires a level of trust.
“We integrate the modes and this relies on connectivity – the roads with the cars, the traffic lights with control centres, the centres with safety messaging” Joost Vantomme, Ertico
For Yamamoto, the key words in Asia are ‘user-centric planning’ and ‘social-centric planning’: “In Japan we have a mid-term transportation plan, aligned with the national land formation plan where the first priority is energising local and rural areas. This is then reflected in policies.”
This focus on where ITS should be deployed ties in with a forthcoming shift in focus away from big cities at the ITS World Congress in Korea in 2027 – where the Congress will showcase how ITS can solve problems in small to mid-sized cities.
ITS World Congress 2024
For now, a range of topics will be highlighted at the ITS World Congress 2024 in Dubai, UAE, which takes place in September. The Congress promises to be a unique experience combining all three regional focuses. It is strongly supported by the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), enabling visitors to experience live demonstrations and technical tours to try out ITS technologies themselves. These will run alongside a huge exhibition showcasing member products and services from across the world.
The Congress will launch with a high-level Summit on future mobility and sustainability in which government ministers and other key stakeholders from the three regions will discuss the contribution of ITS to carbon reduction.
The subsequent Congress programme includes more than 100 sessions over five days with academics, public authorities and private industry sharing research and developments in policy, technology and science.
There are four major themes running through the Congress: connected and automated mobility; city urban mobility covering cleaner cities, better air quality and decarbonisation; resilience, safety and trust in the ecosystem; and multimodality and interoperable transport modes including public transport, air mobility and waterborne transport.
These themes will be showcased in live sessions organised by the ITS regions, covering data and AI for future mobility, innovations for integrated ITS and urban mobility, fleet electrification and energy provision challenges, Mobility as a Service and ‘de-silo’ing transport. Safety will be prominent – road safety, traffic safety and road user safety.
The ITS World Congress will be a one-off opportunity to get up to speed with sustainability digitalisation, automation, safety of traffic and mobility.
