thinking highways europe/rest of the world, october 2006

Volume 1 • Issue 1 • Autumn 2006

RACE FOR THE PRIZEWhy China could steal a march on VII

STAR TREK Darryll Thomas on South Africa’s goals for 2010

JOINED-UP THINKING Phil Tarnoff’s global, impassioned plea TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS What the Euro-Regional Projects have achieved

THINKING HIGHWAYSEUROPE/REST of the WORLD EDITION

LAUNCH ISSUEAdvanced transportation management

policy • strategy • technology • finance • innovation • implementation

• integration • interoperability

PLUS • Urban mobility, alternative fuel and transport modelling

features • Ukraine & Belarus funding focus • Articles from Australia, Spain, Dubai, Norway and the UK

“That’s what you lot think”, said Ted,who was already home due to the effi-ciency of the new congestion charging system. “Who spilt on the carpet?”

”Well you know I don´t approve of cowardliness.”

And so Ted once again evicted his “friends” who had to spend another night in the shed with Scary Joe The Snake. With Ted in the house, rush hour had left the streets and come home.

No one uttered a word.

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I’m not particularly well-known for my learned, philosophical sayings or deeply insightful teachings.

I did, however, utter the phrase that is in bold text above (the bit about technology being a bit of metal in a box without the policy to implement it) while discussing the very reasons for setting up a brand new advanced transportation management magazine.

It’s amazing what you come up with when you’re under pressure to perform, not that I’m suggesting that Einstein suddenly stumbled upon his theory of relativity while he was in a meeting with his prospective new bank manager. The pressures of setting up and running a new multimedia company and launching three magazines in the space of three months have made Luis and I think like we’ve never thought before. There have been times when we’ve been forced to think like we never thought possible.

It may be hard to imagine if you’ve ever had more than a few fleeting minutes in our company but we've have spent

Kevin Borras

Editor Kevin Borras

Sales and Marketing Luis Hill

Design and Layout Phoebe Bentley, Kevin Borras

Guest Designers Klipp og Lim (pages 38-45)

Sub-Editor and Proofreader Simon Whitmore

Contributing Editors Bruce Abernethy, James Joseph, Andrew Pickford, Phil Sayeg, Phil Tarnoff, Darryll Thomas, Harold Worrall, Amy Zuckerman

Contributors to this issue Mousumi Bagchi, Darren Bance, Jaime Barceló, Mario Bozzo, Lisa Burgess, Ron Coello, Cbris Elliott, Fabio Faluzzi, Richard Harris, Gareth Hayward, Andrew Howard, Ed Hirst, James Joseph, Miguel López Rodríguez, John McMahon,

Thinking Highways is published by H3B Media Ltd.

Thinking Highways is published quarterly in two editions – North America and Europe/Rest of the World - and is available on subscription at £30/€40 (Europe/RoW) and US$50 (North America). Distributed in the USA by SPP, 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville, PA 17318-0437. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville, PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Thinking Highways, 401 S W Water Street, Suite 201B, Peoria, Illinois 61602, USA.

Although due care has been taken to ensure that the content of this publication is accurate and up-to-date, the publisher can accept no liability for errors and omissions. Unless otherwise stated, this publication has not tested products or services that are described herein, and their inclusion does not imply any form of endorsement. By accepting advertisements in this publication, the publisher does not warrant their accuracy, nor accept responsibility for their contents. The publisher welcomes unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations but can accept no liability for their safe return.

© 2006 H3B Media Ltd. All rights reserved. The views and opinions of the authors are not necessarily those of H3B Media Ltd.

Reproduction (in whole or in part) of any text, photograph or illustration contained in this publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.

Printed in the UK

In one era...Technology without policy is a bit of equipment in a box. Policy without technology is a piece of paper

1Thinking Highways Vol 1 No 1www.h3bmedia.com

Foreword Thinking

Managing Director Luis Hill

Publishing Director Kevin Borras

Visualisation Director Tom Waldschmidt

Conference and Events Director John Hill

www.h3bmedia.com

Kevin Borras is publishing director of H3B Media and launch editor of Thinking Highways. To contact him email [email protected]

“This may be hard to believe

but we have spent the last eight years listening to

people”

Cover image Tim Travis

(www.downtheroad.org)

the last eight years in the advanced transportation industry listening to people. As a journalist and editor I’m in the privileged position of being on both the inside and the outside of the ITS community.

I can look in from outside and look out from the inside. Whichever way I look (I’m

picture with some of the pieces missing, but the only way to see the whole picture is to have all the pieces in place. With this jigsaw, looking at the picture on the box is just not enough.

So, although we may not be new to the market, Thinking Highways is. The ‘thinking’ doesn’t just refer to the capabilities of the highways themselves or the vehicles that drive on them. This ‘thinking’ also refers to the thought processes of the people and organisations that are charged with turning fantastic ideas into life-saving, time-saving, money-saving realities.

Many people have supported us greatly in the creation of our company and our new magazines and we thank them very much indeed. They know who they are. They can now sit down and read this first issue of Thinking Highways’ Europe/Rest of the World edition, safe in the knowledge that it would not exist without them.

If you’d like to contribute to Issue 2, out at the end of February 2007, you might want to give it some thought. TH

about to mix my senses here, but bear with me) I hear people saying that they want to read more articles that focus on policy and strategy and finance and politics and innovation and integration and implementation and interoperability as much as they do on the technology. All of these aspects are integral pieces in the industry jigsaw. You can see some of the

Margaret Pettitt, Chris Skinner, Morten Solemsli, Oddvar Solemsli, Phil Tarnoff, Darryll Thomas, Peter Tomlinson, Alexandre Torday

Printing Stones the Printers, Banbury

Distribution BTB Mailflight, Bedford

Subscriptions and Circulation Sheri Cooper

Website Design and IT André Skepple-Garraway

Financial Director Martin Brookstein

EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING H3B Media Ltd, 15 Onslow Gardens, Wallington, Surrey SM6 9QL, UK Tel +44 (0)870 919 3770 Fax +44 (0)870 919 3771 Email [email protected]

04 Welcome to Thinking Highways

COVER STORY06 Is China going to beat the US to the VII finish

line? John McMahon investigates

IN MY OPINION 12 Andy Graham looks at the mobility options

of the future THE THOUGHT PROCESS14 Richard Harris, Director, FaberMaunsell

ALTERNATIVE FUEL16 James Joseph on the viability of ethanol, Brazil’s secret weapon in the oil replacement

battle

INTEROPERABILITY22 Lessons from the UK transport initiatives by

Mousumi Bagchi, Mario Bozzo and Peter Tomlinson THE THINKER26 ITS guru Phil Tarnoff’s thoughts on global transport thinking

INNOVATION30 Chris Elliott on the benefits of a pay-as-you-

drive car insurance scheme

CASE IN POINT34 The Euro-Regional Projects have left a lasting

legacy, says Richard Harris

THINKING DIFFERENTLY38 Oddvar Solemsli and Kevin Borras tackle the thorny issue of urban mobility in a special

eight-page feature created by Norwegian design house Klipp og Lim

THE NATIONALS48 ITS in Norway, as Ed Hirst discovers, is a truly multimodal affair

52 Darryll Thomas explains how football was the spark that re-ignited South Africa’s flickering transport flame

Contents

Yellow card, green light

South Africa’s ITS plans set to kick off

It was late evening on 15 May 2004 but South Africa was glued to the TV to watch the announcement from Zurich that the country had been chosen as the first Afri-can nation to host the 2010 football World Cup. The entire country swelled with a pride that it had not felt since 1995 when President Nelson Mandela and the Spring-bok rugby captain, Francois Pienaar, held the Rugby World Cup aloft at Ellis Park stadium. Who would have thought that this emotionally charged evening two years ago would be the long-awaited catalyst for South Afri-ca’s struggling ITS industry, asks Darryll Thomas

While South Africa is certainly a shining star in the gal-axy of 3rd world states, in terms of sporting and road

It was late evening on 15 May 2004 but South Africa was glued to the TV to watch the announcement from Zurich that the country had been chosen as the first African nation to host the 2010 football World Cup.

The entire country swelled with a pride that it had not felt since 1995 when President Nelson Mandela and the Springbok rugby captain, Francois Pienaar, held the Rugby World Cup aloft at Ellis Park stadium. Who would have thought that this emotionally charged evening two years ago would be the long-awaited catalyst for South Africa’s struggling ITS industry.

While South Africa is certainly a shining star in the galaxy of 3rd world states, in terms of sporting and road infrastructure, it has a public transport system that is fragmented, inadequate (in terms of both route cover-age and frequency), unsafe, unreliable and unhygienic. Lack of investment, especially in fleet renewal, mainte-nance and upgrading of signaling systems of the com-muter rail service has also contributed to accidents and to the late arrivals or no shows of trains.

Currently, there is no efficient rail network connect-ing Pretoria, Midrand and Johannesburg, where most of the football matches will be played and the Gautrain (named after the Gauteng Province in which it will run) is a part of ambitious plans to upgrade public transport ahead of the event. This flagship project will carry foot-ball fans at speeds of between 165 km and 180 km and showcase ITS elements such as integrated ticketing and public transport information/scheduling systems. Construction of the 80 km (50 mile, including 10 miles of tunnel) line is underway and is expected to be com-plete in 2010, leaving little room for delays before the

tournament begins later that year. 2010 is expected to be the most profitable World Cup

ever with an estimated budget of US$4bn [R26.5bn] but success of the this event (beamed live to 40 billion viewers in 207 countries, with 350,000 visitors spend-ing an estimated US$1.5bn [R9.8bn], contributing US$3.2bn [R21.3bn] to the GDP and generating 129,000 jobs) ultimately hinges on an effective and safe public transport system. FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations, world football’s governing body) has granted an overall amount of US$2bn [R12.7bn] and initially US$0.6bn [R3.8bn] of this has been allo-cated for improvement of the public transport system

Another US$5.2bn [R34.6bn] (over and above FIFA’s US$2bn contribution) is earmarked for infrastructure over the next three years, which includes an amount of just over US$1.6bn [R10bn] for the Gautrain and the 2010 World Cup stadiums.

ITS in SAITS planted its South African roots in July 1999 with an ITS interest group that was to lead the industry through political acceptance in March 2000, the official ITS launch at an International ITS Awareness Symposium and Exhibition in June 2000 and then on to the estab-lishment of SASITS (SA Society for ITS) as a Section 21 Company in March 2001. In a new world economy where technology is not regarded as a priority, particu-larly when competing for funding with national social ‘upliftment’ projects such as housing and public health, ITS implementation has largely been confined to ad-hoc pilot projects on a shoestring budget. But that is all set to change with the 2010 World Cup announcement.

The ITS toolbox has all the elements needed to repair

Rainbow risingDARRYLL THOMAS on how South Africa’s ITS industry is using the 2010 World Cup to redefine its national transport goals

Main photo: New VMS signs have been installed on the Ben Schoeman Highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Left, FIFA President Sepp Blatter reveals South Africa as the hosts for the 2010 World Cup

bright future ahead

no delays

South Africa

Vol 1 No 1 Thinking Highways52 www.h3bmedia.com

South Africa


56 An all-inclusive transport policy smoothed the way for Madrid’s biggest project, the M-30

motorway. Miguel Lopez Rodriguez reports 60 Darren Bance on the transport challenges facing an ever-expanding city: Dubai

INTELLIGENT SPEED ADAPTATION64 Is ISA the answer to UK motorists’ prayers?

The AA Motoring Trust’s Andrew Howard puts forward a convincing case INFORMATION MANAGEMENT68 Chris Skinner on the latest innovations in metadata registries T-FOCUS: simulation and modelling74 ITS modelling the AIMSUN way, by TSS’s Alexandre Torday and Jaime Barceló

76 PTV’s Martin Fellendorf on the VISSIM evolution

FUNDING & FINANCE79 Thinking Highways’ funding analyst Margaret

Pettit looks at a new round of opportunities for Ukraine and Belarus

p16

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What we did while we were away

Policy, technology, strategy, finance, innovation, inter-operability, implementation and integration.

These, ladies and gentlemen, are the basic ingredients of the Thinking Highways constit-ution. Presumably your interests lie in some or all of these areas of the advanced transportation management ‘game’ and so, we feel, you will find Thinking Highways fascinating, educational, thought-provoking, possibly a little bit controversial, entertaining and above all highly readible.

Thinking Highways will be published quarterly from 2007, in February, May, August and November in two regionally focused editions, Europe/Rest of the World and North America. From Issue 2 onwards this page won’t feature almost life-size photos

of us but an insightful column from a world-renowned ITS expert, you’ll no doubt be relieved to discover.

It feels like we’re going back to school after a very long summer holiday, but it’s not really a launch into the unknown. After all, we know the industry and the industry knows us rather well by now, but it’s daunting and not a little exciting to be presenting the fruits of our concerted labours to you after the best part of five months in self-imposed exile.

We have spoken to literally hundreds of people about our new venture and by and large we asked them the same questions: are we doing the right thing and is this the right time to be doing it? Unequiv-ocably, the answer to both parts of the question was ‘yes’.

“There’s a yawning gap in the market for a magazine like

this,” came one enthusiastic response. “One that doesn’t see the technology as the be all and end all – because it's not.” Before you ask, this came from someone who is CEO of a large technology supplier.

So, there you have it. What we have done is to create a mouthpiece for the advanced transportation industry to have its say in the most eloquent way possible. And there’s no need to learn our mantra off by heart. Policy, technology, strategy, finance, innovation, interoperability, implement-ation and integration.

It’s not our mantra anyway. It’s yours. TH

Kevin Borras, Publishing Director, H3B Media Luis Hill, Managing Director, H3B Media

Welcome to Thinking Highways


If you wish to receive Thinking Highways on a regular basis, please visit our website and register online. Go to: www.h3bmedia.com

If you would like to know more about marketing opportunities in either regional edition please email [email protected]

Phot

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Ron

Coe

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Systems from Kapsch TrafficCom for Urban Road User Charging, nationwide HGV schemes, Road

Pricing, City Charging, Area Tolling or simply electronic fee collection. Whatever system you need,

make sure it’s from Kapsch TrafficCom. | www.kapsch.net

Britain has it.

Australia has it.

Chile has it.

Soon

Czech Republic

will have it too!

Warrior mentality

For most westerners, China is a far away,exotic place as mysterious as the 8,000 ancient terra-cotta warriors, horses and chariots buried thou-sands of years ago.

