This page presents the Highlights of the EIP and EIP+ ITS Platforms published from 2014 to 2016. You may use the table of contents below to skip directly to the highlight of your interest and use the “back to the table of contents” link at the end of each highlight to return to the Table of Contents.
22/12/2014
On the 17th December 2014, the Arc Atlantique partners hosted a tour of an important stretch of the Arc Atlantique corridor on the southern stretch of the M25 in England. Pierpaolo Tona from INEA, the Arc’s project manager saw the newly deployed Variable Speed Limit and Hard Shoulder Running systems which are now being commissioned and brought into operation by the Highways Agency. Following a visit to the roadside, the delegates toured the Regional Traffic Control Centre at Godstone, where the control systems were demonstrated.
Click here to return to the table of contents
04/11/2014
The EIP activities on quality recommendations for safety-related and real-time traffic information services organized a workshop on “Agreement on quality requirements and assessment methods for real-time and safety related traffic information services” in Thessaloniki, Greece on 30 September – 1 October, 2014. The workshop attracted participants also from outside EIP, such as road authorities and operators as well as traffic information service providers as TISA members. The workshop was hosted by Egnati Odos.
The workshop was a success with active discussion. It resulted in the agreement on the criteria for service level and quality for Safety Related Traffic Information (SRTI) and Real Time Traffic & Travel Information (RTTI), i.e. services according to the European Commission ITS Directive’s Priority Actions c) and b), respectively. The workshop produced well-grounded definitions for these key service level and quality criteria, where we have for a long time lacked well-established definitions also approved by practitioners.
The workshop’s other major achievement was to agree on a proposal on European minimum requirements for service level and quality of SRTI and selected RTTI with regard to most relevant criteria. The selected RTTI services were the following:
The minimum quality requirements should be met by all member states. The proposed values are initial target values that will be validated in the future. First discussions with member states outside the EIP will be started followed by the validation activity within the EIP+ project.
The workshop also discussed the quality assurance and quality assessment methods to be used for SRTI and RTTI in Europe. The major conclusion was that instead of methods, we today have at our disposal a collection of practices used by different road authorities and operators or service providers. The challenge was to find enough experiences from the use of these practices in different circumstances and operation environments. Hence, the workshop decided to proceed in selecting a prioritized set of quality assurance or assessment methods and practices based on the partners’ and TISA members’ expertise and experiences. The workshop also named a specific task forced to carry out this work.
It was regarded important to describe to methods and practices in a common way that would facilitate the use of the methods and practices in the intended way throughout Europe. The workshop agreed on a proposal on the framework and template to describe these methods in a user-friendly way, and planned the way forward to provide such descriptions.
The workshop finished with a common session together with EIP activity on Single Point of Access. The focus of the session was on SRTI and single access point quality requirements. The session was a brainstorming session providing an opportunity for open discussion and exchange of ideas and experiences on single access point.
It was pointed out that the national access points in member states have no obligation by European regulation to have any minimum level of quality. The requirements for the organization of the quality assessment of national access point were discussed. The session reached a conclusion that there is a clear need to make a distinction between quality requirements for data and services and the quality requirements for the single access point. The type of the national access point is relevant for the quality assessment procedure (e.g. things applicable to a database are not applicable to a web site). Two types of quality criteria for national access point were identified in the session: 1) performance: exact figures, and 2) confidentiality and integrity. It will be necessary to develop a matrix which will summarise which type of quality criteria will be relevant for each type of national access point.
A certification approach for national access points was also proposed in the session. Certification as defined in the proposal could work for higher level single access points, but it was not considered realistic for thin single access points and small data providers.
03/11/2014
The first CROCODILE workshop addressed the transposition of the EU ITS Directive with regard to the establishment of national bodies, national access points for traffic data and the availability of such data in general. In a World Café, stakeholders from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia and Austria, together with participation of the EC discussed their approaches to these topics. Two discussion rounds took place which means that the workshop participants had the chance to discuss up to two of the topics, however these are interrelated and therefore discussions sometimes crossed thematic borders, being fully in the spirit of the motto “Bridging Boundaries”.
National Body
There was a common sense visible that a national body has to be part of the public administration in order to ensure impartiality and shall be attached to an already existing organisation. There are several candidate organisations and decisions are ongoing. So far it seems to be clear that there has to be a joint national body for all specifications represented by one organisation and it should rather be one national organisation each than a common organisation for several or all EU Member States. ITS associations do not seem to be suitable organisations.
As mentioned above there are different situations in most of the countries concerned, namely regarding the respective organisational and legal framework. In some Member States there already are central collection points for data from public authorities (CZ) and central traffic management and information. Depending on the country there will be a varying number of actors involved, mostly this will comprise motorway operators. Yet the technical and legal skills to run a national body have not been completely defined so far, but they will be developed in the near future like it will be done within the CROCODILE project. Self-assessment in terms of certification might be favourable to control because of monetary reasons.
The discussion revealed open questions and issues that will be dealt with in the coming year:
National Access Point
There are different possibilities for implementing a national access point within the Member States. From the sides of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania it seems most likely that the respective NAPs will be covered by the national road administrations. As for Croatia, the national automobile club will possibly take the role of the NAP.
Current initiatives for NAPs can be seen as a starting point. Their expandability must be agreed upon early on national and cross-border level. In terms of transnational coordination of NAP structures there is the possibility of informal/bilateral vs. official agreements. On the long run of course there have to be official agreements guaranteeing sustainable operation on European level. However in the current starting phase informal or bilateral agreements can be adopted easier and faster and could therefore be the right choice. This matter also depends on the kind of data to be exchanged and on the stakeholders involved.
There has to be a migration strategy that goes beyond single contracts obliging all contractors to forward data to the NAP. In order to ensure that different data contributors will be able to maintain a predefined level of quality proper tools for entering data will be necessary.
The discussion revealed the general understanding that basic NAP implementation is realistic until the end of 2015 as it is expected by the EC and various actions are already taken.
Data Availability
A lot of static and dynamic traffic data is already available however there is still a lack of data exchange within and between the single Member States. Due the splintered responsibilities in the Member States (e.g. different road operators) it is sometimes unclear which data are available from which side and in what level of quality. In some countries traffic data are currently given to the private sector (e.g. TomTom, Garmin, Google), but not properly exchanged among national stakeholders which underlines the fragmented status quo.
The discussion once more revealed the necessity of bilateral agreements between Member States on traffic data which should be exchanged. The workshop participants worked out a first proposal for a minimum set of traffic data which needs to be exchanged between CROCODILE MS (on the TERN), containing the following:
In spite of legislative and organisational differences in the respective countries the discussions unveiled numerous commonalities in past and future activities. Because of this it was possible to agree upon a draft necessary minimum of traffic data every set of transnationally exchanged data will have to contain. It was stated that establishing national bodies and national access points until the end of 2015 is possible and realistic. The project CROCODILE will be an important catalyst in defining the technical and legislative preconditions for the operation of these entities.
