Taking a holistic approach to mobility with ERTICO - ITS Europe
Dr Johanna Tzanidaki
Director, Innovation & Deployment
ERTICO – ITS Europe
Safety in mobility is a priority for all stakeholders - public and private - as both benefit from it. Nonetheless, the number of human lives lost on European roads is still much too far from the dramatic reduction we all aim for.
ERTICO – ITS Europe, the membership-based organisation that brings together ITS stakeholders from the public and private sector, has been working towards making mobility safer, smarter and more efficient for all since its creation by the European Commission and other visionary partners in the early 1990s.
The European Commission, with its Vision Zero, has set its targets towards zero deaths on European roads by 2050. Developments in technology are of great help in supporting our work in mobility innovation, towards achieving that target. However, ambitious targets and technologies are not enough. Identifying what makes mobility safe in a constantly evolving mobility landscape is not a task without challenges.
At ERTICO – ITS Europe, we are taking a more holistic approach to mobility. The ERTICO Partnership is paving the way towards efficient traffic operations (including freight) through the use of innovative concepts, applications and devices supported by disruptive 5G technologies; including IoT, data analytics, and next-generation traffic management. In parallel, we are discussing how traffic and the wider multimodal mobility network management can be based on better-coordinated governance schemes, where actors involved work together for the common goals (that is the work of the ERTICO Innovation Platform TM 2.0). We wish to see safe and flowing traffic on the road.
The SAFE-UP project is contributing to this holistic approach, which is why we are proud to be a part of its Advisory Board.
The project’s ambition is to proactively protect people inside and outside of the vehicle. SAFE-UP is using safety metrics and models in traffic simulation to proactively analyse safety-critical scenarios in highly-automated and mixed traffic environments.
Improving road safety is not a simple question of technology. It is about governance, infrastructure and, most importantly, people. SAFE-UP’s holistic approach will help ensure all stakeholders are engaged in the process. Issues such as safety and liability or safety and business models are important. Equally important is the topic of data sharing and safety.
As SAFE-UP works on safety in and out of the car, ERTICO’s work within the C-MobILE project and its C-ITS safety applications (such as road works warning, road hazard warning, signal violation warning and, among other services, the one warning about pedestrians crossing the road) becomes better integrated and serves as a basis for alignment between the ERTICO Partnership and SAFE-UP’s work.
Still to be tackled is how we can ensure the safety of the infrastructure and interaction of various mobility modes within the road network: bicycles, scooters, mopeds. Safety also lies in the surrounding or hosting infrastructure and approaching mobility as a system consisting of technology and governance parts that need to function in harmony is key, when we wish to accomplish a Vision Zero.