Despite 800m of its population living below the pov-erty line, the country’s economy is explosive with a GNP of US$1.05 trillion and the fastest incremental rate of growth of private vehicle ownership in the world. About 20,000 new vehicles are registered every week in crowded cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Text books have been rewritten and distributed to focus not so much on historical incidents but rather on success sto-ries of wealthy icons like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, as well as how the Chinese can influence the world economy.

Doing business in China, as an outsider, can be a con-fusing and frustrating experience. It can also be an incredibly rewarding one as there are many opportuni-ties emerging all the time, particularly in ITS.

Late but fast developerAs a developing country focused relentlessly on building its economy and supporting soaring exports, the nature of the ITS opportunities are unique with consequences having wider beneficial implications for the global community. China doesn’t have much in the way of an existing ITS infrastructure. Basic elements such as in-road loop detectors are not widely in use even in the busiest commercial regions of Shanghai - a situation that paves the way for a technological leap to satellite-based floating vehicle data (FVD). This everything-is-needed environment is perfect for fully deployed Vehicle Infrastructure Inte-gration (VII). This is a dramatic contrast to conditions in the US where it will take much more time to adopt 100 per cent VII applications due to the legacy intersection systems and equipment already in place.

Fully deployed VII offers some basic benefits as well as some other far-reaching visionary possibilities. Some of the basics include: enabling vehicles to communicate directly with a detector-rich infrastructure network pro-viding automatic crash avoidance, road departure warn-ings, and delivery of other safety and consumer services. In the United States, the world’s leading innovator of VII technology, the concept entails a network of 200,000 roadside installations. These installations would com-

With China looking an odds-on bet to beat the US and implement the world’s first fully functioning Vehicle Intrastructure Integration programme, JOHN McMAHON wonders who is driving the future of China’s thinking highway

“Fully deployed VII offers basic

benefi ts as well as some other visionary

possibilities”

Cover Story


municate with transponders in vehicles and trans-ponder-equipped vehicles would communicate with each other. An example of a far-reaching application is a rather ominous possibility seemingly out of George Orwell’s cautionary tale “1984.”

Once the VII infrastructure is in place, the Chinese government could monitor all transponder-equipped vehicles. By utilizing Satellite GPS technology, the DOT could track vehicle transponder codes, like a vehicle identification code, any where on the planet. It’s worth noting that the US government, in defining VII parame-ters considers individual privacy a top priority. Unless individuals agree to allow VII applications to have access to their vehicle’s identifying elements for, say, security purposes if their vehicles are stolen.

Mario Prioietti, co-founder and CTO of TechnoCom and an expert on wireless and location infrastructures, calls VII an ambitious plan that could take the US another four years to fully deploy. What exactly makes it so ambi-tious? Is it because the plan calls for the integration of GPS with Dedicated Short Range Communications

(DSRC)? Is it because automotive manufacturers have to cooperate at the engineering design level? Or is it because more than a few bugs have yet to worked out?

Political will, or lack of itThe real obstacles have more to do

with politics than technical know-how. Consider that in order for VII to work, automobile manufacturers, wireless

communication companies, traffic control manufactur-ers and DOTs have to come together and work multilat-erally in a close collaborative fashion. Implementing full-scale VII in China, or anywhere else for that matter, involves the bringing together of various technologies in a way that hasn’t been done before. It is a whole new way of looking at the design of an intersection and a new of way of doing business, and that takes time. It takes time for the companies to work together at the design level. All the flanking technologies need to be con-verged in highly integrated fashion.

Indeed, the degree to which VII will be effective will largely dependent on the extent to which the techno-logical convergence will take place. It’s a process of replacing the traditional ITS business model with a whole new operating system for innovation and produc-tion. What Thomas Friedman refers to in his ground-

“LBW was approached by the Chongqing Road Bureau despite having never

undertaken an ITS project before”

Cover Story

breaking book, “The World is Flat” as a platform. He goes on to explain that the human race is entering a worldwide change of habits due to gaining access and utilizing platforms. VII is an example of a platform that will contribute to equal opportunities between coun-tries. This “flattening of the world” is a good thing as it forces the recognition of each country’s intrinsic value and the value of countries that choose to work together.

Showcasing talentsA US company has been the leader in promoting public awareness of VII in the United States. Together with large corporate sponsors, they have created the Innova-tive Mobility Showcase (IMS) a kind of traveling road show demonstration exhibiting VII in action. The IMS effectively gives all those who see it a glimpse of the future. The IMS was first unveiled at the 12th ITS World Con-gress at SBC Park in San Francisco in November 2005. One of the foreign visitors who didn’t catch the IMS dem-onstration was Qing Wang, the VP and Marketing Director for LBW Tech (LBW). She was attending the confer-ence searching for the best company to develop, manufacture and distrib-ute traffic control products. Her search led her to many traffic control product vendors where she began asking questions about possible system designs and equipment acquisitions for their compa-ny’s first ITS project located in Chongqing, China.

Chongqing ITS project represents the first of several transportation initiatives totalling US$1 billion. It will be a massive undertaking, similar in some respects, at least to its impact on China’s rapidly expanding economic growth (currently around 10 per cent a year) to the size and scope of President Eisenhower’s original 1956 Federal Aid Highway Act.

LBW was approached by the Chongqing Road Bureau despite the fact they had never under-taken an ITS project before. Their track record of

delivering successful civil engineering projects and having an untarnished reputation for accessing top level experts in nearly every field of technological endeav-our was considered far more important and relevant. LBW has also been involved with Bluetooth wireless product development and R&D.

Gwan-chi-ingPerhaps the strongest reason the international consult-ing firm got the contract is Ling Tang, the CEO of LBW. She has many solid relationships with some of China’s most powerful industrial and political leaders. Chinese commerce and business networking relies heavily on the concept of gwan-chi (‘network’) which is an impor-tant business relationship based on trust, friendship and

respect. Without having gwan-chi, a businessperson will not get very far in China.

As part of LBW’s usual business model, Qing was prospecting the ITS World Congress in San Francisco for a partner who could come into the Chongqing project with LBW Tech and provide guidance and leadership in creating, from the ground up, a fully functional state-of-the-art ITS system. Ironically, Qing hadn’t yet heard about

VII. In fact, it was a Singapore traffic control company that first introduced the concept of VII to LBW. just before Ling flew to Chongqing last August to make a presenta-tion before the Road Bureau. She met with the aforemen-tioned American manufacturing company and learned more about the VII application. She also learned more about the kind of horizontal collaboration needed to fully realize VII even on a small scale.

As it turned out, Ling’s presentation before the Chong-qing DOTs drew great interest in the advanced technol-ogy. In fact, the project managers and ITS planners were so intrigued they immediately advocated doing what-ever was necessary to incorporate VII into China’s on-going ITS developments.

Shanghai is one of the world’s fastest-growing cities

photo by Luis Ferreira

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Risk assessmentThere are several major technical risks for VII. Integrat-ing multiple technologies in a way that does what it’s supposed to do is, by itself, a challenge, let alone relying on technologies that haven’t been developed yet. For example, real-time data crunching on a massive scale between hardware and software remains a major hur-dle. The partners developing the core VII network are wrestling with issues that in large part haven’t been encountered before.

Perhaps the best way to describe this timing-of-events issue is to draw an analogy with the introduction of the electric light bulb back in 1879. It took several decades for the electrification to kick in and have a big economic and productivity impact. Why? Because it was not enough to install electric motors and scrap the old technology – steam engines.

The whole way of manufacturing had to be reconfigured. In the case of electricity the key breakthrough was in how buildings and assembly lines were redesigned and managed. Fac-tories in the steam age tended to be multistorey build-ings designed to brace the weight belts and other big transmission devices needed to drive steam power sys-tems. Once small, powerful electric motors were intro-duced, everyone hoped for a quick productivity boost. It took time to accumulate the savings needed to redesign enough buildings. Long, low and cheap-to-build single story factories with small electric motors powering machines of all sizes were also required. Only when there was a crucial mass of experienced factory archi-tects, electrical engineers and managers, who under-stood the complementarities among the electric motor, the redesign of the factory and redesign of the produc-

tion line, did electrification really deliver the productiv-ity breakthrough in manufacturing.

The big issueIt’s the same for VII. There is new technology and large integration issues to overcome. There have been highly successful examples of technology introduction that relate to VII, including Electronic Toll Collection in Sin-gapore; however, these applications are limited in scope and geography. Can the core VII network be deployed with the realization that the real benefits of a technology are not always determined until after the technology has been put into the market and many applications have been attempted? China will be taking a hard look at the immediate, intermediate and long-term benefits.

The only thing that is solid about VII at this point is the knowledge that suc-cessful development will rely heavily on continual and horizontal interac-tion among technology developers, application developers and end-users. The Chinese government is willing to do what’s necessary to solve

their problems. Accordingly, it will be easy for the government to

establish what they want out of the VII innovative tech-nology and set ground rules with the various entities involved. VII applications are most likely to get fully implemented first in China simply because their archi-tecture gives new meaning to the phrase “wide open.” Consumer acceptance shouldn’t be a problem since many of their choices are pre-determined anyway. So, after Ling’s meeting in Congqing, it wasn’t very surpris-ing that everyone associated with the design of the pro-posed Chongqing ITS project urged LBW to bring the leading VII companies to China as soon as possible. TH

“There is new technology and

large integration issues to overcome”

Cover StoryCover StoryCover Story


Photo by Luis Ferreira

As any parent will tell you, looking into the future and imagining what kind of life your children will have is a very popular past-time. What will they look like, where will they live, what kind of person will they be, what will they drive … will they grow up to be a transport consultant like their father?

My son Eddie is 6 years old and has more than a pass-ing interest in all forms of transport. He is growing up in a rapidly changing world, so I often wonder how differ-ent it will be in 2017, when he’ll be old enough to drive. (What follows are my personal predictions but some were developed with Cambridge Consultants and I am grateful for their permission reproduce them here.)

I passionately hope Eddie will be part of a new gen-eration that does not automatically want to own a car but sees the wider picture of smarter travel. I want him to be far more aware of his own impact on the environment and have a very different attitude to mine at 17 when I just wanted to pass my driving test and didn’t give the damage I was doing to the environment even the merest thought. One key change to help him, whether imple-mented by Government or by me, is that he will have to manage his carbon budget for travel. He will be able to spend it or save it for long journeys, but either way he will have to give a lot more though to how he travels than we do now.

So, by the time he is 17, he will need to learn how to drive, but he will have already learned how to travel. The theory test of his driving licence will ensure, before he gets anywhere near a car, that he will know how to plan a journey to minimise its impact. His licence will be a bio-metric “identifier” that allows any vehicle he is in to adapt its performance to his own skills, experience and to the road environment and, as I present later, pay for travel in all modes.

All about the designThe car he will want, but may not be allowed, will be an entertainment station with wheels. This will happen because traditional silos of vehicle makers and service providers will erode, as drivers expect a complete life-style service. Vehicle makers as we know them will become “design” houses, linked to other lifestyle brands, but the vehicles will be built under contract elsewhere, wherever it is cheapest.

Eddie will not actually have his own car – he will have a single contract with a “total travel supplier”, using bio-metrics to identify himself to any appropriate shared vehicle available for use nearby. In this way, much of the area currently used for parking can be recycled – as uti-lisation of vehicles will be much higher as more will be on the road for longer periods of time.

The service provider will bill him – or probably me – for all his travel movements and not just car usage. This will be by rail, bus, shared car and short-term rental of the right vehicle for whatever trip he is making. The bill will cover fuel (probably biodiesel or electricity), tolls and congestion charge, parking, insurance and carbon penalties. It will also add in phone use, Internet access and just about anything any 17-year old wants money from Dad for now. The cost of the trip will vary as a com-modity on a travel “stock” exchange in real time and so he will speculate months ahead in “futures” for long journeys by car as well as rail.

Travel retailingThis change to a single service model will have been through evolution from the early pay as you go insur-ance and tolling systems we have today, through to com-panies that act as retailers of travel services. These will be like those old fashioned “travel agents”, who used to

Child in timeANDY GRAHAM envisages how his now six-year old son will use the transportation network when he is old enough to drive


arrange your whole travel arrangements (tickets and itineraries) before we bought our travel piece by piece online. Their role will be to purchase road space access, rail tickets and access to vehicles wholesale, both from travel suppliers (like railway companies and airlines) and from central and local Governments. They will cre-ate tailored travel packages on a trip-by-trip basis and we really will pay as we go. The days of paying money to the Government annually for road travel (in the form of road tax) will be over.

Eddie’s generation will have already discovered the extent to which their every move and action is moni-tored in some way, so they will have less resistance to adopting technology for the “big brother” reasons mooted in some parts of the media today. The attraction of easy travel management and purchase will outweigh any objections. The ease of having one bill for every-thing for a generation with a very short attention span is simply too attractive.

Time is money, money is timeTravel planning will not just be based on time or finan-cial costs. Intelligent agents from his service provider will monitor his regular travel patterns and continually update him with his best “solution” as a balance of time, cost, environmental impact and reliability of arrival. Eddie will know exactly the cost of any trip not just in fuel or ticket price but also the impact on the environ-ment.

I hope he will have grown up in a society where plan-ning travel has become second nature before setting out on even the smallest regular trip, just like catching the weather forecast just before you go out is a habit, at least in the UK. He will have become used to checking for any problems just before he leaves on any trip, because planning a journey has for years been actively marketed and promoted as a way of reducing stress and making life better.

Eddie will become part of a generation for whom the bicycle is no longer a sunny day option but an equal travel solution. Bikes will be available at every city street corner for public use – like traditional systems in cities like Cambridge. One way of making this change will be by Eddie gaining carbon credits for cycling, called “bike miles”.

As he travels on a bike, an on-bike navigation unit will credit his carbon allow-ance, again using his biometric identity. If he cycles long enough and far enough he can get enough carbon bonus credits for a flight abroad. The business case made in 2010 for encouraging more cycle use and providing the technology was an easy one, as it cut child-hood obesity dramatically. There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad waterproof clothing.

High definition travelWhen Eddie does drive a car, all communication will come wirelessly to it, often via the vehicle in front.

Eddie’s own current mobile digital phone/PDA/MP3 player/HD TV/camera provides all these services thanks to a chip that is upgraded monthly, is the size of a small coin and integrates into his sunglasses (but the battery still goes flat after an hour).

Vehicle makers long ago stopped providing the user interface and communications, as they went out of date so quickly. Now they simply provide a standard connec-tor that outputs vehicle data, gets inputs from the user and the roadside and importantly tells the unit how to behave in a vehicle. Eddie cannot watch football while he drives but the unit can record the goals for him to watch later.