23/10/2014
On the 1st and 2nd October 2014, Egnatia Odos hosted a workshop for EIP Act 3.1 – Single Point of Access in Thessaloniki. In order to share results the workshop was scheduled next to the workshop of Act 3.2 and 3.3 on quality criteria and measurement methods.
Partners from Austria, The Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Romania, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, UK and Denmark were present.
In the morning of the 1st of October, after a short introduction the national examples of the approach for a Single Point of Access were presented for The Netherlands and Germany, followed by the results of the questionnaire held during the summer. A lot is still unknown for many partners, they look to other partners for ideas or even guidance.
After a short break a joint summarizing session was held with Act 3.2 and 3.3, followed by presentations and discussions on role of quality in the SPA. It was agreed to set up a matrix with quality criteria for the SPAs, thus allowing the various actors in the value chain to have a clear picture of the quality required/offered. This matrix can also support partners in their efforts to set up quality control for the SPA, it should not become an obligation or even legislation.
The next day Activity 3.1 continued with discussions on harmonization. Much already passed the review, but the DATEX II profiles and metadata were relatively untouched. Three experts were found willing to contribute to a harmonized set of meta data, actions were discussed to coordinate the (need for) definition of DATEX profiles with the DATEX II SG and the planning for the finalization phase was set.
It appears there is still a long road ahead of us, but the inspiring contributions during the workshop and continuous support of all partners should help us get there.
15/10/2014
ITS – Intelligent Transport Systems – have been recognised since long as an important tool to realise local, national and European policy goals for sustainable transport. ITS is being applied for facilitating mobility (making better use of existing infrastructure), improving safety and helping to mitigate environmental impacts and climate change. ITS can improve the performance of infrastructures, quicker, less expensive and with lower or no environmental impact, compared to building new infrastructure. ITS concerns also the use of information and communication technologies in order to improve the performance and the integration of the economic system as a whole. Developing and deploying harmonised ITS solutions for roads and for the interfaces with other modes is considered as one of the most important lines of action to realise sustainable transport across Europe.
From 2007 on, the EasyWay Programme had joined a multitude of key players for harmonised deployment of ITS across Europe. National Ministries and Road Authorities, Road Operators and partners from the private and public sectors of almost all EU Member States and neighbouring countries are deploying ITS Europe-wide in concentrations. The stakeholders from all over Europe are cooperating, exchanging knowledge and best practice, defining and building consensus on harmonisation and roadmaps, implementing harmonised ITS in a concerted way and cooperating on actual cross-border projects.
The EasyWay Programme (2007 – 2020) provide a reference for stakeholders in ITS deployment to develop guidelines for harmonisation, to build consensus, to exchange best practice and disseminate knowledge, to assess impacts of ITS and evaluate European deployment. By the different Project (Study and Works) generated under the EasyWay Programme, ITS deployment were and are accelerated in a harmonised way along Corridors and cross border sections of the TEN T Road noetwork making better use of existing infrastructures, to realise until 2020 ambitious objectives: 25% reduction of congestion, 25% reduction of fatalities and a contribution to the climate protection objectives of 10% less GHG-emissions from traffic.
To reach the above objectives, different Projects, both of studies and works, have been generated and co-funded by the European Commission.
On the EasyWay web Portal (http://www.its-platform.eu/) it’s possible to find the all the Sub-sites of the different Projects as “EasyWay phase I and II” (EWI and II), the “European ITS Platform” (EIP), the “European ITS Platform +” (EIP+) Ursa Major, MedTIS, Crocodile etc…, with all the relevant information.
30/09/2014
Activity 5 within the European ITS Platform project (EIP) build upon the EasyWay ITS Deployment Road Map developed within the EasyWay 2 project, by developing a framework which will contribute to future ITS harmonization and deployment in Europe. The Activity includes the development of an approach balancing voluntary harmonization (e.g. through Deployment Guidelines) with regulatory measures (e.g. ITS Directive specifications) and standards in order to create a solid basis for the roll out of interoperable and continuous ITS services across the EU. This workshop is an important part of this work.
Background
The European Commission initiated the work on the ITS Action Plan and the ITS Directive in order to cope with a situation where a patchwork of national, regional and local solutions led to a slow overall ITS deployment and a lack of seamless services. Stakeholder consultations further concluded that the slow uptake of ITS in Europe to a large extent was due to a lack of a consistent Europe-wide harmonised deployment. The ITS directive actions and the launch of the EasyWay projects shall be seen as measures taken in response to this situation.
The EasyWay project has developed and endorsed Deployment Guidelines concerning a set of core European ITS services. These Deployment Guidelines are used across Europe on a voluntary or contractual basis and constitute thereby a voluntary harmonisation complementary to the legally binding specifications within the framework of the ITS directive and they are also complementary to results from ITS standardisation.
The need for harmonisation will increase as transport becomes more and more international and more and more dependent on a continuous provision of ITS services. ITS services will also be crucial for making the best possible use of existing infrastructure. The EIP project has launched an activity exploring the possibility to develop a “European approach to harmonisation”. This approach will describe how voluntary harmonisation (e.g. through Deployment Guidelines) can balance with regulatory measures like EC ITS Directive Specification and standards in order to create a solid basis for ITS harmonisation which avoids overlaps, causing possible inconsistencies, and unnecessary workload.
By adding this dimension to the development, EIP will contribute to the build-up of a well-functioning innovation system for ITS, supporting different groups of stakeholders in their respective development activity
Workshop content
The workshop will focus on the following questions:
The workshop will include presentations from different groups of stakeholders in ITS deployment (industry, road operators) and ITS harmonisation (CEN standardisation, EasyWay) on the basis of a memorandum launched by EIP Activity 5.
The detailed program and the memorandum will be issued around 11 October.
Who should attend?
As ITS harmonisation concerns a wide range of stakeholders, we think that it is important to open up as well the work in EIP Activity 5 as the workshop for all groups of stakeholders. This means that the workshop is open for participation within the ITS community.
When:
Start: 21 October at 10.15 – 16:00 (registration and coffee from 9.30)
Venue:
EC INEA Offices , Chaussée de Wavre 910
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Contact person: Arne Lindeberg, EIP Activity 5 leader
Swedish Transport Administration See also : http://inea.ec.europa.eu/
03/07/2014
The 24th of June 2014, the members of the EIP Project Supervision held in Rome their first meeting.
The meeting, that lasted from 9.00 a.m to 17.30 p.m, has been divided in two sessions and has also seen the participation of the European Commission (DG MOVE and INEA agency). The meeting was also attended by the following Member States not beneficiaries of the EIP: Austria, France, Denmark and Hungary.
During the morning session, the discussions were focused on the EIP activities and administrative issues. Then, after lunch, the topics were the ones related to the future steps that should be taken. In the specific, discussions regarded the results of the proposals presented during the 2013 Calls for proposals (EIP+ and Corridors), that will be delivered at the beginning of July. the EC explained the future CEF programme and its priorities related to transports.
