Dean Herenda, Chairman of the EasyWay project, talks about the progress made and the progress still to be made in harmonising ITS deployment across the European Union
"The deployment and use of ITS in road transport across Europe was and still is unbalanced"Although Europe can be proud of being home to some of the world's most advanced ITS solutions, the relative disparities between Member States of the
That highlights the continuing need for a project such as EasyWay, says its Chairman Dean Herenda (see Sidebar, 'The EasyWay project').
"Go back to 2007, when the
"The deployment and use of ITS in road transport across Europe was and still is unbalanced. There are huge differences in the maturity of systems deployed between Member States, regions and even individual towns and cities. In some countries, robust investment in both local and national solutions over the last two or three decades has resulted in saturation and a slow-down in overall deployment.
"The EC launched a huge consultation process. Stakeholders, which included road operators and users, the automotive companies, automotive clubs and organisations and various other national authorities, recognised a range of challenges. These included: a lack of interoperable applications, systems and services; a lack of cooperation among stakeholders; and an overall lack of vision. There were also unresolved privacy and liability issues.
"Set against that are some alarming statistics. Road-based freight transport is set to grow by 55 per cent by 2020, while passenger road transport will increase by 36 per cent. Congestion will be a continuing and worsening problem. Road fatalities will likely reach 32,000 by the end of this year, far in excess of the targeted figure of 25,000. Meanwhile, CO2 emissions will increase by 15 per cent over the next 10 years.
"Fragmented solutions will result in slow market development for ITS and we risk missing an opportunity to strengthen the sector's competitiveness."
The ITS Action Plan
The EC's response, now unanimously accepted, was the ITS Action Plan, which proposes to accelerate and coordinate ITS deployment and concentrates on six key areas: optimisation of the use of road and traffic data; improving traffic and freight management; better road safety and security; integrating ITS applications into the vehicle and enhancing communication between vehicles and infrastructure; data protection and liability; and European ITS coordination."The last is where EasyWay comes in," says Herenda. "It's a 2007-2013 programme but I think it'll last longer than that. It addresses the Action Plan's six key areas within its own roadmap which has specific deployment guidelines. So far, 19 sets of guidelines have been produced and validated by Member States. These have their basis in three main policy-oriented objectives: increased interoperability, ensuring seamless access and fostering continuity of services; the setting up of an efficient cooperation mechanism between all ITS stakeholders; and solving policy and liability issues.
"As such, EasyWay reflects not only what's in the Action Plan but also reflects what stakeholders hold to be the main weaknesses of ITS deployment over the last two decades."
Policy, not technology
"EasyWay is an integrated approach to major road [Trans European Road Network/TERN] management, defining a common policy at European level with clear targets for deployment. Its main scope is to improve safety, mobility and environmental impact on European roads by deploying harmonised ITS services for the traveller and haulier."EasyWay is a deployment-oriented programme: the only programme where there is a clear commitment of all European transport ministries, roads authorities, municipalities, road operators and so on. In my eyes, that's its major strength.
"Although we have started some new areas of ITS deployment, such as intelligent and safe truck parking or more lately for the huge cooperative systems task forces where external stakeholders are included from the beginning, the emphasis is on the use of proven technologies. Guidelines which give a grounding to technology and knowledge transfer are the basis for harmonised deployment; technology is almost never the answer to the question of where you want to get to or what you want to achieve."
That emphasis on deployment and on the end-user and deployment is a key differentiator between EasyWay and the technology-focused Euro-Regional Projects (ERPs) which preceded it.
Herenda: "The aim is that EasyWay's guidelines serve as future terms of reference for ITS deployment within the EU and will be continuously updated with the participation of all Member States and in accordance with EasyWay's deployment road map.
"But there is also a continuation of the ERPs in that we have traffic management, freight and logistics, variable message sign harmonisation, data exchange plus a map to harmonised services for the end-user all across Europe.