True integration of the vehicle and highway for pla-toons and road trains will still be some way off in 2017. Although old timers like me are happy with lane keep-ing technology (after a few years of having lane warn-ing), we simply do not want to give over full control of the vehicle just yet. Besides, the legal issues of who is responsible if it all goes wrong are still a barrier to wide deployment.

What lies aheadThere are some big challenges in this perhaps ambi-tious view, so what lessons can we learn for the next few years? Firstly, we have to change the attitudes of people by getting them planning their travel before they own a car. We have to use their current need to connect through the Internet to get them to plan their bus, rail and cycle journeys, so doing the same later in a car becomes natu-ral. We need to package this to be attractive – so that it is very cool, not nerdy, to know when the next bus will arrive.

Secondly, we have to sell a single travel service. The bigger the bundle of services, the fewer bills I will have to pay. I would really like someone to offer me this single travel service right now – this week alone I have already

needed an MPV, an intercity train ticket, two taxis and a small city car and it’s only

Wednesday. Finally, we have to want and deliver a change from a car-focused society. As someone who has leaded petrol flowing in his veins and has a passion for motor racing, this is a hard thing

for me to accept but we have to embrace it. We do not have to fight

the car or consider it less appealing, we just have to learn how to use it more

smartly and get the balance right. Oh, and the obvious question about why does Eddie

need to travel at all if he is so well connected? It will be because his job. I can see him starting a company called Assistance in Creating a Really Original Name for Your Masterpieces, or ACRONYM, a company that makes a great business from dreaming up new names for ITS projects. Like father, like son, some might say. TH

Andy Graham is principal of White Willow Consulting. He can be emailed at [email protected]

In My Opinion


Transport touches everything. As Rudyard Kipling succinctly put it, “transport is civilisation.” He was spot-on with that assessment.

It can take years to appreciate the benefits of some initiatives. The European Commission DRIVE pro-gramme (1988-91) under the leadership of Fotis Kara-mitsos established technical understanding and created informal networks that are still valid and operational today. International collaboration is still worthwhile and an essential part of developing pan-European solutions. Fotis is back in transport now and this is the best news I’ve heard for some time.

Transportation is about people and the goods that they create and consume. Traffic engineers should try to remember this when they see traffic jams stretching for miles.

Technology is an enabler not a justification. Get-ting people and organisations working together is more difficult than introducing technologies. To help establish long-term commitment to transporta-tion, provide flexibility raising funds and to enable private sector ideas to be harnessed, a national/regional transport agency should be considered. A joined-up operational strategy for national and local roads is needed to better manage traffic, reduce con-gestion and pollution and to improve our handling of incidents.

Gaining public acceptance and confidence in new systems and services is key to achieving maxi-mum benefits. Building trust takes a long time and requires constant attention to detail. Each time a driver sees misleading information (for instance on a variable message sign) we destroy that trust and con-fidence. This is why I regard journey time prediction to travellers as the most important ITS service. Every-one will judge the level of accuracy of the information provided. This service also demands a robust and accurate information and delivery supply chain to be fully maintained and operational.

Richard Harris54, director, FaberMaunsell-AECOM, UK

The Thought Process

Vol x No x Thinking Highways14 www.h3bmedia.com

ITS is not a panacea. What it can do is support policy objectives and improve knowledge, information and management, as well as improve efficiency, safety, the environment and comfort.

ITS professionals give mixed messages. We want ITS to be perceived as routine, mainstream, automati-cally included, no risk and reliable and yet we pro-mote the next science fiction application to prove how brilliant we are. This just confuses decision-makers and makes them cautious about the risks. We should distinguish between operational and research and development systems when badging ITS.

Policy support, revenue expenditure projections and business plans are all vital for sustained ITS operation. I would hope that that was obvious to eve-ryone, but it’s worth saying.

Evaluation is essential. Otherwise how can the value of ITS be determined? Capturing the benefits is important so that decision-makers can decide how to allocate any gains. For instance, the benefits from an ITS scheme which increases road capacity could be used to introduce a dedicated vehicle lane or give more space to pedestrians rather than to just speed up road traffic.

I’m concerned that piecemeal introduction of new systems may lead to safety problems in the future. For example, I expect Lexus owners will get a thor-ough briefing on the advanced obstacle detection system, the rear pre-crash safety system and the driver monitoring system (available in the Lexus LS460) when they collect their new car from the show-rooms. However, will adequate briefing and informa-tion be provided to subsequent owners as the vehicle progresses through the second-hand market? The thought of drivers experiencing automatic interven-tion systems without adequate training is a real case of “scary biscuits!”

Interview by Kevin Borras

“What ITS can do is support policy objectives and improve knowledge,

information and management”

“What ITS can do is support policy objectives and improve knowledge,

information and management”

Cane and ableAfter spending three decades and billions of dollars developing it, has Brazil engineered the most viable alternative to oil yet? JAMES JOSEPH wonders if ethanol can ever break oil’s stranglehold

“It should not take another 30 years.” So sums up an alternative fuels expert at the news that the world has belatedly discovered that Brazil, after 30 years of technological breakthroughs and at enormous cost, has converted a world-plentiful, renewable resource, sugar cane, into a practical engine fuel, freeing itself from dependency on imported oil.

Currently, some 40 per cent of Brazilian vehicles, including diesel engines and even some commercial aircraft, run on sugar cane ethanol, a clear, clean-burn-ing, rum-derived alcohol.

More than 80 per cent of new vehicles sold in Brazil are, at no extra cost, certified “flex-fuellable”, or able to burn gasoline (which in Brazil, must contain 25 per cent etha-nol) or 100 per cent ethanol, both available in side-by-side pumps throughout the country. For Brazil - as for the world, predict many experts - sugar cane ethanol is “freedom fuel,” the first biofuel capable of breaking oil’s stranglehold.

Understandably, those who procure vehicles for street and highway operations are increasingly specifying the flex-fuellable, whose minimal factory tinkering gener-ally involves only fuel system-upgrading against etha-nol’s somewhat more corrosive nature and water content. While some vehicle makers charge a small premium (roughly, US$100-300) for the flex-fuelled, General Motors gives Brazilian buyers a choice - flex-fuelled or standard - at no extra cost. Ford and GM are expected to build a total 680,000 flex-fuel vehicles this year.

What, then, are the realities and promise of ethanol, from any of a number of possible sources, compared to other projected alternatives such as hydrogen, and against the predicted ever-decreasing availability at ever-increasing cost of petroleum-derived fuels. Ques-tions like these will affect the very existence of world highways and their vehicles in a surprisingly close-at-hand “future.”

Oil’s obituary? One doomsday scenario predicts that oil reserves will peak within the next two decades and that when the world’s new big users China and India come online, we will run out of readily obtainable (and affordable) oil within a scant five decades.

A landmark, five-year study of world crude oil and nat-ural gas reserves by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), released in April 2000, sets a 2 per cent annual demand growth through 2020, peaking between 2037-2047 at an annual demand volume of 53.2 billion barrels. From then - but only some 40 years ahead - the falloff of available and/or affordable oil is dramatic to 2100-2125 when, predicts the USGS study, the world will run out of usable oil unless equally dramatic new sources or tech-

nologies are developed. The USGS’s true “doomsday” period is 2050-2070, when production will be only 20 bil-lion barrels a year, about one-third of predicted peak world demand. It is during these shortage years when some predict oil will cost US$100 or more a barrel. Already the world’s once-believed all-but inexhaustible oil reserves are plainly running out.

The world’s two largest fields - Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar and Mexico’s Cantarell - are on the decline. Cantarell production is predicted to plummet by 10 per cent or more a year, a decline not likely to be bolstered by newly discovered Noxal, a deep water but unproven field not expected to become productive for at least a decade.

Alternatives and their parameters Readers are doubtless well aware of oil’s projected alter-natives: hydrogen, biomass, ethanol, methanol, plug-in electricity, liquid coal, organic wastes and various com-pressed or liquefied natural gases.

None precisely meets the strict criteria for an alterna-tive to petroleum: an operationally priced and pump-available vehicular fuel able to perform efficiently in today’s gasoline and/or diesel engines, delivering sub-stantial mileage with minimum/acceptable contamina-tion of the atmosphere or contribution to global warming. And, ideally, these would come from a renewable, natu-ral source.

Almost all of these alternatives are currently under test or development or in actual limited use - as CNG is fuel-ling many city buses and even store-bought vegetable oil is capable of fuelling some reinvigorated small vehic-ular diesel engines.

While it may be patently unfair to dismiss any or all of the projected hydrocarbon alternatives in a few sen-tences, when it comes to the above criteria, a sentence or two will usually do, barring unforeseen major techno-logical breakthroughs.

HydrogenGenerally derived from depleting hydrocarbons - from natural gas, coal and petroleum. Not a promising alter-native until massive and cheap nuclear power manages through electrolysis of water (H

2O) to produce prodi-

gious amounts of low-cost hydrogen. Despite obvious negatives, General Motors is all but staking its future on the development at a cost of billions of hydrogen-fueled vehicles. In 2005 President Bush promised to invest US$1.7 billion over the next five years on development of hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles.

MethanolWidely used as a race car fuel. Today mostly made from natural gas, but also from plentiful coal. Considered only a “niche” alternative, due in part to considerable green-

Left: Brazil’s efforts are being closely followed by countries with big fuel bills. India and China have sent a parade of top officials to see Brazil’s programme

Alternative Fuel


house gases released in the coal-to-methanol conver-sion and its dangerous toxicity. Even a small amount accidentally swallowed can cause blindness, nerve damage or even death.

Plug-in electricityPowering battery-engined vehicles, plug-in power depends on a new world family of vehicles, the availa-bility of plug-in places and the fact that some electricity is derived from hydrocarbons.

BiomassVirtually any usually cellulose naturally grown “crops” are convertible to ethanol or a similar fuel. In April 2005, the Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, issued a 60 page report, funded by the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture, pre-dicting that by mid-century the U.S. could annually pro-duce more than 1 billion tons of biomass - from sources ranging from forest products, switchgrass and crop resi-due to animal manure - enough to supply 30 per cent or more of the U.S.’s annual petroleum needs.

However, the report makes scant mention of conver-sion-to-fuel costs nor, oddly, of sugar cane, grown in the U.S., and Brazil’s ethanol staple, as one possible biomass

source. Asked “why not?” by Thinking Highways, one of the report’s authors replied, “Well, we were funded by the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, and ulti-mately by the U.S. Congress, which wanted the study to cover readily available U.S. biomass stocks,sugar cane not being one of them.”

BiodieselA promising diesel fuel from a variety of alternates, as soyabeans, animal fat and cooking oil but tallow in some biodiesels hardens in cold climates.

You’ve seen the rest…Ethanol is clearly the leading alternative to oil. And here’s why. Ethanol is produced worldwide from a vari-ety of lesser-than-sugar-content agri-products, as sugar beets, cassavas, rapeseeds, wheat and similar others. But the cost of conversion to usable fuel is often high. The U.S., on a corn-to-ethanol binge, will by 2012 nearly double its annual ethanol production, mostly from corn, to 28.39 billion litres (7.5 billion gallons). The cost of conversion, even for the highly (54 cents a gallon) U.S. subsidized process requires more energy than corn ethanol’s energy output: by some estimates, 34,610 Btus to produce a corn-liter of ethanol with an energy output of only 20,340 Btus. Some now claim that the sale of fer-mented corn would even the conversion costs.

Despite some of ethanol-from-sugar-cane drawbacks (the fuel produces a quarter to one third less power than gasoline so more must be burnt for equal mileage; in colder climes, starting engines fueled with 100 per cent ethanol is difficult so in those regions 85 per cent etha-nol and 15 per cent gasoline is the preferred mix) Brazil has, during its 30-year road to ethanol, solved many problems which might ordinarily cast doubt on sugar cane’s challenge to hydrocarbons.

Certainly ethanol’s ace is its ability to fuel existing vehicular engines, unlike the vast engineering chal-lenges that lie ahead, among them fuel cells and electric motors, to enable use of many of the other alternatives.

Still, Brazil’s most formidable trump card is technol-ogy. At its unique, sugar grower-funded science centre, Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira in the heart of the sugar country, scientists decoded the DNA of sugar cane, leading to varieties more resistant to drought and pests, and vastly increasing yield. In 1975, at the launch of its sugar cane ethanol campaign, it managed to squeeze 2,000 liters, or about 520 gallons, of ethanol from a hectare (2.5 acres). Today, the same hectare pro-duces nearly 6,000 liters of ethanol and ethanol yield is annually growing by about 3.5 per cent.

The appliance of scienceThe Wall Street Journal was suitably impressed by Bra-zil’s eforts: “While other countries were busy mapping the human genome, Brazilian scientists were decoding the DNA of sugar cane.” Currently, some 5.5 million hec-tares grow sugar cane, 85 per cent of it (as a near-like percentage of ethanol) produced in the country’s center-south region, dominated by the state of Sao Paulo.

By contrast, more than 50 times more land (300 million Brazil’s most formidable trump card is technology. This is a sugar cane fermentor

Alternative Fuel


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hectares) is devoted to livestock pasture. These con-trasts, and lessening need for pasturage through tech-nology advances, explain why Brazilian experts say that an additional 100 million hectares of former pasture lands could be planted to cane without deforestation or soil degradation.

By 2014, Brazil expects to double its current cane-based ethanol production to 31 billion liters.

Unlike many alternate fuel processes elsewhere, Bra-zil’s ethanol is produced at no electrical cost. Rather, the cellulosic stalks of sugar cane, called bagasse, are burnt to produce not only all the conversion power Brazil’s some 330 cane-to-ethanol mills require, but a surplus sold to local utilities. A medium-size mill, processing 1m tons of sugar cane a year, sells about 15 per cent of its bagasse-produced power, reaping a bonus US$1m. New electri-cal technology should significantly up the electric surplus output.

Recently, Brazil announced plans for 92 new cane mills at a cost of US$10 billion.

Fuelling the debateStatistically, sugar cane ethanol is a “green fuel” produc-ing 57 per cent less carbon monoxide, 74 per cent fewer hydrocarbons and 13 per cent less nitrogen oxides than fossil fuels. It is also a price-competitive fuel, as must be any serious petroleum alternative.

By World Bank estimates, Brazil can produce a gallon of ethanol for about US$1 (about 27 cents a liter), but only 80 cents a gallon for Brazil’s most technologically advanced and most efficient producers, against an inter-

national gasoline gallon price of about US$1.50. Produc-tion costs for ethanol produced from corn, as in the U.S., are at least 30 per cent higher than Brazilian cane-etha-nol, reports the U.S. Department of Energy. One reason: an extra production step is required. Corn’s starch must first be turned to sugar before it can be distilled into alcohol.