01/05/2014
Deployment Guidelines – User Support and Helpdesk
TEN-T co-funded, harmonised ITS deployment on corridors is going to start soon. According to EC 2013 ITS Call the use of the DG2012 ITS Deployment Guidelines becomes a mandatory requirement for such deployments. This will create a large user group of the guidelines that will need support when trying to apply the guidelines to their projects and a channel to give feedback from practical application. Therefore a DG Helpdesk and User Support will be implemented during the course of the EIP+ project.
You will find here a briefly summary of the basic elements and characteristics of such a User Support and Helpdesk as they have been adopted during the EIP Program Supervision meeting, 24th June in Rome.
The concept provided is based on the assumption that User Support & Helpdesk and Best Practice (another task in EIP Activity 2) are strongly related, complementary elements in the interaction between the team that creates and maintains the deployment guidelines and the practitioners in the field that actually use the guidelines in their ITS deployment projects. User Support & Helpdesk is essentially the ‘downstream’ tool that enables the ITS deployment projects to effectively and efficiently apply the guidelines. ‘Downstream’ describes the flow of information here, not necessarily the interaction pattern. Indeed most interaction on this information flow will be triggered by users, asking for help and support on issues encountered when applying the guidelines in practice.
On the other hand, Best Practice is the feedback that comes out of user providing practical experience reports on applying the guidelines for harmonised ITS deployment. Some input for Best Practice may in the future also be gained from analysing the User Support & Helpdesk facility, when it is in operation (e.g. by systematically analysing issues in the issue tracker).
The hand in hand work of both sides is visualized in the following figure:
The Helpdesk and User Support act as a first port of call for DG users and provide support for application of the Deployment Guidelines for the operational level by providing clarification where needed. Additionally, references to documents in the website library will be offered and contacts to suitable ITS experts can established. With that said, the aim is to keep the user community proactively informed.
EasyWay Annual Forum 2012 took place in London from 20 to 22 November. It was a unique occasion to look at the achievements made in EasyWay II but also think of new perspectives for the future.
Click here to see the programme of the event.
03/12/2015
General background
In 1994, as part of the Cross Harbour project in Belfast, a Motorway Control System (MCS) was commissioned to inform drivers of prevailing traffic conditions or incidents, and to assist the selection of the correct lane for onward travel (with 5 lanes of traffic this length of the M2 is the widest section of motorway in Northern Ireland). The original design included eight gantry mounted rotating prism variable message signs (RPVMS) with the dual functionality of Advanced Directional Signage and alternative legends advising of the closure of the M3 Lagan Bridge.
The RPVMS were approaching the end of their economic life and their reliability was inconsistent. Following a stakeholder’s workshop (including TransportNI, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Road Operator) a preferred option for replacement of the existing signs with new MS4 technology was identified.
Project description
The project was tendered in November 2013 on the basis of the design, procurement and technical approval of eight portal-gantry mounted MS4s (8×12).
Following the structural survey of the existing gantries, work began to remove the obsolete VMS along the M2 & M3 Motorways in April 2014, with the retrofitting of the new MS4s and access platform assemblies being completed by the end of June 2014.
To minimise downtime of the MCS, the sites were carefully sequenced with night road closures only. The entire assembly (signs and platforms) were lifted and fitted into position as an integral unit to minimise work at each gantry.
The new signs enable the proactive management of traffic along this strategic section of the motorway network with improved responsiveness. The whole-life costs of maintaining the new signs in comparison to the old RPVMS technology, creates significant long-term savings. The MS4s have the capability of displaying pictograms and EMI aspects along with text messages generated at the instation.
13/11/2015
The final programme of the EIP+ FORUM is now available.
Click here to download it!
We also remind you that the online registration tool will not be available after the 18th November 2015.
So, please have in mind that, after this date, only on-site registration will be possible.
In order to have further details regarding the EIP+ FORUM you can click here. (HL 07/05/2015)
We hope to see you in Rome!
18/10/2015
After a lot of ITS deployments it it important to evaluate the impact on traffic of these deployed ITS services. To obtain this information it has been initiated a project dealing with the calculation of vehicle lost hours.
The project objective was to obtain vehicle lost hours for both:
• Real time in main road network and corridor (namely the Arc Atlantique corridor)
• Historic vehicle lost hours in most of the road network management by Basque Goverment
The purpose is also double:
• To have a better knowledge of the traffic situation
• To measure how traffic management are impacting traffic congestions
Vehicle lost hours are obtained from aggregation of:
• Vehicle speeds
• Traffic intensity In order to have information on the first parameter (vehicles speeds) have been contracted information provided by TomTom in the road network operated by Basque Government.
This means that:
• real time vehicle speeds around 300 kms of the main corridors are provided and
• historing vehicle speeds for more than 3.000 kms of whole road network
Loops detectors and other ITS road infrastructure equipments are used for obtaining traffic intensity (number of vehicles per hour). The aggregation of this parameter together the information on vehicles speed allows to have information on vehicle lost hours and then a very useful parameter to know the traffic congestions in the roads and how well traffic management measures are used.
The above picture is one example of information obtained. The horizontal axis is the distance from French border (in the left) and the end of a main road management by Basque Goverment (at the right of the picture). The total length of this corridor is 153 kms.
The direction of the traffic is from French border to South (from left to right in the picture).
The vertical axis shows the time evolution every 30 minutes from up to down in the picture. In any case this is an agregation of the results as the vehicle speed are provided every 2 minutes.
Colors are from draft red wich means vehicle stopped until green whcih means not congestion at all.
The initial data collection started (in this case) at 4:00 am on 2nd August 2014 (Saturday) and it is possible to have the following conclussions:
• Traffic problems (congestions) already started at 4:00 am in the French border heading South (to Spain, Portugal or North of Africa).
• The main congestion point (in red color) is placed in the border between countries and they are related to the tolling areas.
• There are other congestion areas related mainly to toll areas and junctions between main motorways or corridors where road is changing from more to less number of lanes per direction.
• The information on vehicle speeds provided by probe vehicle data is not enough and it needs to be merged with information coming from infrastructure traffic intensity dectectors.
After 10 hours of congestions (red color) in the left side of the picture (French-Spanish border) the congestions is disappearing due to reduction of amount of vehicles heading South.
Just for this day (2nd August 2014) a total of 13.700 vehicle lost hours was obtained. This means an average of 20 minutes per vehicle.
The results of the tools shown there is room for coordinated French-Spanish traffic management measures.
08/10/2015
EIP+ Activity 3.2
Harmonized concept of Single Point of Access for RTTI
EIP+ SPA Workshop
On 24 September 2015 a successful SPA Workshop took place in Bucharest about harmonization in the field of Single Points of Access (SPA) for Real-time Traffic Information (RTTI – priority action B). With 34 people from 12 different Member States this SPA workshop received high attention. The workshop covered three topics:
Click here to read the detailed minutes including link to all presentations.
I thank all participants and speakers for their active role in bringing questions and answers together.