Mid-term aims
EasyWay has three mid-term goals: to continue the process already started; to include all major stakeholders in order to ensure coordinated moves in the same directions; and to make service deployment more even and move away from the two- or even three-speed system which Europe suffers from at present.Achieving common goals across 22 Member States, each with its own legislative system, is always going to be a complex undertaking. Herenda concedes that it is inevitable that progress be slower than might be hoped for. Fallout from the global economic crisis has also had an effect but he perceives of some more positive signs over the second half of 2009 and into the first few months of this year.
"Some countries have been more severely affected than others and that has led to some rethinks when it comes to investments. There are positives here: more emphasis is being placed on what constitutes best value."
In particular, he thinks that the deployment of cooperative vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle systems may in fact be a catalyst - especially in newer Member States which, typically, exhibit a far lesser level of ITS deployment than EU Member States of longer standing.
"They have a great future ahead of them," he continues. "If we talk of harmonised services and dealing with systems and services of different maturity levels in different countries, then we have to consider whether we choose to fill in the perceived blind spots using existing solutions in order to create a more complete picture and achieve parities. An alternative is to look to fill those blind spots in a different way using newer technological solutions.
"Such exercises in leapfrogging are the sorts of things we really should be discussing when looking to align local, regional and national-level investments with ambitions towards cross-border continuity or service."
Goals and milestones
Global figures for the EasyWay project are not yet fully available but some trends are already discernable.
The deployment of on-trip Traveller Information Services (TIS) and warnings through roadside and onboard systems have reduced accidents by 5 per cent, improved mobility by 6 per cent and brought about CO2 reductions of up to 15 per cent.
Pre-trip TIS displays have a lower impact on safety and congestion (the latter falls by about 2 per cent) but the provision of co-modal information which aims to foster modal shift could lead to a reduction of 2 per cent in CO2 emissions.
Traffic management service deployment within EasyWay has consistently shown significant benefits, reducing congestion, accidents and emissions. The deployment of traffic management plans including cross-border measures has had a major impact on mobility - time savings of up to 80 per cent - when re-routing measures are activated in the case of a major problem.
Dynamic traffic management measures (such as hard shoulder running, dynamic lane management, ramp metering and HGV overtaking bans) have led to significant results on those parts of the network where greater congestion and accident rates are an issue. These include increased capacity (generally about 5 per cent but up to 10 per cent with hard shoulder running) and significant accident reductions (up to 60 per cent).
Speed control, such as variable speed limits and enforcement, when deployed on the TERN, has reduced the number of accidents by 40 per cent and improved traffic flow by 20 per cent.
The EasyWay project
EasyWay is a project for Europe-wide ITS deployment on main TERN corridors driven by national road authorities and operators cooperating with external partners including the automotive industry, telecom operators and public transport stakeholders. It sets clear targets, identifies the set of necessary ITS European services to deploy (traveller information, traffic management, and freight and logistic services) and is an efficient platform that allows European mobility stakeholders to achieve a coordinated and combined deployment of these pan-European services through a voluntary harmonisation process.
EasyWay incorporates all current Euro Regions and facilitates the integration of new Member States and new areas such as the Baltic countries, Greece and Southern Italy. It reinforces the cooperation between the existing participating countries by providing a new integrated framework with clear objectives and reporting.
EasyWay builds on the earlier work done by the European Commission's TEMPO programme (2001-2006), which consisted of seven Euro-Regional Projects (ARTS, CENTRICO, CORVETTE, SERTI, STREETWISE, VIKING and the later CONNECT) which between them looked to improve safety and service quality on the TERN by improving cross-border cooperation and interoperability.
EasyWay concentrates on deployment rather than technological development and has seven key elements: an integrated approach to TERN management; a focus on the deployment of (common) seamless European services; a number of European Studies; enhancement of the evaluation of activities and exchange of best practices; the optimal integration of new Member States and candidate countries; an integrated approach to TERN operation, fostering cooperation between infrastructure and the vehicle, with the involvement of the private sector; upgrades to urban interfaces and support for co-modality; and a comprehensive communication and management mechanism including the EasyWay secretariat.