But developing technologies can turn marginal etha-nol sources into potentially big-time players. For exam-ple, in 2004 Iogen Corporation, a Canadian enzyme

manufacturer with its partner The Royal Dutch/Shell Group, became the world’s first to turn the cellulose in straw into ethanol.

The trick was to use genetically engineered enzymes to change straw’s cellulose to fermentable glu-cose. Iogen’s demonstration plant can produce up to 3m liters of cellulose ethanol per year and hopes to have

‘shovel in the ground’ for a commercial scale facility by summer 2007.

By 2008, with a larger, more advanced facility, Iogen hopes annually to produce 200,000 tons of straw-derived ethanol at a cost of about US$1.30 a gallon. Even so, esca-lating oil prices can quickly alter the equation. In June 2006 when the price of a barrel of oil averaged US$65, it cost US$2.20 to produce a gallon of gasoline - about US$1.56 for the oil, 64 cents for refining costs.

At the same time, Brazil was selling a barrel of cane-ethanol for US$25, less than half the cost of crude oil. But even figures such as those can be elusive, as Brazil dis-covered during its fledgling attempt to break its imported oil dependency.

“Recently, Brazil announced plans for 92 new sugar

cane mills at a cost of US$10 billion”

Developing technologies can turn marginal ethanol sources into potentially big-time players

Alternative Fuel


Oiling the mechanismAs international prices dramatically rose during the 1973 Middle East war, oil accounted for half of Brazil’s total imports, up from 10 per cent. The country slid into recession, as 40 per cent of its foreign exchange income was spent on imported oil. Brazil’s then military govern-ment acted, decreeing a state-run sugar cane to ethanol program, massive research, subsidies to growers and processors guaranteed prices for ethanol, tax breaks to companies producing flex-fuel vehicles and decreed a starting level of 10 per cent ethanol mix with gasoline.

Perhaps most importantly (erasing a distribution problem envisaged by many other countries), it ordered Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras to make ethanol available at its far-flung filling stations. Today, some 29,000 service stations, including those of major oil companies, serve ethanol along with gasoline.

Between 1979 and the mid-1990s Brazil spent an esti-mated US$16 billion on loans to sugar companies and on price supports. In 1986, as drivers grew fond of lower cost, high-performing ethanol, the bottom fell out of the market. Just as Brazil’s new government drastically cut back on price supports, international oil prices plunged. Brazil’s romance with ethanol withered at a time before its advanced research was able to match oil’s lower pric-ing. Today, Brazil’s ethanol industry is deregulated and

unsubsidized. Despite the setback, researchers contin-ued their goal toward high-producing cane (they stud-ied some 140 often new varieties), cost-cutting production and devices fitting existing engines to etha-nol fueling. Brazil and future producers of ethanol can probably rightly proclaim that whatever petroleum’s pricing, they can produce and sell ethanol for signifi-cantly less. Declares an ethanol mill owner: “We can produce ethanol for far less than oil, whatever oil’s price.”

Bio basics - land ahoy?Currently, some 100 nations produce sugar cane con-trasted to 46 petroleum producers. Even so, the sizable question is whether these sugar cane growing regions - especially Central and South America, Australia and South-East Asia and much of Africa - can grow enough (or any other renewable biofuel) or have land enough to replace petroleum, and especially before oil’s predicted peaking and gradual decline.

“Without Brazil’s knowledge lead,” concedes one insider, “it is doubtful whether world-renewable biofuel, especially from sugar cane, could take on oil and out-produce it, barrel for barrel. And at significantly lower cost. Can that happen within 30 years?” he asks. “I think the world - and highway people - can count on it.” TH

Dow Jones “Brazil’s No. 1 sugar and ethanol equipment manufacturer, Dedini SA Industrias de Base, has launched a new process, jointly developed with Germany’s Siemens AG, for the more efficient distillation of hydrous ethanol. Dedini, (among) the first to offer Brazilian sugar and ethanol integrated mills, has also formed a joint venture with the German automation company Proleit AG (to produce the systems).”

Al-Jazeera Network “Thirteen of Africa’s poorest nations have joined forces to become global suppliers of biofuels, produced from organic material or plant oils. In a meeting in Senegal, they formed the African Non-Petroleum Producers Association (PANPP). Africa produces a range of crops that could be used to make biofuel, including sugar cane, sugar beet, maize, sorghum and cassava. All can be used to make ethanol. Also peanut oil can run diesel engines.

Hawaii/TV station KGMB “Three of the state’s largest landowners - who together own roughly 10 per cent of the state’s land - have formed a new company to produce ethanol from various sources,including sugar cane and pineapple. David Cole, who heads Maui Land and Pineapple, says the group will study the feasibility of building an ethanol-processing plant in Hawaii.”

Jamaica Observer Reporter (Jamaica is among the world’s 100 or so sugar cane producing nations)“(This country’s) sugar expert is currently in Brazil discussing the prospects of setting up a second ethanol plant in Jamaica.”

African News Dimension “Nigeria has established an ethanol programme - expected to augment the nation’s inadequate crude oil refining capacity, The programme is targeted to produce 100m litres of ethanol annually, requiring at least 80,000 metric tonnes of sugar cane.”

Los Angeles Times“In Colombia, ethanol’s future is now. Since November, motorists in three large cities - Cali, Bogota and Popayan - have been required by law to fill their tanks with at least 10 per cent ethanol. Over time the list of cities and the share of ethanol will increase as the country seeks to reduce its dependence on oil.”

On Line Opinion/The Brisbane Institute “Not all countries can produce ethanol from sugar cane as cheaply as Brazil. But many are close - including Australia, India and many tropical countries in Africa. For the latter, a little dose of technological assistance from the developed world would create an ‘ethanol zone’ covering Brazil and Central America, India and South-East Asia and Africa, that is every bit as productive of liquid fuel as the Middle East is productive of oil today.”

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY by James JosephThe world’s press has been quick to jump on the ethanol-powered bandwagon. Here’s a selection of quotes from around the globe. Proof, if proof were needed, that ethanol is now considered the most viable alternative to oil, and not just in Brazil

Alternative Fuel


A few years ago, the words ‘integrated transport’ and ‘interoperability’ were being bandied about as the lynchpins to enable seamless journeys on public transport and roads in the United Kingdom.

Technology was always the facilitating tool in this respect: implementing an automated fare collection system that allowed an easy migration to integrated ticketing, implementing smart card schemes that con-formed to a national specification on interoperability, introducing electronic toll collection and developing road pricing schemes that conformed to a national specification and so forth.

To date, the UK has one of the world’s largest Auto-mated Fare Collection (AFC) system schemes in Trans-

port for London’s (TfL) Oystercard scheme, demonstrating use of smart media technology and inte-grated ticketing on bus and metro networks. There are also a variety of small-scale concessionary travel bus based smart card schemes operating up and down the country. There are a number of tag-based Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) schemes operating (Dartford River Crossing, M6 Toll). All the schemes operate successfully - albeit in isolation and none of them are interoperable with other schemes. There have, however, been impor-tant developments to deliver intra and inter-scheme interoperability in both the fields of AFC and ETC – including the DIRECTS road user charging (RUC) trials, and the development of ITSO – the national specifica-

Mousumi (Paula) Bagchi, Mario Bozzo and Peter Tomlinson examine the lessons the United Kingdom has learned from its interoperability initiatives

IntegrateBritain

Interoperability


operability, albeit in a controlled environment; and there are initiatives to examine further the use of DSRC tech-nology in an urban environment; at least two ETC schemes in the UK (Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry in Plymouth, Devon, and the Forth Road Bridge in Edin-burgh) are being developed according to the OMISS specification.

With ITSO, the picture is both more mixed and also encouraging. Around half a dozen large ITSO compliant concessionary travel schemes have issued or are about to issue smart cards or other smart media, although without so far having the acceptance and back office infrastructure operating. Travel Scotland has around 1m cards issued, and Merseytravel (the Passenger Trans-

tion for interoperable smart media; both given impetus by the UK Department for Transport (DfT).

The DIRECTS demonstration based in Leeds included the development of a complete end-to-end system to acquire transactions from field equipment, apply the appropriate toll rate and bill customers (thus replicat-ing operating features that would be found in a normal RUC environment). The system had to represent a real-world trial and as such addressed a number of key issues. These included violation processing, bank inter-faces and settlement processes. A major objective was the definition of the interface specification or the Open Minimum Interoperability Specification Suite (OMISS). Crucially, DIRECTS has demonstrated back office inter-

Interoperability


Photo by Morten Solemsli www.mortensolemsli.com

port Executive for Merseyside) is about to start replac-ing its 250,000 concession passes with smart media that carries holograms and security printing as well as the chip. Notable efforts are being made by local authori-ties such as Cheshire County Council and Nottingham-shire, both currently converting pioneering proprietary schemes to true ITSO compliance. Two proprietary schemes have been operating in parts of Wales, but now a quartet of ITSO-compliant schemes is in preparation to cover concessionary travel on buses for the whole of Wales. More is to come, including shar-ing space on the cards with citizen service functions.

ITSO factoOriginally starting life as the ‘Inte-grated Transport Smart Card Organi-sation’, ITSO is now a limited company which “was formed to build and maintain a specification for secure ‘end to end’ inter-operable ticketing transactions, utilis-ing relevant ISO and emerging CEN standards”, with the purpose of the specification being to “provide a platform and toolbox for the implementation of interop-erable contactless smart customer media public trans-port ticketing and related services...” (both from ITSO website, September 2006). The focus has primarily been on the smart media.

While a number of suppliers have had their products certified in accordance with certain parts of the ITSO specification, a key issue that remains is the lack of the commercial ‘layer’ of software and messaging that will allow point of service terminals such as bus ticket machines to be interrogated to obtain basic manage-ment information in addition to the ticket and pass sale and acceptance data already defined, combined with the lack of an infrastructure that would enable a local authority or transport service operator to easily put together an ‘ITSO compliant’ scheme. As development continues, one hopes this will come in time.

Privileged positionWhile it is not possible to directly compare ITSO and DIRECT or to go into significant detail on either one of them, the UK is privileged in that such developments have taken place, and they offer a number of lessons, for the future of scheme development and telematics ‘inter-

operability’ in the UK, especially at a time when we are possibly about to jump to national road pricing, the roll-out of smart cards for national rail travel, common Intel-ligent Transport Systems (ITS) Architecture and so forth. Key among these is:

1) The infrastructure must be present to turn theory into reality – too much of a focus on the ‘media’ or ‘equip-ment’ being used and not enough on the infrastructure components (clearing and settlement, payment serv-ices provider, software providers) needed to interface

with the media and equipment and process the transactions from the media will lead to project delays and partially compliant schemes.

2) Procurement mechanisms (e.g. procuring suppliers to help develop the systems) should be utilised to ini-

tiate system development so that funding is initially made available centrally and so that impetus for devel-oping a delivery solution is industry and local authority based.

3) Divide up delivery responsibilities and do not group too many functions into the ‘back office’ category. This can create an unworkable system especially where there are actors that are ‘risk averse’ so essentially want to see someone else hold the risk and responsibility for delivery.

4) Schemes must be developed with the consumer in mind. Avoid developing technical specifications or solu-tions in ‘silos’ which when adopted do not allow for what actually happens on the ground. For example, two bor-dering local authorities with cross border smart card based bus services operating in their areas will want to be able to access those buses transaction data for reve-nue reimbursement and reconciliation purposes. ITSO’s interoperability mechanisms already underpin this, but key data required for settlement and scheme manage-ment cannot as yet flow across the borders.

5) Ensure there are industry champions to drive forward the schemes as this creates momentum and ensures industry is aware of developments. TH

Mousumi (Paula) Bagchi is a consultant and Mario Bozzo a director at the IBI Group in London.

Peter Tomlinson is an independent consultant with Iosios Associates.

“The focus has primarily been on the smart media”

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A holistic view of transportation thinking by PHIL TARNOFF

The Thinker


Imagine that a major US airline is experi-encing a high level of demand for one of its popular routes. In fact, the demand is so high that potential passengers are being turned away.

The airline has two choices; either increase the fare for this route, thus reducing demand or add additional capacity to the route either through the scheduling of an increased number of flights or the use of larger planes. These two actions are not mutually exclusive. The first action reduces demand, and the second action increases supply. One of the primary objectives of these actions is to establish a supply-demand equilibrium point that will maximize the airlines profitability.

Unlike the airline industry, the highway transporta-tion system is not usually operated with the objective of maximizing profitability. The objectives of this system may include minimizing travel times and/or providing high levels of travel time reliability. Although the objec-tives may vary, their achievement through adjustment of the supply-demand relationships remains applica-ble. Unfortunately, few if any in the highway transporta-tion community view their role in the management and operations of the system in these terms.

Transportation agencies are increasingly confronted with the need to compensate for significant increases in demand (increases in vehicle miles of travel – VMT) without adequate funding or the political will, for increasing supply through new construction. Thus the application of the traditional countermeasure to increased VMT, the construction of additional lane-miles of roadway is no longer a viable option. Demand reduction measures such as value pricing, and HOV lanes become the only available alternatives. It is important to be able to analyze these options within the context of the total set of feasible transportation man-agement alternatives if we are to ensure that the road-way infrastructure is being utilized in the most efficient manner.

Supply-demand applicationsWithin the transportation community, much effort is devoted to the project level impact assessment of vari-ous transportation measures. Little attention is paid to the interactions that may occur among multiple meas-ures, nor the regional impact of these measures. The need for this more strategic impact assessment is criti-cal, since interactions among measures might have con-sequences that are more significant than the impact of any one individual measure.

One particularly striking example of this relationship occurred many years ago, when a state decided to elim-inate the mainline toll booths on a major congested interstate. The motivation was to increase the capacity of the interstate (supply) by eliminating the delays and queues caused by the tolls. However, eliminating the tolls also increased demand on the interstate, with the result that the quality of service being offered remained unchanged or degraded. Although the regional impacts were not evaluated, it is possible that the quality of serv-Ph

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ice on alternate routes improved due to reduced demand on these routes, or alternatively, that the overall demand increased due to reduced usage of mass transit due to the lower cost of travel on the interstate. This one exam-ple points to the importance of considering supply-demand relationships as well as regional impacts when considering operational changes.

These relationships can be most readily visualized through the use of traditional supply-demand plots such as the one shown in Figure 1. In this figure, the vertical (Y) axis represents disutility (also called level of serv-ice) which may be represented in terms of increased travel cost, trip time, user costs, or level of service.