Follow-up : a technical Workshop Metadata
During the lively presentation of Martin Böhm who went in detail through the “SPA Coordinated Metadata Catalogue”, it appeared that there is a strong interest in a follow-up of this SPA Workshop. All participants agreed that this metadata catalogue is of great value for all SPA’s. Therefor we will organize a technical Metadata Workshop on 23 October 2015 at Schiphol. For more information see highlight ‘Workshop Metadata’.
Please feel free to forward this highlight to persons you know that will be interested as well.
I look forward to your response which brings us all a step forward in setting up harmonized access points.
Kind regards,
Louis Hendriks MSc – Leader of EIP+ -Activity 32 – Harmonized concept of “Single Point of Access” for RTTI
Contact person: Louis Hendriks (RWS)
07/10/2015
05/10/2015
The ITS projects selected under the 2013 TEN-T Calls for Proposal are highlighted with a special publication at the European Commission and the Innovation & Network Executive Agency (INEA) booth at the ITS World Congress in Bordeaux. In the morning of the first day the newly selected CEF ITS projects received from Commissioner Bulc a symbolic check representing the EU funding made available to them. Read the full acceptance speech by Stephanie Kleine on behalf of the ITS corridor coordinators and the consortia they represent:
Dear Commissioner Bulc,
It is a great honour for us to receive from you in person this symbolic cheque, representing the EU funding made available to the newly selected CEF ITS projects. The substantial amount gives evidence to the confidence the European Commission places into the work of European road authorities and road operators. We take pride in this trust and we would like to express our gratefulness for this appreciation.
The Beneficiaries and Implementing Bodies working in the ITS corridors have proven their valuable experience in numerous ITS deployment projects in the past and will continue to do so.
The European co-funding of our ITS deployments has always played an important role for us. It enables us to harmonise national deployment of ITS systems and services in order to accommodate the requirements of seamless, cross-border services for European citizens.
Without your strong support, intelligent transport systems in Europe would provide a much more scattered, national landscape with significantly less impact on our prime transport policy objectives (Safety, efficiency and reduced environmental impact).
The implementation of the ITS Directive and its subsequent Delegated Regulations – directly addressing harmonised ITS services – will help as further steps towards these goals.
The transport infrastructure itself has been harmonised throughout Europe and the TEN-T network to a large extent. Signs, rules, direction advice, road types now allow seamless mobility across the border. ITS systems and service have to follow. The intelligent vehicle cannot work on its own; it requires the support from intelligent infrastructure
Well informed transport users experience safer and faster mobility on European roads, causing less environmental impact. Well prepared and well equipped road operators can manage traffic more efficiently, keep traffic going and make journeys more reliable. We are confident to make a huge step into this direction with the ITS deployment projects represented here at the stand today.
So dear Commissioner, on behalf of all project coordinators and from all the consortia we represent, thanks again for your trust and support, and be assured that the funding will contribute to future-proof deployment of ITS on the European road network.
18/09/2015
“The Single Point of Access (SPA) is an intermediary digital platform and it is part of 3 Delegated Regulations following priority actions B, C and E of the EU ITS Directive 2010/40/EU. One of the main function of a SPA is providing information about existing traffic relevant data to every interested person or company. A detailed and standardized dataset description – the so-called METADATA – is needed to create a searchable, easy manageable and high quality register.”
This is the introduction of the final draft version of the “SPA Metadata Catalogue”, agreed by the SPA responsible persons from Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. This Metadata Catalogue is a result of dense discussions between the three countries mentioned which have the plan to use this Metadata Catalogue as basis for the implementation of the National Access Point as foreseen in Delegated Regulations 885/2013, 886/2013 and 2015/962.
This Metadata Catalogue is of interest for Member State representatives, SPA responsible persons and Member State ITS-experts and your feedback will be highly appreciated!
Timeline
In 2015 several meetings where organized where the item ‘SPA – Metadata’ was discussed.
The follow-up of the SPA Workshop will be a technical Workshop Metadata on October 23. I invite you all to participate. However, you can only participate if you come prepared. Find enclosed the ‘SPA Coordinated Metadata Catalogue’ for preparation and please send your comments, suggestions and/or questions well in time before this workshop, such that your points can be put on the agenda for discussion.
Workshop Metadata
Date: Friday 23 October 2015
Location: Schiphol Airport (NL)
Registration and Input on metadata: mail to Martin Boehm (Austriatech) and Louis Hendriks (RWS) ultimately 16 October 2015.
Please feel free to forward this information to persons you know that will be interested as well.
Click here to enjoy reading the “SPA Metadata Catalogue”. Click here for a presentation about Metadata.
We look forward to your response.
Dr. Jens Ansorge – Task leader ‘Metadata’
17/09/2015
In France, the A31 motorway liaises the Metz-Nancy area to Luxembourg. With heavy local, national and international traffics, traffic efficiency, safety and pollutant emission are high stakes. Therefore DIT (the Direction des infrastructures de transports) of the French Ministry in charge of transport, via its local road operator, the DIR Est (Direction interdépartementale des routes Est), decided to deploy variable speed limits on 26 km of A31 within the Arc Atlantic framework.
A few figures: 26 km with variable speed limits, 6,9 M€, including 1,4v M€ of European funds, 80 000 vehicles per day,45% of time with traffic difficulties.
As the local road operator for DIT (the Direction des infrastructures de transports) of the French Ministry in charge of transport, the DIR Est (Direction interdépartementale des routes Est) has in charge the toll-free national road network of the “Sillon Lorrain” area, i.e. the Metz – Nancy area. DIR Est has developed a dedicated traffic management system, called Myrabel, covering 756 km of the Sillon Lorrain network.
The second stage of the Myrabel extension focuses on 240 km with the objective to improve the network efficiency and the daily mobility. This extension includes dynamic measures, one of these being the variable speed limits on A31.
The A31 section between the A30 and the French / Luxembourg border (26 km) supports both transit and local urban / peri-urban flows that lead to heavy traffics, including high commutting traffic towards Luxembourg. Therefore traffic efficiency and safety are high stakes on this congested highway.
In response, the variable speed limits measure is deployed in order to:
– improve traffic conditions: increase in flows, decrease in congestion and travel times,
– improve safety: more homogeneous speeds, decrease in accident and in seriousness,
– decrease pollutant emission.
An a priori evaluation has been conducted in 2011 by the Cerema. Based on modelling, it assessed traffic, safety and environmental impacts and confirmed the socio-economic benefits of the measure.
In the field, the variable speed limit measure leads to equipement deployments :
– for traffic measure and monitoring : 23 traffic sensors (loops and magnetometers) and 14 CCTV cameras,
– for communication toward drivers : 25 variable message signs, on the shoulder or on gantries above the lanes.
In addition to in-the-field deployment, the measure requires the traffic management system to evolve. The new algorithm integrates three parts: congestion prevention (before congestion appears), end-of-queue protection (in case of congestion) and event protection (e.g. vehicle breakdown). A spatial and temporal harmonisation ensures that the final speed limits respect the legal framework and is still consistent from the user point of view.
A first section (5km south to Thionville) was put into service at the end of 2013. An evaluation was conducted by DIR Est in 2014. It focused on the system technical reliability and on the traffic management centre operating. It resulted in the algorithm improvement for the other sections deployments. The global measure will be put into service in 2015, and should provide first evaluation results in 2016.
16/09/2015
Highway AG-64 is located in Galicia, northwestern Spain, running between cities of Ferrol (La Coruña) and Vilalba (Lugo) with a length of 64 km, connecting Ferrol-Terra area to highway A-8, making possible both the access to A-6 highway (Madrid-La Coruña) and to Cantabric Highway which runs parallel to the north coast of Spain.
It is also remarkable that AG-64 Highway allows the connection to Ferrol Harbor, one of the most important in Spain (Shipping Yard and Container Terminal), as well as to Thermal Power Plant As Pontes, becoming the link of these two strategical points related to energy in particular and to economy in general.
Within the highway there are several key points regarding traffic management in bad weather conditions, situations which impact directly not only in road safety but also causing abnormal congestions.
The volume of registered traffic in a day reaches 12,000 veh/day with a peak of 1,000 vehicles per hour. HGV percentage is really important, 17% average, mainly due to access to Ferrol Harbour.
Due to the importance of improving road management between A-6 and A-8 highways and the requirement of reducing potential traffic situations of risk, deployment of new Intelligent Transport Systems in AG-64 highway was defined as one of the main projects in DGT traffic management strategy.
It must be mentioned that with this deployment the close of “communications ring” on the Traffic Control Center in Northwest of Spain (located in La Coruña) was closed and achieved.
The Objectives established were:
The project includes deployment of weather and traffic monitoring systems, traffic management systems including mean-speed controls and road safety variable message equipment to avoid rear-end collisions into heavy vehicles.
Main equipment is listed below:
The deployment of all systems, which began in 2013, ended up successfully in December 2014. As a result of the deployment of all this equipment the amount of accidents registered until the 30th June 2015 has decreased in 25% comparing to data of 2014.
Total investment of all ITS´ deployment reached the amount of 1851 k€
15/09/2015
On 14 of July 2014 the new peak hour lane on the E19 Antwerpen-Breda between Kleine Bareel and St-Job-in’t-Goor was opened. It means that the formal hard shoulder is transformed into a vehicle lane by means of dynamic lane management. The peak hour lane is opened on working days between 14.00h and 20.00h. On Friday it opens already at 12.00h.r
In the past every evening there was congestion on the E19 between the Antwerp ring road and the exit St-Job-in’t- Goor in the direction of the Netherlands. There was also a spill back of the congestion on the Antwerp ring road. By consequence the traffic on the Antwerp motorway ring road to the harbour of Antwerp was disturbed. By implementing an additional permanent lane between the ring road and the exit Kleine Bareel and by transforming the hard shoulder into a peak hour lane between Kleien Bareel and Sint-Job-in’t-Goor this congestion problem should be resolved.
One additional lane was added to the E19 starting from the Antwerp ring road till Kleine Bareel in the direction of Breda. From Kleine Bareel the hard shoulder was transferred into a peak hour lane till SInt-Job-in’t-Goor. VMS were implemented above the lanes. The VMS are used to open and close the lane (green arrow versus red corss). The VMS also allow harmonising speed on this section. Additionally CCTV are installed along the whole section. The CCTV allows the traffic operator to check prior to opening the lane if vehicles or objects are present on the lane (in that case the lane remains closed).
The M25 is one of Europe’s busiest motorways, handling around 200,000 vehicles every day. It is at the core of our network and is suffering from increasing congestion levels and journey times. Various options to improve the traffic flow from junctions 5 to 7 were considered and the implementation of Smart Motorways All Lane Running scheme was commenced in 2013.
The improvement in the reliability of journey times, whilst maintaining safety is the main objective of this scheme. Additional benefits include the reduction of, traffic collisionsand, noise and vehicle emmissions as well as providing a boost for businesses and the economy. This section of the M25 between junctions 5 and 7 is now running as a “smart” motorway. Smart motorways help relieve congestion by converting the hard shoulder to a running lane and using technology to monitor traffic flow and vary the mandatory speed limits to keep traffic moving smoothly.
This twelve mile section of the M25 on the Kent/Surrey border is a new style of ‘smart motorway’ where pioneering technology and use of the hard shoulder as a permanent running lane combine to reduce congestion and ease traffic flow. Smart motorways enables proactive management of the carriageway, including slip roads, deliver additional road capacity more quickly and at less cost than traditional road widening schemes, while remaining at least as safe.
The new infrastructure and technology that has been added between junctions 5 and 7 includes:
Work to convert this section of motorway to smart motorway began in May 2013 following the completion of the central barrier upgrade. Three lanes were kept open in both directions at peak times using narrow lanes.
New technology was installed on the road to provide drivers with safe and reliable journeys. This includes infra-red CCTV, being used for the first time by Highways England, to enable staff in the control centres to have increased visibility of the network and reduce the response time to incidents.
11/08/2015
The Southern part of Belgium, the Ardenne region is well-known for its romantic hills and forests. In winter, heavy snow falls occur sometimes and cause severe traffic problems. Long trailer trucks, get stuck in the snow when driving up the hills, followed by others, that try to overtake and skid. The consequences are that winter maintenance vehicles are prevented to reach the spots of intervention and that motorways are completely blocked.
In order to face these situations, Walloon authorities have decided to implement specific measures in order to strengthen internal cooperation between Road Administration, Police and Crisis Centre as well as to develop collaboration with neighbouring regions.
The “Plan Neige” relies on a traffic ban for HGV over 13 meters. The strategy consists first in allowing them to continue their journey on alternative routes, staying on the main network and when weather conditions are becoming very severe, in stopping them in predefined areas. Mobile equipment is especially used for this purpose.
31/07/2015
The partners involved in the EIP+ activity on Cooperative ITS services have met on 17.06.2015 in Frankfurt. The meeting was hosted by Hessen Mobil.
Main purposes of the meeting were to check the progress of the different tasks of the activity and to plan the work of the upcoming months. Alongside the meeting the colleagues of Hessen Mobil demonstrated work in progress related to the Road Works Warning service in the Cooperative ITS Corridor.
13/07/2015
Dear EIP+ Beneficiaries and followers,
In the context of two EIP+ activities:
3.2. Single Access Point for Real time traffic information (ITS Directive b)
4.2. New and improved monitoring technologies,
We would like to invite you to a common workshop that we are organizing in Bucharest on 23 – 24 September 2015.
The main objectives of the workshop are to present the preliminary results of the two activities and to gather feedback that will feed the final reports on these two subject.
Please, fix the date in your calendar and register for the workshop by filling in the attached form and sending it to Mihai Niculescu. Participation is free of charge, but the room is limited to 60 people which will be selected on the first come, first served principle.