The horizontal (X) axis represents demand, which is usually expressed in terms of vehicle miles of travel (VMT). The supply curve shown in the figure is a repre-sentation of the degradation of service (increasing disu-tility) that occurs for a fixed amount of supply (roadway or corridor capacity) with increasing demand.

The demand curve depicts the quantity of travel demand that will be generated, when differing levels of service are incurred. The slopes of these lines are known as the elasticity of demand. The point at which these two curves intersect is the equilibrium point. It represents the demand that occurs for a given amount of supply. From A to DIn their definitive analysis of these relationships Wagner and Gilbert identified four classes of measures as follows:

Class A – Actions that reduce travel demand such as: pricing (tolls, fares, value pricing, etc), transit enhance-ments, telecommuting and ridesharing.

Class B – Actions that enhance highway supply such as: construction (additional lanes, grade separations, inter-section improvements, etc.), improved signal timing, elimination of mainline tolls and ramp metering

Class C – Actions that reduce demand and degrade sup-ply such as: take a lane for high occupancy vehicles (HOVs), auto restricted zones and reductions in off-street parking and;

Class D – Actions that reduce demand and enhance sup-ply such as: new HOV lanes and on-street parking restric-tions.

The impacts of these actions described using the clas-sical supply-demand curves which are shown in figures

2 through 5. Note that these figures represent increased supply by the downward movement of the supply curve, and increased demand by a shift to the right of the demand curve. From these figures, it can be seen that all classes of measures improve mobility (reduce disutil-ity) except for Class C. However, since Class C reduces demand, it offers the potential benefits of reduced fuel consumption and reduced emissions.

Class dismissedThese figures also demonstrate that Class B actions which increase VMT, tend to work against the Class C actions which are intended to reduce VMT. Other con-clusions that can be reached from these curves include the fact that actions which tend to reduce demand also offer the potential to reduce emissions and fuel con-sumption. These curves do not account for the relative magnitude (impact) of the changes they represent. Data must be obtained from project results available from sources such as the Deployment Support Databases of the US Department of Transportation’s Joint Program Office.

The approach described here is a powerful analysis tool. It provides the ability to represent the impact of growth in demand (VMT) without any change in supply (no additional roadway lane-miles) by sliding the demand curve to the right, and observing the change in the location of the equilibrium point which, in turn, will show an increase in disutility.

The Thinker


The change in the equilibrium point can be used to represent improvements in mobility, fuel consumption and emissions, depending on its direction of change. When the point of equilibrium moves downward, mobil-ity has been improved. When the change in the equilib-rium point is downward and the right (both disutility and demand are being reduced), energy and emissions benefits are being reduced.

An interesting exampleIt is important to thoroughly understand these concepts prior to their application. One potentially confusing example is the construction of a new toll road. It would be tempting to consider this facility a Class A action, since pricing has been listed within this category. How-ever, the Class A pricing actions are oriented toward the pricing of existing facilities with the specific intent of decreasing demand.

A new toll road represents an increase in supply which is a Class B action. The tolls imposed on this new facility are, in fact, a technique for regulating the demand on the road, but their net result is to ensure that the newly sup-plied capacity is operating at peak efficiency, rather than to achieve an overall reduction in regional VMT. Thus the new toll road must be considered a Class B action with the end result that disutility will be decreased (level of service improved), while demand will be increased.

This conclusion is consistent with the expectations of

regional transportation officials when a facility of this nature is being constructed.

Criticism of new facilities is often based on the very possibility that the new facility will result in increased VMT. To counter this argument, a combination of actions must be taken that produce results such as those shown for Class D actions, which produce improved levels of service without increasing demand.

This is accomplished through the use of complemen-tary Class A measures such as transit improvements, increased cost of parking, encouraging telecommuting, etc. that will reduce total VMT without reductions in capacity. The combined impact of these actions can be analyzed as described earlier, using data available for individual projects that make up the combined package of actions being considered.

This analysis framework will both enhance the agen-cy’s understanding of the potential impacts of a pro-posed project, and will serve as an effective graphic for communicating with the public and elected officials, many of whom are more familiar with the economic analysis than with the details of transportation engi-neering.

The holistic viewUnfortunately, the ability of transportation agencies to take a holistic approach toward improving mobility is hampered by stovepiping of operations that occurs within the industry. Examples of the negative impacts of stovepiped operations are easy to find.

For example, individual modes (highway, transit, and rail) are operated independently by agencies with little concern about the impact of their operations on each other. Nowhere is this problem more evident and poten-tially damaging than in our failure to integrate measures that impact transportation system supply and demand. State DOTs emphasize the use of supply-oriented meas-ures such as freeway ramp metering, traffic signal con-trol and rapid incident clearance.

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The overall effectiveness of a transportation system is determined by its individual components. For this reason, it is essential that the roadway and vehicle infrastructure be considered as a system rather than its individual parts. TH

The Thinker


To understand ‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance it’s important to provide some context on how tradi-tional motor insurance works.

Calculating motor insurance premiums has been conducted in pretty much the same way for decades. Insurers ask a range of questions from which they infer the level of risk that a particular car and driver will bring. The list of questions has been getting longer and longer over the years as insurers seek to refine their under-standing. However, the bottom line is that the actual risk for an individual is never totally understood as the insurer never has information such as how far the car is driven; the times of day the car is used; how much mileage is done on motorways, A-roads and minor roads; and the balance between urban and rural driving.

In the absence of this complete picture the premium offered to each driver is compiled using historical data. For instance, on average younger drivers make more

CHRIS ELLIOTT charts the origins and development of Norwich Union’s innovative ‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance scheme

Drive time show

claims than older ones so a 20-year old driver’s insur-ance quote today will be heavily based on the average of all previous 20-year old drivers with that insurer.

‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance changes this by relat-ing part of the premium to how often, where and when the car is driven. Each month the customer receives a bill that reflects the journeys undertaken during the previous month. There’s also a fixed fee per month that relates to the non-variable risk e.g. for theft and to reflect the driver’s previous claims history. This all means that if a customer went on holiday and left their car behind it’s likely their premium would be lower than a normal month as they would have done less driving. The princi-ple is very similar to other utility bills like gas, electric-ity or a water meter – if you use less you pay less.

How Does It Work?The opportunity to develop this concept has arisen through advances in technology and the corresponding

Innovation


Photos by Morten Solemsli www.mortensolemsli.com

lower costs of hardware, data transmission and data storage. The starting point is for a GPS enabled device to be fitted behind the dashboard and an antenna which receives the GPS signals is fitted on the inside corner of the windscreen. The installation of the equipment is car-ried out by RAC Auto Windscreens which, like Norwich Union, is owned by Aviva. For each journey the precise location and direction of travel of the vehicle is recorded at one second intervals.

All this journey information is stored on the device and then downloaded, usually over-night, over a GSM network and into the Norwich Union database. This process is fully automated and doesn’t need the customer to do anything. Once we have received the journey data it is translated into a monthly bill which is very similar to an itemised mobile phone bill. On top of the fixed monthly premium a variable amount is added based on the mileage driven and time of day of journeys in the previous month.

For each journey the time and location of the car is shown at both the start and end point together with the distance travelled, the tariff that applied and finally the actual premium.

Putting it into practiceSo how did we put the theory into practice? The main aim was to see if a group of customers would go for ‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance while still retaining the choice of traditional fixed price annual insurance for motorists who prefer that method. To do this we had to be confi-dent that we could successfully deploy a new and differ-ent set of technology for an insurance company.

We kicked off with a pilot in 2003 which was expanded and capped at 5,000 volunteers by the end of 2004. Our initial publicity around this also generated in excess of 10,000 other enquires from people keen to be kept in touch and to participate in future. It was a rare situation for an insurance company to have a waiting list for a new product!

The 5,000 volunteers helped us out by having the equipment fitted to their car and allowing us to ensure

that we could make the end to end process work. At this stage these customers were rewarded with a discount off their standard insurance – they were not paying a variable tariff.

We shared summary information with each volunteer to highlight the kind of information we were receiving such as all their journeys split according to the time of day, day of week and total mileage each day. This was important as it gave customers the chance to express how they felt once they had been shown this level of

detail. It also helped us validate that we were receiving and processing the data accurately for each journey they made.

Having proven we could make this work from a technology perspective the next step was to trial a true ‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance product.

We focused on young drivers up to 23 years and looked to attract a pilot

group of 1,500 customers, a number which was quickly achieved. In general younger drivers have higher pre-miums than older drivers so we could see that our new approach could potentially benefit safe drivers in this age segment.

As a first step we looked at our historical claims records and other sources that helped us identify the strong correlation between time of day and the number and severity of accidents for young drivers. These sta-tistics, based on Norwich Union claims data in 2004, demonstrate the point:

Accidents between 1am and 5am are 56 per cent more likely to have an injury cost; and there’s a higher cost per accident too even without injuries - claims between 9pm and 5am cost 118 per cent more.

Knowledge is powerThis knowledge enabled us to create the appropriate tariff - daytime driving was set at around 5p per mile and night time driving between 11pm to 6am was charged at £1 (€1.40) per mile. The key message around this prod-uct is that there is affordable insurance available for young drivers and average savings of 30 per cent can be made when compared to standard Norwich Union Direct

Innovation


“Accidents between 1am and 5am are 56 per cent more likely to have an

injury cost”

premiums, if they avoid the most dangerous times of day. The £1 per mile night time rate may well make the young driver think about alternative transport such as sharing a taxi home or catching the bus. The product also pro-vides greater fairness so that drivers see that they are paying for their own use of the car rather than a rate based on the average of all young drivers.

There are other benefits that ‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance brings. The GPS functionality will enable us to locate broken down vehicles more accurately and hence quickly – with RAC as a sister company this is a natural benefit for us to explore. The same technology will also help us locate stolen vehicles and any additional recoveries will help mitigate pre-mium increases.

Benefits seyond insurance There are a number of benefits that the ‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance program has delivered beyond the core aims already discussed. Many of these come from the significant data set we have which continues to grow day by day and is approaching 100m journey miles.

The richness of the data, with information captured every one second, is the key to its wide range of applica-tions. Local authorities are already using our data set to help analyse congestion and set the benchmark for future analyses and journey time targets. The data can

also be used to compare the impact of schemes that have been completed such as road safety measures where we could look at journey data before and after new road layouts or signs have been implemented and

evaluate what changes, if any, have occurred. This could help with the design of future schemes and ensure that budgets are allocated to schemes which are more likely to produce the desired outcomes.

A further powerful use is to under-stand journey origins and destina-

tions. With the majority of our customers being private car drivers (although we have fleets too that contain some commercial vehicles) we can analyse the jour-neys they take, route choices that are made and whether they are passing other transport modes along the way such as Park and Ride sites or stations.

The traditional “stop and survey” method for collect-ing data from motorists can have its drawbacks as dem-onstrated by the 7 mile tailback that was created on the A127 in Essex in July this year. In all these applications we are careful to ensure that the anonymity of our cus-tomers is preserved so no customer or vehicle infor-mation is exchanged and the data is aggregated so that individual journeys are not identifiable.

Next stepsWe have seen that there is significant customer demand for ‘Pay As You Drive’™ insurance and we are in the process of developing further products that will be available to a broad range of motorists. Tariffs will vary for each customer group and will reflect the growing data set and understanding we are developing about the inter-relationship between driving patterns and claims frequencies.

At a time when increasing costs are pushing up motor insurance premiums we believe that the innovative use of technology will be popular among motorists and fleet managers who want to influence the cost of their insurance. TH

Chris Elliott is government relationships manager for Norwich Union and can be contacted via email at

[email protected]

“Drivers can see they are paying for

their own use of the car”

Innovation


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Followthe

Leader

The Euro-Regional Projects (ARTS, CENTRICO, CONNECT, CORVETTE, SERTI, STREETWISE and VIKING) have transformed the management and information services on the Trans European Road Network.

Supported by the European Commission, Directorate-General Energy and Transport and national and regional road authorities the projects have established the foun-dations for the future transport systems for Europe.

In 1995, with traffic levels in Europe increasing and congestion predicted to rise, the European Commission initiated five Euro-Regional Projects.

These projects, ARTS, CENTRICO, CORVETTE, VIKING and SERTI, were joined by STREETWISE in 2001. Enlargement of the EU brought CONNECT into the 2001-2006 TEMPO programme. Together the projects have focused on four strategic areas, monitoring infrastructure; the Euro-pean network of traffic centres; traffic management and control; and traveller information services.

They have developed into unique programmes, with key shared characteristics:

• The projects cross national boundaries and are divided into geographical areas along transit corridors that have to deal with common problems;

• They prioritise actual deployment of infrastructure and services – the ERPs are not research projects and they directly target congestion and safety problems;

• Stakeholders such as public authorities, road opera-tors and service providers are involved, thus guarantee-ing that the budgets spent will have a strong impact on traffic conditions;

• The projects’ mandatory co-funding mechanism ensures cost-effectiveness;

• The focus is on cross-border coordination and syn-chronized deployment among regions; and

• They take a long-term view of the large-scale prob-lems which they address.

Perfect partnersThe projects have created a mechanism for discussion and the exchange of experience for all parties involved in the good management of road networks. The project partners are the road administrations and road opera-

tors of Europe; working together facilitates the sharing of experience and the exchange of views about solu-tions to common problems. This brings long-term ben-efits to Europe and maximises the return on investment.

Between 1995 and 2000, the European Commission contributed over €125m to the funding of road manage-ment projects, and allocated an additional €192m for the period from 2001 to 2006. This is in turn motivated the project partners to commit a total of €1,000m them-selves.

The ERPs have achieved significant results, improving transport for users of the TERN, many of which are now

taken for granted. Notable milestones include: the deployment of seamless RDS-TMC and Internet information services; coordinated traffic manage-ment, especially during seasonal peaks or periods of severe weather; dedicated FM radio broadcasts; travel time prediction; and deployment of variable message signs. None of this

would have been possible without extensive real-time data monitoring infrastructure and systems for data exchange between traffic management centres.

Strategic objectivesIntelligent transport systems have delivered tangible results in terms of road safety and sustainable develop-ment through improved management and real-time information systems. They make a strong contribution to the achievement of the EC’s (and member States’) stra-tegic objectives for transport: optimisation of existing

“The projects’ mandatory co-

funding mechanism ensures cost-

effectiveness”

Case in Point


RICHARD HARRIS looks at the lasting legacy of the Euro-Regional Projects

A TERN for

Case in Point


the better

infrastructure capacity; optimisation of traveller and freight flows; improved road safety; and improved envi-ronmental compatibility.