This workshop and subsequent outcomes / actions will be highly relevant for the recommendations that will be made in the final EIP+ report end of 2015. Therefore we would value and be grateful for your participation.
Louis Hendriks – Leader of EIP+ activity 3.2 ‘SPA for RTTI’
Florin Nemtanu – Leader of EIP+ activity 4.2 ‘New monitoring technologies’
Please, click here to see the agenda of the Workshop, and here to have some logistic information
07/07/2015
Based on the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – signed in the course of CROCODILE between AT-IT-HU-SI-HR – numerous coordination meetings between neighbouring countries took place in the first half of 2015. As the project CROCODILE is an important catalyst in defining the technical and legislative preconditions for cross-border data exchange, the coordination meetings have focussed on the cooperation in terms of traffic management and traffic information exchange.
A crucial supporting element is the DATEX II “profile” that has been developed in the course of CROCODILE, which all partners are obliged to implement within their own system. It can be seen as a middleware specification for selecting and prioritising common data elements and consequently provides a harmonised approach for exchanging traffic data between CROCODILE Member States. In the end all partners have to comply with the CROCODILE middleware specification.
The CROCODILE middleware itself will meet DATEX II modelling Layer ‘A’ requirements where no further extension on data level will be required. In a first step the focus is on priority action c (road safety related data) and priority action e (intelligent truck parking) of the ITS Directive.
The final document describing the CROCODILE DATEX II solution “Definition of traffic data availability and data exchange in CRODOILE (based on DATEX II)” is available here.
The first traffic data exchange between single neighbouring countries will start in the second half of 2015.
30/06/2015
On 24th June 2015 the Project Supervision of the EIP+ held its 2nd and intermediate meeting in Rome at the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport premises.
The aim of the meeting was to update all the Beneficiary representatives, as well as DG MOVE and INEA, on the global status of the project and the progress of all the activities/sub-activities.
The meeting has been an important occasion to perform exchanges of experiences between the projects partners and with the EC representatives.
The next Project Supervision meeting of the EIP project will be held on 19 April 2016. This will be the occasion for gather the final results of the EIP+.
15/06/2015
On 3rd June 2015 Arc Atlantique evaluation team held its 1st meeting in Lisbon in order to elaborate the evaluation plan of the project.
This plan is based on the results of the evaluation working group of the European ITS platform (EIP+) and uses the proposed common KPIs for ITS deployments.
15/05/2015
Context
For many years, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and core European ITS services have represented a major implementation objective of the road operators collaborating within the EasyWay community. The technological progress in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has technically matured into Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) as the next generation of ITS. Its use has also become increasingly affordable. This process has been stimulated by research and development projects, followed by large scale Field Operational Tests on national and European level. Based on a common definition of standardisation organisations (ISO, CEN, ETSI), Cooperative Intelligent Transport System (C-ITS) are defined as a subset of the overall ITS that communicates and shares information between ITS Stations (ITS-Ss) to give advice or take actions with the objective of improving safety, sustainability, efficiency and comfort beyond the scope of stand-alone ITS. C-ITS thus represents a next logical step to improve the quality and reliability of core European ITS services.
Vision
Our vision is to establish Cooperative ITS as a core element of future ITS Services amongst road operators in their developing role as key actors in an emerging information and communication network of vehicles, infrastructure and transport users. This engagement is directed to support the improvement of operational processes to make the most out of the infrastructure, to create value for customers and market partners and to help fulfil the mobility demand of both people and goods in a safe, efficient, reliable and sustainable manner. In support of our vision we advise, based on our knowledge and expertise, amongst others inherited from the EasyWay Cooperative Systems Task Force, to aid strategic planning and decision making in support of Cooperative ITS deployment on the TEN-T core network of roads. Our advice is mostly but not exclusively addressed
Mission
While the vision reaches beyond the year 2020, the mission to accomplish it is from an EIP+ perspective and therefore limited to the lifetime of the EIP+ study (December 2015). It is likely that future outputs from follow-up activities, that may also be supported under the Connecting Europe Facility (2014-2020), will assist in achieving the vision. From the EIP+ perspective the current mission comprises the elements (tasks) as referred to in the European Commission’s decision concerning granting financial aid to EIP+ and the annexes of this decision (C(2014) 9248 final, Brussels, 05.12.2014):
These elements provide input to two deliverables
Involved Partners
BASt (Germany, coordination), SINA (Italy), Rijkswaterstaat (Netherlands), Finnish Transport Agency (Finland), Swedish Transport Administration (Sweden), Highways Agency (UK), ITS Romania (Romania), ELSOL (Romania), Egnatia Odos (Greece), Hessen Mobil (Germany), ASFA (France), DGT (Spain)
Contacts
Activity coordinator: Torsten Geissler
Contact person appointed for C-ITS Platform: Risto Kulmala
EIP+ project manager: Alessandro Javicoli
12/05/2015
The A21 Workshop objective on 16th April 2015 was to inform and prepare the EIP+ ITS Deployment Guideline Team for the peak working period that lies ahead in EIP+ Activity 2.1 . In preparation of the meeting feedback from the five ITS implementation corridor was collected which Deployment Guidelines will be applied in the particular corridor ITS implementations. On the basis of this input an important outline about the upcoming work could be discussed and gained.
The last details for the EIP+ DG Questionnaire were discussed and agreed. The activity lead team got all decisions needed to finalise the questionnaire in the next weeks. Futhermore DG coordinators and DG experts discussed with the DG overall coordination the help desk processes and response times to be prepared for the expected usage of the DG Help Desk and User support as soon as the EIP+ DG questionnaire will be available mid of May.
Beside this the internal workshop provided as well a good opportunity for DG coordinator or DG expert newcomers in the team to catch up with the DG history and work done so far in the DG team.
The dissemination tools of the EW website, sub-site Deployment Guidelines, as DG library, DG forum, DG Help desk and the ticketing service are in place and ready to use. They were explained and the needed background processes in the team established to ensure a proper usage for the future.
The DG team discussed the need to incorporate the needed changes in the DGs, part A in accordance to the new EC delegated regulation 885/2013 and 886/2013. The DG coordinators will use the time until the next A21 meeting, 10th of September, to analyse their DGs with respect to changes required in accordance to the delegated regulations.
08/05/2015
07/05/2015
Promoted by 23 EU Member States, with 2 other European Countries and the Operators of the TEN T Road Network, the “EIP+ Forum” will be held in Rome on 26/27 November 2015.
The European ITS Platform+ operates in a coordinated way under the supervision of the European Commission Innovation & Networks Executive Agency (EC INEA) and through policy direction from the Directorate General for Mobility and Transport (EC DG MOVE).
The establishment of the European ITS Platform+ facilitates the ITS Policy level cooperation of Member States particularly with regard to the priority actions and priority areas of the ITS Directive 2010/40/EU and its Delegated Regulations.