A better understandingThe current programme has made significant progress in updating and improving our understanding, opera-tion and management of the TERN. International, cross- border and boundary and cross-jurisdictional cooperation has been established and promoted. Data collection and traffic monitoring procedures are now widely deployed, generating more information for exchange and dissemination.

This allows better management of the road network and provides more accurate and useful information to trav-ellers. Safety and efficiency of the TERN has steadily improved in tandem with these initiatives. Indeed, the European White paper - European Transport Pol-icy for 2010, makes a clear link between ITS and safety declaring that “Only 6 per cent of road accidents appear to be unavoidable and beyond the reach of improved technology”.

The European Commission and the Member States have made significant investment in ITS. This is because simply building new roads is no longer the answer to the complex transportation issues and challenges that we face. Road traffic continues to increase, as does its importance to the economy, mobil-ity and the environment.

Support structure To maximise the potential returns on the investment already made, continued support is essential. ITS helps us establish common levels of service across Europe and interface between urban and inter-urban networks,

“The projects have established the organisational

regimes needed to build even better

transportation for Europe’s future”

promote public transport and encourage multimodality. ITS investment in Europe will help progress towards the white paper 2020 objectives and supports achievement of national transportation targets.

Building a better futureThe projects have established the organisational and operational regimes needed to build even better trans-portation for Europe’s future. The legacy of the current projects will:

• Facilitate improved tactical network management and control;

• Provide improved journey time reliability during peak periods;

• Utilise the network more effi-ciently during non-peak periods through improved journey planning;

• Establish improved traveller infor-mation services and wider dissemi-nation of information. These would provide:

• Enhanced safety on the network;• More reliable journey times;• Reduced congestion and lower

CO2 emissions;

• Better informed travellers;• Seamless cross border travel;• European economic growth;• Links to private sector investment.Continued EC involvement, leadership and support

are vital for the continuation of real deployment of pan-European cross border and cross-jurisdictional travel-ler services. The Road Authorities involved are committed to continuing to work together to improve European travel. TH

Richard Harris is project director for the Euro-Regional Projects

Case in Point


ITS helps us establish common levels of service across Europe and interface between urban and inter-urban networks, promote public transport

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A DESIGN

Text: ODDVAR SOLEMSLI & KEVIN BORRAS Design: KLIPP OG LIM

Now, though, the very mention of urban design issues in the

transportation arena is likely to garner a far more positive

reaction. Many system integrators and authorities are giving an

increasing amount of credence to what the piece of equipment

they are installing in their city centres actually looks like and

what kind of ergonomic and visual effect it will have on not only

the city, but its inhabitants and users.

For example, anyone who has ever walked along Tooley Street in

South East London cannot fail to have noticed the exceptionally

ugly gantry over the westbound carriageway, not far from the

London Dungeons. The best part of 20 cameras of varying

designs, pointing in every conceivable direction (admittedly so

the cameras can cover both carriageways, which considering

the gantry was only allowed to be built over one lane was never

FOR LIFE

IT WASN’T ALL THAT LONG AGO THAT BRINGING PHRASES LIKE “URBAN DESIGN”,

“ENVIRONMENTALLY SYMPATHETIC,” “AESTHETICALLY PLEASING” AND “URBAN MOBILITY”

INTO A CONVERSATION WITH A TRANSPORTATION ENGINEER WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN,

IF YOU WERE LUCKY, A RAISED EYEBROW OR TWO. AS FOR INCLUDING AN ARTICLE ON

THOSE VERY SUBJECTS AS THE CENTREPIECE FOR A TRANSPORT-RELATED MAGAZINE …

38

going to make it look pretty), all hanging like robotic fruit off a

particularly unfortunate tree. Ugly just doesn’t do it justice. It

was only installed for a series of trials but even so, the word

‘carbuncle’ could have been invented for it. Just ask the company

that installed it – they hate it too.

“It’s a horrible thing to look at,” says Q-Free’s Marit Hammer.

“Really horrible. Obviously it’s functional, and it was only

installed to carry out trials, but there were no urban design

considerations. Clearly.”

Hammer is adamant that this sort of monstrosity is a thing of the

past and that the ability to move freely around a beautiful city

that isn’t desecrated by unappealing bits of metal that look for

all the world like sculptures by a particularly vindictive artist, is

something that will be available for everyone.

“Urban aesthetics is something that we are now very interested

in. Our whole ethic is about not just producing products and

solutions that work brilliantly, but they also have to look good.

People have to look at these gantries all the time, and they also

have to look at their on-board units while they are driving and

they aren’t attractive either. This is all about to change.”

And change it will. Technology and systems for communities on

the move may sound like rather a grand idea but examine the

logically grounded ethics behind it and it’s evident that at its

heart is the desire to integrate technology into the environment

it is designed to serve. It would take a harsh heart to argue with

that.

A Thinking Highways special featureProduced in conjunction with Q-Free ASA

A DESIGN FOR LIFE

40

LIVING IN A QUEUE. In urban centres the world over,

traffic congestion and excessive journey times are the most

common problems for commuters and residents alike as they

struggle to make their way around the city. Overburdened

and overpriced public transport systems, coupled with limited

parking facilities, make the term “urban mobility” frustratingly

oxymoronic for those who struggle with even the shortest of

urban journeys on a daily basis. While global business must

deal with the consequences of commercial traffic being slowed

to a crawl inside our cities, ordinary citizens waste their time

queuing for buses that never arrive on time while their children

breathe heavily polluted air into their lungs as they make their

way to school. The physical effects felt by city inhabitants that

are caused by traffic congestion include soaring stress levels

and respiratory problems such as asthma. There are heavy

social costs to be paid as well, as manifested by the modern

phenomenon called ‘road rage’, when road traffic frustrations

spill over into open violence.

PRICING AS A TOOL TO INCREASE URBAN MOBILITY. Many city authorities around the world are now debating the

essential issues around improving urban mobility in recognition

of the fact that if left unaddressed, chronic traffic congestion

threatens our quality of life, in economic and social terms. The

seemingly deep and intractable problems of congestion can

in fact be largely solved by a relatively simple and extremely

efficient tool - pricing – and furthermore, the pricing tool can be

deployed while ensuring that important social and environmental

aspects are fully considered. Overseeing real improvements in

urban mobility is all about managing scarce resources, such

as space and breathable air, while considering the costs, user

convenience and impact of infrastructural changes on a city’s

landscape.

Costs, in this context, must include a valuation of the external

costs created by the ever-increasing consumption of scarce

resources. Costs to be factored in should include the direct

economic loss caused by traffic delays, the healthcare costs of

respiratory diseases, and the loss of a city’s aesthetic appeal

following major building works. The answer to the mobility

challenge is to influence human behaviour by putting a price

on convenience, so that those wishing to make use of a city’s

infrastructure pay a fair price to do so. Simultaneously city

governments must manage a community’s social differences

and protect special needs’ groups like low-income families

and the disabled, so that the system put in place is as fair as

possible.

“THE SEEMINGLY DEEP AND INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS

OF CONGESTION CAN IN FACT BE LARGELY SOLVED BY

A RELATIVELY SIMPLE AND EXTREMELY EFFICIENT TOOL

- PRICING .”

INTEGRATION OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT. The world’s first system to integrate public and private

transport through a single means of payment was launched

during the February 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin,

Italy. Athletes, organisers and visitors attending the Olympics

equipped their vehicles with a well-designed on-board unit

and an electronic smartcard to pay for access to special lanes

on the tolled motorway approach to the city. The same

smartcard was also used to pay for both parking and public

transport systems and to gain access to Winter Olympic

events. The project was a great success and traffic flow was

excellent – in fact, this major global sporting event passed with

no traffic queues at all!

Now, consider if every city around the world issued its

inhabitants with transport cards that could be used by each

citizen independently or in a car’s on-board unit. Not only would

global urban mobility be greatly improved, with all the positive

outcomes this would deliver – economic, health, social – but

cities would be able to increase revenues as both users

and their cars could then be offered a tailored range of

services. It is possible, for example, to personalise these cards

so that special needs’ groups are provided with reduced / free

access, or so that commuters can accumulate “CO2 credits”

by using public transport. The transport card can even be

extended to services that are not connected to transport, such

as discounts on theatre and cinema tickets. Each individual

could even be rewarded with bonus points for the transport

system for recycling household waste. The technology exists

today - it is simply up to city governments around the world to

begin implementation.

PROTECTING THE CITYSCAPE. As road user charging

technology is introduced into cities it is imperative that

aesthetic aspects are fully taken into account. Roadside

gantries, designed to function on the road, will suddenly have

to fit into a neighbourhood where people eat, sleep and work.

Most probably, steel scaffolding, cables and square metal

boxes are not what people want to have hanging outside

their favourite restaurant as they sit to dine. Implementing

infrastructure that is designed specifically for the cityscape is

clearly a critical issue that city governments must address.

“AS EACH CITY HAS ITS OWN PERSONALITY, IT IS NOT ABOUT CREATING ONE DESIGN BUT RATHER ABOUT CREATING A TOOLKIT THAT ALLOWS CITY GOVERNMENTS TO ADJUST DESIGN VARIABLES TO THEIR CITIES’ INDIVIDUAL AESTHETICAL AND FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS.”

A DESIGN FOR LIFE

43

A DESIGN FOR LIFE

44

changes a city undergoes from night to day and climatically

must be taken into account. These are only some of the things

that must be studied, qualified and quantified in the analysis of

an urban environment, prior to infrastructure being designed

and built. After having completed an environmental analysis,

city governments can then evaluate different design strategies,

additional functionality and required levels of interaction

between the road user charging system and its citizens.

By using a set of basic designs and a design toolkit it is possible

to involve the communities that will be affected by the new

system in the design process to engender understanding

and acceptance. In a large city it is also sensible to take into

account the differences between various parts of the city,

so that in situations when old parts contained within modern

quarters surrounded by business parks and residential areas

can all be studied individually.

FLOW, BEAUTY AND FREEDOM. City dwellers love our

cities. They want to live in them, to experience the pulsating

life that only a city on the move can provide. The freedom to

do so depends very much on how we maintain that movement

within our cities while facing up to the fact that traffic

congestion, if left unchecked, will simply bring our cities to a

heavily polluted, disastrous standstill sooner rather than later.

If we act now to solve our urban mobility challenges we will

be ensuring that our future generations continue to enjoy the

pleasures of city life, and what could be a better reason than

that?

A design for life, indeed…

To create a design adapted to the city requires a real understanding of the interaction between existing urban

environments and the new elements that make up the urban

road user charging system, so as to be able to correctly define

the variables in terms of design values and strategies alongside

technological considerations.

As each city has its own personality, it is not about creating

one design but rather about creating a toolkit that allows city

governments to adjust design variables to their cities’ individual

aesthetical and functional requirements. The ultimate goal is to

enhance the look and feel of the charging system to ensure

it becomes an urban feature that is as aesthetically pleasing

as possible, while still being able to relate and interact with

motorists, pedestrians and other urban systems, and capable

of offering new additional performances and services.

Urban environment variables include physical form, materials,

colours and other elements. The design can be predominantly

linear as opposed to rounded, thin as opposed to bold and the

relationship between a city’s buildings and the new infrastructure

need not be one of ‘conflict.’ Materials can be predominantly

polished as opposed to granular, heterogeneous as opposed

to homogenous and glossy as opposed to matt. Colours

may vary in terms of their tint, brightness and saturation.

Other elements that must be taken into consideration are qualities

that enable a physical object to trigger a positive image in the

mind of the observer, linked to urban features such as pedestrian

streets, canals, nodes like junctions and major crossings and

reference points like towers, monuments, landmark shopping

centres etc. Finally, the dynamic nature of city life, and the

“IF WE ACT NOW TO SOLVE OUR URBAN MOBILITY CHALLENGES WE WILL BE ENSURING THAT OUR FUTURE GENERATIONS CONTINUE TO ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF CITY LIFE, AND WHAT COULD BE A BETTER REASON THAN THAT?”

Patented technology andexpertise which has brought theworld knocking on our door...SINCE 1996, Diamond Consulting Services(DCS), a British company, has been researchingand developing a multi-lane tolling systemcapable of use in all tolling environments.Idris® is a patented technology based onadvanced loops and computer softwaretechnology. It was originally designed for UKShadow Tolling. It has since been developedinto a world beating automatic vehicleclassification system which enables accuratetoll collection and enforcement.

In 1998 DCS was awarded a UKGovernment Smart Grant to developaxle recognition within Idris.Then in 2003received a Smart Award for technicaland commercial achievement.

DCS is now the proud recipient of a Queen’sAward for Enterprise – International Trade.

Through the development and implementationof Idris, DCS are acknowledged as expertsin the US tolling market – the largest and most technologically advanced tollingmarket in the world.

Road User Charging is Open Road TollingIdris leads the field in this most challengingof applications. With Road User Charging atthe top of the agenda for many governments,including the UK, Idris is poised to makeits mark. And with the endorsement ofThe Queen’s Award we will continue to flythe flag throughout the world.

An Idris System provides:Accurate vehicle counts, lengthsand separation;Distinguishes between towing andtailgating vehicles;Axle based automatic vehicle classification;Tag correlation and enforcement triggers.All from a single sensor technology –In-ground loops

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What other single sensor technologyfunctions with the same accuracyregardless of environment?Idris is not affected by weatherconditions and is accurate in alltraffic from congestion to free flow.

The system is suitable for all RoadUser Charging environments such as:Open road tolling using on-board tags,electronic toll collection in single lanes,manual toll lanes or any combination of these. Idris can be used for pre or postclass applications and supports reversiblelanes.The system is low maintenance witha high mean time between failure.

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invented in Britain, developed in Britain... used Worldwide!

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The Idris Technology is protected by one or more of the following patents: EP0879457, USA 6345228 and 6337640Patent Applications Pending in other Countries. Idris® is a registered trademark of Diamond Consulting Services Ltd.

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Diamond Consulting Services Ltd, Chestnut Farm, Dinton, Aylesbury, Bucks HP17 8UG, UKTel: +44 (0)1296 747667 Fax: +44 (0)1296 747557 Email: [email protected]/commercial: www.idris-technology.com Technical support: www.idris-community.net www.idris-technology.com

Idris Community -Something to talk about

Idris Community. A website which has been designedto provide support and information to existing or potential Idris users. The aim of the site is to provide an interactivecommunity for the exchange of ideas and information relating to all aspects of Idris Technology. This site will enablemore effective support for our technology partners,customers and users worldwide. Idris Community is all aboutIdris technology and its applications. The main website willcontinue to focus on the commercial aspects of Idris.

Current features include:

• Latest news and announcements• Community discussion forums• Advice and technical support• File download area

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How can I become part of the Idris Community?Idris Community is open to anyone with a genuine interest in Idris Technology.

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The number of vehicles on the road is increasing each year. Greater demands are being placed upon the transport network; society requires a higher level of safety when travelling, and the transport industry is under increasing pressure to contribute to improving the environment.

Norway also has transport concerns which are not so common place but which are equally important to both the national economy and society as a whole. For exam-ple, the share of total transport volume by sea in Norway is greater than most European countries. In addition, the geography of Norway, its climate, the long distances between markets and the unique topography mean that an efficient and competitive transport sector is essential for the country’s economy.

Norwegian business spends more on transport than its international counterpart so it is continuously look-ing at all available means of transport development and technology to become more competitive.

Consequently Norway was quick to embrace the developments in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry for the benefit of its transport sector and has been a pioneering country in the devel-opment and application of ITS.

A positive impact Norway, especially with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) and related R&D institutions, has always appreciated the positive contribution that ITS can provide in the improvement of the transport sector and has been actively involved in its early develop-ment.

This has included involvement in R&D road and mari-time projects such as the European Commission’s frame-work programmes and European and international ITS standardisation activities. This involvement was made partly possible due to expertise acquired from real life ITS operations, most notably the country’s Electronic Fee Collection (EFC) scheme which made Norway a pioneering actor in the EFC industry.

Since the establishment of its first EFC installation in

Due NorskMany of the challenges facing the Norwegian

transport sector today are similar to those facing its

international counterparts, writes ED HIRST

1987 Norway now has one of the most successful national road tolling schemes in the world. The expertise and experiences acquired from this has helped develop Norway’s ITS competences, which have been success-fully employed at home and in international markets.

Other ITS applications in which Norway has valuable experience include bus priority schemes in Trondheim and Oslo, automatic speed enforcement operational since the 1980s, pioneering work with digital road maps and databases, digital maps of the Norwegian coast and vessel traffic services.

Norway now enjoys a healthy depth of ITS knowledge at the technical, political, operational and commercial level. There are national research institutes with teams dedicated to the further development of ITS and many companies exist who supply state of the art solutions.

ITS NorwayWith this healthy crop of ITS skills and know-how in the country Norway established in 2004 its own organisa-tion for intelligent transport systems, ITS Norway, which enjoys today a membership of over 60 member compa-

Norway


“ITS is identifi ed as one of the focus

areas in the development the national plan”

ties to secure multimodality and the on-going work in these administrations to establish their own ITS strate-gies. The continuing recognition of the importance of ITS is reflected in the current National Transport Plan 2006-2015 (NTP). The NTP provides and overall strategy for the Norwegian transport sector. It recognises that different modes of transport have different qualities and advantages, and stresses the need to take a multi-modal approach to developing the national transport sector. This multimodal policy has been adopted in order to stimulate a shift in transport modes towards public trans-port, rail and sea.

The NTP has five main goals, namely:1. Fewer fatalities and severe injuries on the roads and

improved safety and security on other modes of trans-port;

2. More environmentally friendly urban transport with greater use of public transport;

3. Accessibility for all and a transport service supply to safeguard an active mobile population;

4. Improved traffic flow in and between regions, and;5. More efficient transport.

As things developITS is identified as one of the few focus areas in the work to develop the NTP. Norway sees the development of in-vehicle technologies as instrumental in improving safety on the roads. This belief has been underlined by Norway signing the e-Safety Memorandum of Under-standing with the European Commission. ITS can sup-port the development of public transport as a viable alternative to private car use through the provision of good quality information and electronic ticketing. Posi-tioning technologies are also being embraced with the Norwegian Coastal Administration’s Automatic Identifi-cation System (AIS) along the coast which is improving the monitoring of ship traffic.

Project overviewNorway has made advances in a number of key ITS areas which are described in the projects below:

• ARKTRANS is an ICT architecture for the transport sector. It is the result of the first (and only) comprehensive research initiative devoted to an in depth and in total examination of all transport modes (road, rail, air and

sea), roles and functions. The results are multilevel mul-timodal models describing the coordination of proc-esses and the exchange of information within and between the different transport modes. ARKTRANS is the basis for work on new and improved multimodal travel information services and universal design of such services to support all user groups. In addition to multimodal solutions, ARKTRANS is also used within each single transport mode. Building on the ARKTRANS architecture is the MultiRIT project which aims to develop new and improved multimodal travel informa-tion services.

• AutoPASS – the national EFC scheme remains one of

nies from all parts of the public and private transport sector.

ITS Norway is a driving force behind the promotion of ITS in Norway. The Ministry for Transport and Communi-cation supported and co-financed the establishment of the organisation as a multi-modal network of interested parties. The Ministry has continued to support and con-tribute to the operation of ITS Norway through paid co-ordination work from the organisation. It will be the main contributor to a new national R&D programme from 2007 with the preliminary title of “Commercial Trans-port and ITS”.

ITS Norway has an overall mission to develop ITS through education, promoting R&D projects, encouraging interoperabil-ity, providing a professional national and international network, and sup-porting the potential in Norway for a modal shift and multi-modality in the transport sector. At the political level one part of its mission is to promote ITS as today’s most efficient tool to reach transport policy goals in accordance with the National Transport Plan.

The National Transport Plan The Norwegian Government and its transport agencies have long recognised the importance and value of ITS as a successful tool in the development of an effective use of the national transport network. It has embraced the advantages that the technologies bring to improving the capacity of the network, reducing costs and improving safety.

The Government first developed a clear ITS Strategy at the ministry level in 2000. Then a co-operation plan was developed between the various transport authori-

Norway


Norway’s main ITS success stories to date. Since its early beginnings it has developed into both a national and international success. Currently there are 1.25m Auto-PASS OBUs in use with 25 different installations across the country. In 2004 the national, interoperable Auto-PASS scheme became operational and with over 5 per cent penetration of OBU users it is a world leader. Latest developments include the development of an AutoPASS smart card for roads and ferries, payment on ferries using OBUs, parking payment using AutoPASS, and the introduction of one Central System to support the 25 EFC installations around the country.

Norway is keen to offer anonymous contracts for its users, which is also currently being developed. On the international scene, Norway is working closely with its Scandinavian counterparts in the NorITS project to ena-ble live interoperable road tolling for users between the various countries. Go live date is planned for February 2007.

• DYNAMIT – it is commonly recog-nised now that road operators’ role is not just to administer the physical assets of the transport network but is also to provide a good service to their users/customers. One way in which the service can be improved is to pro-vide users with up-to-date, clear and precise informa-tion on the state of the traffic on the network. This will enable users to plan journeys more efficiently and make them better informed. Project DYNAMIT (DYNAMic Information services for the Transport sector) is devel-oping such a traffic information service in Norway. The project provides users with the necessary information of the state of the traffic for their journey thus allowing them to take the right decision and enable effective use of the network.

A pilot scheme has been developed for a stretch of the E18 between Oslo and Larvik. Travel time is collected anonymously using AutoPASS OBUs and readers placed

in both directions of the road. Information is collected on delays and travel times, expected changes in delays and travels times in the near future, and other issues that could effect travel, e.g. weather, incidents, driving con-ditions. Real-time information is therefore collected, processed and made available to users. Information channels employed include the internet, SMS, radio and variable message signs. Valuable lessons have been learnt from this and similar projects.

• National Roads Data Base (NRDB) – this project was developed by the NPRA and Norway’s National Map-ping Authority to provide road and traffic data that can be accessed via different applications. Information pro-vided in the database contains basic road data includ-ing fixed elements, such as traffic lights, signs tunnels etc, and traffic related conditions – e.g. pollution, traffic

volumes and accidents. Photographs of every 20 miles of road owned by NPRA are stored and it also has access to aerial photographs and a registry of properties, addresses and buildings.

Some information comes from other sources but the user does not notice where the NRDB gets the information

from. The information is kept up-to-date and stored per-manently. Users can access it anywhere in the world. Currently the system applies to the Norwegian roads but it is planned to become multi-modal by 2007.

The futureITS Norway looks forward to pushing the boundaries of ITS and introducing new and exciting applications for the benefit of the Norwegian transport sector.

The organisation, its members and the national gov-ernment will continue to share lessons learnt from its work and co-operate with its international colleagues to ensure that ITS contributes to a more efficient, safer, environmentally-friendly and accessible transport net-work for all. TH

“Valuable lessons have been learnt

from this and similar projects”

Norway


Rainbow risingDARRYLL THOMAS on how South Africa’s ITS industry is using the 2010 World Cup to redefine its national transport goals

Main photo: New VMS signs have been installed on the Ben Schoeman Highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Left, FIFA President Sepp Blatter reveals South Africa as the hosts for the 2010 World Cup

bright future ahe

no delays

South Africa


Yellow card, green light

South Africa’s ITS plans set to kick off

It was late evening on 15 May 2004 but South Africa was glued to the TV to watch the announcement from Zurich that the country had been chosen as the first Afri-can nation to host the 2010 football World Cup. The entire country swelled with a pride that it had not felt since 1995 when President Nelson Mandela and the Spring-bok rugby captain, Francois Pienaar, held the Rugby World Cup aloft at Ellis Park stadium. Who would have thought that this emotionally charged evening two years ago would be the long-awaited catalyst for South Afri-ca’s struggling ITS industry, asks Darryll Thomas

While South Africa is certainly a shining star in the gal-axy of 3rd world states, in terms of sporting and road

It was late evening on 15 May 2004 but South Africa was glued to its TVs to watch the announcement from Zurich that it had been chosen to host the 2010 football World Cup, making it the first African nation to do so.

The entire country swelled with a pride that it had not felt since 1995 when President Nelson Mandela and the Springbok rugby captain, Francois Pienaar, held the Rugby World Cup aloft at Ellis Park stadium. Who would have thought that this emotionally charged evening two years ago would be the long-awaited catalyst for South Africa’s struggling ITS industry.

While South Africa is certainly a shining star in the galaxy of 3rd world states, in terms of sporting and road infrastructure, it has a public transport system that is fragmented, inadequate (in terms of both route cover-age and frequency), unsafe, unreliable and unhygienic. Lack of investment, especially in fleet renewal, mainte-nance and upgrading of signaling systems of the com-muter rail service has also contributed to accidents and to the late arrivals or no shows of trains.

Currently, there is no efficient rail network connect-ing Pretoria, Midrand and Johannesburg, where most of the football matches will be played and the Gautrain (named after the Gauteng Province in which it will run) is a part of ambitious plans to upgrade public transport ahead of the event. This flagship project will carry foot-ball fans at speeds of between 165 km and 180 km and showcase ITS elements such as integrated ticketing and public transport information/scheduling systems. Construction of the 80 km (50 mile, including 10 miles of tunnel) line is underway and is expected to be com-plete in 2010, leaving little room for delays before the tournament begins later that year.

2010 is expected to be the most profitable World Cup ever with an estimated budget of US$4bn [R26.5bn] but success of the this event (beamed live to 40 billion viewers in 207 countries, with 350,000 visitors spend-ing an estimated US$1.5bn [R9.8bn], contributing US$3.2bn [R21.3bn] to the GDP and generating 129,000 jobs) ultimately hinges on an effective and safe public transport system. FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations, world football’s governing body) has granted an overall amount of US$2bn [R12.7bn] and initially US$0.6bn [R3.8bn] of this has been allo-cated for improvement of the public transport system

Another US$5.2bn [R34.6bn] (over and above FIFA’s US$2bn contribution) is earmarked for infrastructure over the next three years, which includes an amount of just over US$1.6bn [R10bn] for the Gautrain and the 2010 World Cup stadiums.

ITS in SAITS planted its South African roots in July 1999 with an interest group that was to lead the industry through political acceptance in March 2000. The official launch at an International ITS Awareness Symposium and Exhibition took place in June 2000 and then SASITS (South African Society for ITS) was established as a Section 21 Company in March 2001.

In a new world economy where technology is not regarded as a priority, particularly when competing for funding with national social ‘upliftment’ projects such as housing and public health, ITS implementation has largely been confined to ad-hoc pilot projects on a shoestring budget. But that is all set to change with the 2010 World Cup announcement.

The ITS toolbox has all the elements needed to repair

ead

South Africa


“In 1994 came a concerted drive to right the wrongs of the past decades”

South Africa’s ailing transportation system by 2010, particularly:

• Urban Traffic Control & Freeway Management Sys-tems (CCTV/Incident Detection/VMS/high-speed com-munication) for quick response to traffic incidents and faults.

• Integrated Ticketing/Smart Cards for an effective public transport fare payment mechanism.

• Data Management/Call Centre/Information Systems to inform motorists and public transport passengers.

• Parking Management Systems for control of parking around stadiums.

Although some of these systems are already in place in one form or another, with new electronic signs dotting the landscape outside Johannesburg, the 2010 World Cup will now force the inte-gration of existing systems and spot-light the implementation of new ITS technology.

Affirmative actionWith the first democratically elected government in 1994 came a concerted drive to right the wrongs of the past decades under Apartheid rule – a government pol-icy that discriminated against the black, Asian and col-oured population. One of these affirmative action measures dictates how business will be done in the new South Africa, particularly aligning the demographics of the workplace, commerce, industry and sport with that of the country’s population.

In order to give Black Empowerment companies (aka Targeted Enterprises) an advantage, particularly in a very active and competitive construction industry, every

contract is awarded in accordance with Black Empower-ment Enterprise (BEE) regulations and tender submis-sions are evaluated in terms of scoring points for price, quality and preference:

• Giving preference to Historically Disadvantaged Individuals (blacks, women and disabled), Priority Pop-ulation Group (PPG: blacks) and Black Business Enter-prises (BBE: at least 26 per cent black-owned)

• Applying a BEE scorecard which sets a minimum percentage for various equity categories, social invest-ment, and Contract Participation Goal (CPG: value of

work to be done by BBE contractors) to apportion a weighting for the tender evaluation process.

It is a further requirement that:• Engineering Contractors must be

registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) in order to set a certain industry stand-

ard, to promote contractor development and apply appropriate procurement strategies.

• There is compliance with Supply Chain Management Policies for all levels of National, Provincial and Local Government, in terms of both the Public and the Munici-pal Finance Management Acts

• Labour-intensive construction methods must be used to provide work for the local unemployed community.

In principle these requirements are integral to the country’s transformation, however, it is patently clear that technology contracts are not a black empowerment opportunity because:

• Of the specialised nature of the expertise involved in ITS projects;

Caption

This traffic control centre in Midrand is the nerve centre of SANRAL’s Ben Schoeman Highway project

South Africa


• Real-time transportation systems are generally very complex, strategic projects.