Moreover, the EIP+ contributes to ensure harmonised and interoperable deployment of ITS on the TEN-T road network especially via a well-established links to the Member State Corridor deployment projects as: Arc Atlantique, Crocodile, MedTIS, NEXT-ITS and Ursa Major.
The Forum will have an international dimension, bringing together European and National Decision Makers, key staff from Public and Private roads operators, stakeholders and experts thus fostering the exchange of best practices and creating an important room for discussion and debate around efficient ITS solutions for European road transportation and multimodal mobility.
The event, that will be organized in two days, with a plenary and parallel technical sessions, will be the occasion to gather and present the results achieved by the EIP+ project as well as the results and outputs coming from the different ITS Road Corridors projects co-funded within the EC 2013 ITS Call.
Take note to not lose the occasion to join this important event!
REGISTRATION
Please be aware that the end of the second slot of registration is ending. So, register as soon as possible in order to benefit of the reduced registration fee as reported here after:
(the registration fee includes the access to the Forum, food and beverage during the event and the Gala dinner).
Click here to proceed with the Registration.
Here after the scheme of the Forum:
THE VENUE
The Forum will take place, in the meeting centre “Roma eventi – Piazza di Spagna”, (address: via Alibert 5), a magnificent location in the heart of Rome, a few steps from the famous Piazza di Spagna.
The Gala dinner will be organized in the near “Palazzo Colonna – Galleria del Cardinale”, (address: Via della Pilotta, 17 A).
06/05/2015
The NEXT-ITS Evaluation group had a work group meeting the 27th-28th of April in Bremen. The meeting focused on the NEXT-ITS Evaluation, approach, deployment KPIs, impacts KPIs and the next steps ahead.
The NEXT-ITS Evaluation plan outlines two approaches for the evaluation process, ex-ante expert evaluation and ex-post evaluation. The ex-post evaluation is not possible within the timeframe of the project since the majority of the measures deployed will be in operation or up and running in the very end of the project, i.e. end of 2015 and thus the measures will not have time to generate impacts i.e. to influence the impact KPIs.
The group had received some very helpful comments, among others from the EC. These comments were discussed and will be taken on board in the further evaluation process and in writing of the evaluation report.
The meeting decided on a time plan for collection of the data and statistics needed for the evaluation, discussed methods on calculating benefits and set the goal to aim for an early draft of the evaluation plan to be ready end of September to enable EIP+ to get some input on first results.
The partners involved in the EIP+ activity on Cooperative ITS services have met on 18.03.2015 in Brussels. The meeting was hosted by Rijkswaterstaat in its Office for European Programmes.
The meeting took advantage of the Brussels location to exchange information with the European Commission (DG MOVE ITS Unit and INEA) on expectations towards the activity and the collaboration process with the EC Cooperative ITS Deployment Platform.
The proposals for Cooperative ITS corridor pilots submitted for CEF co-funding (NordicWay, UK corridor London-Dover) were presented. The partners also reviewed the memo on vision and mission of the activity. Moreover, the status of the tasks serving as input to the EIP+ White Paper on Cooperative ITS was monitored and next steps towards the White Paper were agreed.
23/04/2015
Datex II User Forum 2014 in Prague
Experience in DATEX II ITP profile implementation – ITP project A9 Munich-Nuremberg, by Jürgen Neugebauer, Germany
Youtube video here (22 min )
For additional information on the usage of DATEX II in the field of Intelligent Truck Parking you can follow this Blog.
22/04/2015
Since the 3rd of February 2015, the new Lane Control System near Limburg is in operation. The system is able to reduce the risk of congestion on the motorway A3 between Limburg and the border of Rheinland-Pfalz significantly. In case of high traffic, the hard shoulder will be enabled in order to increase capacity. Through an intelligent traffic control, the system reduces congestion, accidents and exhaust gas pollution and therefore relieves the environment as well. This contributes to a more efficient use of road network without additional infrastructure investment.
The motorway A3 connects the Rhein-Main region with the Cologne area. In the area of North-Limburg, there is a high risk of congestion and accidents, because of the long sloped stretch of roadway (Elzner Berg). Therefore, inductive loops have been installed on an eight kilometers road section in order to collect traffic data. 20 VMS indicate speed restrictions, overtaking bans for trucks and congestion warnings depending on the current situation. In the North direction of the section, the temporary use of hard shoulder can be enabled.
The traffic management center of Hessen, located in Frankfurt, is responsible for the lane control systems that already exist on around 250 Kilometers of motorway. Although the traffic volume has increased the level of congestion has decreased significantly since the launch of the new system.
Further information is available on www.mobil.hessen.de.
03/04/2015
The second CROCODILE workshop took place on the 18th and 19th of February in Warsaw and was focused on organisational issues (such as setting up MoUs) as well as on technical issues for data exchange related to the EU ITS Directive. Participants from several CROCODILE Member States together with representatives from the DATEX II Strategic Group discussed their approaches to these topics.
The first day of the workshop concentrated on available data in the CROCODILE Member States. It seems that a lot of static and dynamic traffic data is already available in the single Member States. But due to the splintered responsibilities in some countries (e.g. different road operators) it is sometimes unclear which data are available from which side and in what level of quality. In some countries traffic data are currently made available to the private sector (e.g. TomTom), but not properly exchanged among national stakeholders which underlines the fragmented status quo. In addition the interpretation due to different wording (e.g. “short-term” road works) is sometimes difficult and therefore decisions have to be taken.
The discussion once more revealed the necessity of bilateral agreements between Member States on traffic data which should be exchanged. The first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – signed in the course of CROCODILE – between AT-IT-HU-SI-HR can be seen as a starting point for cross-border data exchange between MS. The project CROCODILE is therefore an important catalyst in defining the technical and legislative preconditions for the operation of these entities.
The second day was focused on the role of DATEX II within CROCODILE. Bard de Vries, as chair of the DATEX II Strategic Group, presented the current status of DATEX II and the possibilities for a Common DATEX II profile for CROCODILE. Currently the CROCODILE Member States are on a different level, but none has a final solution for cross-border data exchange up to now. Therefore the participants of the workshop decided to sit together in the upcoming weeks to work on a common CROCODILE DATEX II profile. Five technical experts with the support of AustriaTech will prepare a first concept which will be presented during the upcoming Steering Committee meeting in April.
18/03/2015
The partners involved in the EIP+ activity on Cooperative ITS services have met on 12.01.2015 at BASt in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. The activity brings together road authorities’ and road operators’ experts from ten EU Member States involved in various stages towards deployment of Cooperative ITS. It continues the fruitful work of the Cooperative Systems Task Force from EasyWay phase 2 (2010-12). The overarching activity goal is to prepare a C-ITS deployment road map for road authorities and operators including the mechanism for producing C-ITS deployment guidelines.
Besides organising the work within the activity the meeting has informed about the status of European scale activities in support of coordinating deployment of Cooperative ITS services (Amsterdam Group, EC C-ITS Deployment Platform). These presentations have been complemented with information on plans and status of initial deployment initiatives within and between Member States (Cooperative ITS Corridor [NL-DE-AT], SCOOP@F [FR], Nordic Way [FI, SE, NO, DK]). In addition, the initiatives and steps towards deployment in the USA have been featured.
06/03/2015
The meeting of the EIP+ subactivity 3.1 Testing and Validating of the Quality Recommendations and Results for Traffic Information from EIP” was hosted by the Danish Road Directorate in Copenhagen. The meeting discussed and elaborated on the test plan for the validations of the quality criteria, requirements and assessment methods produced by EIP. The tests will be carried out in Finland, Denmark, England, Germany, Sweden, Romania and Greece with support from the Netherlands. The tests are planned to be completed in August 2015. The results are to be reported using a template agreed upon at the Copenhagen meeting.
20/02/2015
Overview
The workshop had been split into two separate days, following the agenda below. Day 1 mainly addressed road operators’ experiences and their particular point of view, whereas the second day focused on truck drivers’ and service providers’ needs and proposals.
Different automatic truck detection systems were presented which are currently deployed on the URSA MAJOR network as well as in other environments (e.g. port areas). This operator focussed topic addressed aspects like measurement accuracy and calibration requirements. Furthermore, the workshop informed about and discussed the data profiles for ITP needed to implement EU regulation 885/13. The discussion clearly indicated a need for a follow-up workshop on this special topic for UMC partners as well as other relevant stakeholders (truck parking area operators and end user service providers) to elaborate on the practical application of the DATEX II parking model and truck parking profile (draftCEN/TS 16157-6) in the light of EU Delegated Regulation (EU) 885/2013, also addressing the practical implications of publishing data via National single access points.
40 participants benefited from a rich exchange of information. The relevance of the workshop has been convincingly demonstrated by the fact that number of external guests dominated the attendance of URSA MAJOR partners, with truck parking service providers, App developers and suppliers of intelligent truck parking systems and components all well represented. This mix stimulated the discussions and raised awareness of other stakeholders in the service chain and their particular needs and constraints. All these requirements are relevant and all stakeholders need to cooperate to eventually provide high quality and seamless truck parking information services to the freight community.
The conclusion of the workshop can be downloaded here.
Agenda
Day 1 (25 March 2015)
Day 2 (26 March 2015)
ContactFor any additional information and details please contact Stefanie Kleine, URSA MAJOR Coordinator
Since 12th of January 2015 the new network management and control system for the metropolitan area Rhein-Neckar is in operation. With the new system congestions can be reduced effectively on highly stressed motorway sections by offering a powerful network of alternative routes.
There are 12 Variable-Message Signs at six locations in the Mannheim Heidelberg-Weinheim/Viernheim motorway network. In case of incidents the system informs road users about rerouting recommendations on the motorway junction of the A5 – A 6 – A 656 and A 659.
Because of the redirection on congestion free routes the system reduces travel time losses, noise and exhaust gas pollution.
The display panels consist of a static part and a freely programmable display area in LED technology. The static part shows direction arrows and if available the distance indication in black on a white background. The motorway / main road number is represented according to the static blue signs in blue or yellow on a white background.
For the chosen direction on the LED display surface can be displayed the following:
The traffic management center of Baden-Württemberg is responsible for the control of the network management and control system. Necessary data are collected from inductive loops in order to redirect traffic only to capable alternative routes.
In addition to displaying “Stau” (congestion) and “Baustelle” (road works), road users will be informed about reasons and exact positions of incidents in real time.
The system is coordinated with the traffic management center in Hessen and Rheinland-Pfalz. Therefore, with direction Baden-Württemberg, rerouting recommendations are available with passing the motorway interchanges Darmstadt (A 5 und A 67) and Frankenthal (A61 and A6).
Further information in English, German and French are available on http://www.svz-bw.de. For mobile devices please use http://m.svz-bw.de.
16/02/2015
The European Commission has adopted on December 18th 2014 the set of specifications for priority action B under the ITS Directive, namely the Delegated Regulation on the provision of EU-wide Real-Time Traffic Information (RTTI) services. The news release is available on the web
Real-time traffic information services aim to provide road users with accurate and up-to-date information related to their journeys. This can include information about the road network, traffic regulations (such as speed limits and access restrictions), officially recommended alternative routes, expected delays and estimated travel times, information about accidents, road works and road closures, warnings about weather conditions and any other relevant information (e.g. information about road tolls and availability and cost of parking places at the destination).
Real-Time Traffic Information can be delivered to drivers through various channels, such as variable message signs, variable speed limits, radio traffic message channels, smartphones, navigation devices, etc
To improve the interoperability of the data, the specifications require that road status and traffic data are made accessible via national access points in a standardised format. The specifications also establish rules on data updates including timeliness of these updates.
The key enabler to the provision of accurate, reliable and content rich RTTI services is to improve accessibility and interoperability of existing and up-to-date data across the EU. Therefore, the specifications foresee that each Member State sets up a national access point (single window) for the exchange of data. The Delegated Regulation will apply from 24 months after its entry into force
The EIP+ Activity 3.2 is related to this EU delegated act. Activity 3.2 will deliver a proposal for “a harmonized concept for Single Point of Access for RTTI”. This activity will do the first steps in this harmonization process. It will collect and analyze existing best practices and identify what areas can/should be harmonized and will give recommendations on how harmonization could be achieved at a multi-national scale (Finalizing December 2015).
15/01/2015
The EIP activities 3.2 and 3.3 preparing quality related recommendations for safety-related and real-time traffic information services had their final meeting on 13 January 2015 hosted by the Federal Highway Research Institute BASt in Bergisch Gladbach in Germany. The 24 participants represented EIP partners, TISA members and other relevant stakeholders. They concluded the EIP quality work in fruitful discussion.
The meeting agreed on the final version of quality criteria and initial minimum quality requirements, and recommended further service and quality levels for safety-related and real-time traffic information services. The results apply especially to the content side of the traffic information service value chain, from detection up to content access point. The recommendations are the first proposal to be applied and tested in European and national projects and actions before their wider take-up.
The meeting also agreed on the quality assurance and assessment methods and practices to be used in assessing the quality of traffic information services against the agreed quality criteria and requirements. These methods are described in a harmonised manner in the final report of the activity.
Finally, the meeting discussed the needs for further quality related work in Europe based on input from the EIP work, TISA members and other experts involved. The EIP+ project aims to validate the results of EIP. The work to be carried out in the EIP+ was presented and discussed. The participants were all invited to continue the quality related cooperation within the scope of EIP+.
08/03/2016
Quality package for safety related and real-time traffic information services
EIP+ has produced a quality package for safety-related and real-time traffic information listing the recommended quality criteria and requirements for the priority actions c) and b) of the ITS Directive.
The recommendations have been validated by studies in eight member states in 2015.
In addition to the criteria and quality requirements, the quality package contains illustrative descriptions of 10 different methods for assuring and assessing the quality of traffic information services, and also a template for reporting quality assessments.