• Generally black empowerment is looking to give preference to the “previously disadvantaged”, ie. mem-bers of the black population group who would benefit more from low-tech, labour-intensive work.

There are a number of successful black businesses that are involved in construction work (roads, water & electricity reticulation, housing etc.) but none in manu-facture and integration of ITS equipment. In fact there are not that many SA companies involved in ITS equip-ment manufacture at all, which means that the main con-tractor for ITS projects is often an international company and if it is required to have a black partner or agent it clearly just adds to the overheads.

The tenderers have to provide multifarious company details on top of the all important contract pricing and the transport authority has to verify all the information provided as well as evaluate the tender in terms of the technical specification and price. Tenderers are left try-ing to scrape together the necessary qualification points.

Contractor registration with the CIDB is a procedural nightmare and very slow but to complicate matters fur-ther, the Supply Chain Management policies are not clearly understood by the transport authorities, which leads to lengthy delays in the tender adjudication proc-ess. Potential overseas investors in the South African ITS manufacturing industry are likewise scared off by the onerous handicap conditions which are applied in favour of the locals, so the injection of international tech-nology expertise with its associated training and skilled employment opportunities is lost.

Unfortunately the process doesn’t recognise prefer-ence for local manufacture either so there is no incen-tive for technology transfer. At a conservative estimate, addressing the affirmative action issues can add as much as six months to the tendering process.

Kick-off South Africa is a proud nation, passionate about football, and with the grit and determination to overcome all adversity, so a 2010 failure is not an option. However, failure to deal with the procurement logjam and to fast track this process for ITS contracts in particular will cer-tainly stretch the country’s fragile engineering resources to the extreme.

When the 2010 World Cup kicks off the necessary infrastructure will be in place, integrated with an array of Intelligent Transport Systems which will leave behind a legacy of transportation technology deployment, including an effective public transport system.

However, the new stadiums, electronic signs, shiny busses and trains will grow old and need replacing in time but the legacy of understanding and appreciation for technology will add lasting value, to the extent that ITS is forever accepted as a way of life for South African motorists and commuters. TH

Darryll Thomas is the out-going president of SASITS, the South African Society for Intelligent Transport Systems

Truvelo provides you with detailed on-line information and regular updates on our products at www.truvelo.co.za

Truvelo Head OfficeSouth Africa

Tel.+27(11)314 1405-8Fax.+27(11)314 1409

[email protected]

Truvelo is a SANAS-accredited calibration laboratory

South Africa


“It is equally necessary to have an exploitation project which

shares those noble strategic goals”

According to Madrid City Council, “Madrid Calle 30 (M-30) is one of the main urban trans-formation projects of Madrid City Government, which implies the remodelling of the road net-work and the territory through which the old M-30 flows.”

According to the local Government, “this is an action that places the citizen at the very centre, as the main character of Madrid and therefore, it is created to extract a series of values that, beyond the meaning of the infra-structure, seek to modernise and improve the concept of a city as a space offering possibilities of relationship and enjoyment.”

Developing this public claim while at the same time keeping ourselves within the constraints of the strategic level, the organisation responsible for the execution of the project must direct it towards the achievement of such wide objectives. On the one hand, the construction project uses the most advanced means available and pursues the best quality objectives.

On the other hand, it is equally necessary to have an exploitation project which shares those noble strategic goals, which in the M-30 construction project are ori-ented only to quality and technical-economical effi-ciency. These goals can be summarised as follows:

• Ensure and optimize citizens’ mobility as their right and as a factor of economic development, ensuring access to leisure, education, work and multiple funda-mental rights that otherwise could not be exercised.

• Achieve high levelsof transport safety, avoiding risks during journeys.

• Guarantee a high quality in public services, based on the user’s positive perception that can be measured by indicators.

• Incorporate sustainability as strategy component, which means paying special attention to environmental management.

• Extend infrastructure life by means of a proper main-tenance.

• Achieve the previously mentioned objectives in an efficient way, with reasonable investment and exploita-tion costs.

Operation is a decisive tool in the achievement of the Administration’s goals, using the most advanced procedures and the wide-spread use of new technologies as rel-evant tools for the management of already existing infrastructures, as well as for the onerous task of striving for customer satisfaction.

The Exploitation HandbookAs stated by Calle 30, the Operation & Maintenance Handbook (O&M Hand-book) is the document comprehend-ing the strategy to follow in order to achieve the mentioned objectives. Each of the component activities and functions of the operation & maintenance is pro-jected independently way in different plans. The com-ponent plans are integrated in the common project of the Operation & Maintenance Handbook. The edition of

the plans in independent documents facilitates the writing work and the agreement of external agents (traffic authorities and public protection, infrastructure operator, etc.) involved in each area of exploitation, such as safety, traffic management, etc.

• Operation General Framework. This is the frame document which includes the general strategy, opera-tion objectives definition, resources

and main functions, comprehending all component plans. This includes a description of the scenario on physical, socio-economic fields, among other, as well as requirable rules and, in the Book of Competences, the role and function of involved agents.

• Traffic Management Plan compiles strategies,

Spain


Avenida de Portugal undergoes its exteme makeover

resources and procedures for traffic management.• Surveillance Plan. This document sets out surveil-

lance activities carried out at traffic control centres.• The Internal Emergency Plan establishes the organi-

sational framework in which safety activities are per-formed, as well as emergency response procedures.

• Maintenance Plan. This includes maintenance activi-ties of the infrastructures, tunnel facilities and control centres.

• The Commissioning and Monitoring Plan is oriented towards operation and maintenance quality, monitors the correct deployment of the Operation & Maintenance Handbook, defining the subsequent operation monitor-ing. It establishes the strategies and procedures methodology for continuous improvement, as well as human and material resources and of all exploitation components.

Although the Royal Decree 635/2006 directs the Hand-book mainly towards safety, the exploitation project must not forget other relevant functions, such as traffic management or customer assistance.

It is important to highlight the fact that the incident management in the new M-30 tunnels cannot be per-formed solely with safety mind as those incidents, and the actions of those responding to them, could bring about ‘undesirable’ situations from a traffic fluency point of view.

In the case of long urban tunnels with a high traffic flow, operational procedures usually include recurrent tunnel closure strategies in cases of seriousness inci-dents. In this way, unlikely but potentially severe acci-dents could be prevented. However, such actions would have a big impact on the traffic flow.

Consequently, emergency and traffic management

MIGUEL LÓPEZ RODRÍGUEZ of Tekia Consultores’ Transport Operation takes a look at the contents of the operation and maintenance handbook of Madrid’s new motorway, the M-30, where policy, implementation and integration are happy bedfellows of technology

Open heart surgery

Spain


“Traffic management will be performed by integrating the

tunnel operation and management

with the rest of the urban mesh”

must be designed properly and co-ordinately with the exploitation project, trying to reach a compromise between both effects.

Traffic Management Plan The Traffic Management function of the M-30 is the responsibility of the Madrid City Hall Mobility Office, from the moment it was transferred from the Traffic Area of the Home Office. With the construction of the M-30’s tunnels, traffic management will be performed by inte-grating the tunnel operation and management with the rest of the “urban mesh”.

In order to do that, the Mobility Office counts on the usual collabora-tion of the City Police and Mobility Agents, besides Madrid Calle 30 resources, among them the operation and maintenance contractors, EMESA. All of them will act in a coordinated way according to the objectives and procedures established in the Traffic Management Plan.

The Traffic Management Plan, as with all component plans of the Oper-ation & Maintenance Handbook, defines the strategies (general objectives, component activities, organization, human and material resources) and procedures, in this case for the traffic management. We can understand the plan with a look at the objec-tives:

• Favour the road traffic, minimizing journey times.• Avoid the formation of delays within tunnels. • Integrate Calle-30 tunnels in the urban mesh.

• Optimise the network capacity use. For example, using information systems (variable signs signs, radio bulletins, etc) to spread the demand when a road is over-loaded and there are alternative routes with available capacity.

• Minimise the effects on traffic of the signalling meas-ures for incident management inside tunnels. For that, it is necessary that traffic diversion recommendations are accompanied by the appropriate changes in urban traf-fic control strategies.

• Offer users comprehensive information about urban traffic and incidents.

• Support incident management.• Contribute to safety improvement,

adopting risk prevention measures, such as signalling speed variations inside tunnels.

• Coordinate necessary traffic con-ditions for maintenance works execu-tion.

Event horizonTraffic management must be per-formed in four normal situations or in other determined situations (events)

during which traffic is disrupted. 1) Fluid traffic with no incidents or other capacity

losses.2) Planned situations of capacity loss. These events

(maintenance, demonstrations, and other unplanned events) need to be treated more simply. Planning them at night is often enough.

3) Situations of capacity loss generated by an acci-

A boring machine used to excavate the new M-30s tunnels

Spain


dent. These events are random, without previous notice and are difficult to respond to. Events need to be cata-logued and responses must be designed in advance. If the incident shows an obvious risk situation, the correc-tive action should be performed as a priority, even if it causes disruptions or severe traffic situations. Surveil-lance must be maintained in order to take the corrective action as soon as possible.

4) Delays due to imbalance of sup-ply and demand. These events are dif-ficult to manage if delays are to be avoided, and given that capacity is insufficient. However, given their recurrent nature, they can be planned in advance.

Strategic optimizationTraffic behaviour within an urban mesh is a highly complex process. Therefore, fully designed traffic man-agement strategies must be contrasted by simulation.

The Traffic Management Plan uses TSS’s AIMSUN, the Spanish-born transport microsimulation system. Thus, a rehearsal is performed on a virtual environment, which allows the optimization of these strategies and avoids the rehearsal of strategies which deployment could be risky and with no guarantee of satisfactory results.

However, it is impossible to guarantee that traffic man-agement strategies initially defined for different situa-tions would be the most efficient among the possible ones. Consequently, despite being proven by simula-tion, they must be refined during the first months of the

new infrastructure exploitation. The deployment of traffic management protocols is

performed on a traffic management aid system. This system works as a real time strategy server. It facilitates the Control Centre operators information on traffic con-ditions (acquisition processes, information treatment and presentation), selecting the appropriate response to the identified event once the severity has been ana-lysed. After the analysis and response selection, it guides them throughout the execution of the foreseen protocols.

Internal emergency planThe attention and response to incident strategy in the M-30 tunnels and the rest of the road network is struc-tured in two levels:

• Local: the exploitation resources, employed in the solution of more common incidents and those of lower entity, as well as a first intervention in those of more severity, and

• higher: equipped with external resources and acti-vated when the accident dimension surpasses the exploitation resources capacity.

The Internal Emergency Plan (PEI) complies with the requirements of the aforementioned Royal Decree on road tunnels safety, as well as the Civil Protection regu-lations, and must pass the homologation procedure by the competent Authorities.

Risks affecting the use of the road infrastructure included in the contract are identified and classified, establishing a set of measures that will respond to the incidents that may arise during the exploitation of this stretch of road. At the same time it facilitates the inter-vention of external emergency services in order to min-

imize possible damages and properly restore the service.

The PEI defines, for each typified situation, the procedures covering all emergency management processes. Each phase of the process must be executed according to the specific protocols.

• Emergency detection and evalua-tion protocols.

• Response protocols.• System operation protocols.• Emergencies communication pro-

tocols.• Emergency record protocols.

Emergency protocols are the fundamentals on which the Control Centres’ emergency management systems should be programmed. This system, complementary to the real time control systems, serves as an assistant for the control operators’ decision-making, guiding them through the response activities in an emergency, accord-ing to the protocols established in the Emergency Plan.

The operation assistance systems (incidents/emer-gency management, etc.) allow the implementation of the previous operation engineering that, in some cases such as the M-30 tunnels, reach a level of complexity that, otherwise, could not be achieved. TH

Map of Madrid with the M-30 highlighted

“Emergency protocols are the fundamentals on which the Control

Centres’ emergency management

systems should be programmed”

Spain


DARREN BANCE reports from Dubai as its seemingly endless expansion presents a unique series of transport challenges that have to be met

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Imagine a blinding hot sun and you’re surrounded by high rise towers: the location, an ambitious mixed-use urban development featuring luxury res-idences, iconic hotels and office blocks, vast shop-ping malls, an indoor ski resort in a desert city and a palm shaped islands rising out of the sea. It is of course Dubai, a city within the UAE with vision, leadership, plenty of investment and an engineer-ing philosophy that nothing is impossible. But even this monument to mans impatience has not escaped the inevitable growing problems.

Infrastructure development in the UAE has been, at all levels, phenomenal in view of the relatively brief period since the country’s investment boom. Modern cities have risen like phoenixes from the barren desert, con-nected by a vast network of newly built roads and linked to the outside world by modern airports and ports. Houses, schools, hospitals, shopping centres, utilities, luxury hotels and recreational facilities have all been provided for the people in a remarkably short time.

Growing painsFaced with the fastest growing populations anywhere in the world, the UAE has experienced some major issues with the sheer speed of growth in road users and the knock on effects that this has had on the transport net-work. Traffic congestion has come about mainly due to the impossibility of predicting the unprecedented continuing popula-tion boom, the relative ease of gaining credit facilities at favorable rates for obtaining tax free cars and low priced fuel and the convoluted road networks that are constantly being changed, improved or reconstructed.

Furthermore, Dubai has gained a poor road safety record with a minor road accident occurring at least every three minutes. Due to the frequency of such inci-dents, the road networks are faced with lengthy traffic jams and irate drivers as under Dubai law none of those involved in a traffic incident are permitted to leave the scene until the traffic police have attended to apportion blame.

Crossing the CreekThe Dubai Municipality has recognized these problems and as such has identified the need to invest heavily in essential transport infrastructure. Dubai’s road network is under continuous expansion with over 20 major new projects under construction or recently completed, including a 1.5km tunnel under the airport and a new 12-lane bridge across Dubai Creek which links the east and west banks of the river that separates the city in two. As the city spreads out into sea the Complex Develop-ments at Jumeirah and to the west to Jebel Ali this neces-sitate a reworking of traffic plans.

When completed, Jebel Ali Airport City will host 900,000 people whilst The Palm, Jumeirah, will house 140,000 on an island reached via a single bridge. With Jebel Ali International Airport destined to handle 120m passengers per year, and Dubai Logistics City, the

world’s first integrated logistics and multi-modal trans-port platform, at its core, Jebel Ali Airport City’s consid-erable traffic requirements must be streamlined with Dubai’s overall future transportation needs. These projects together with other future sizable infrastructure developments planned such as ‘Dubailand’, (which, when complete will be more than twice the size of Dis-ney World at a cost of US$13.5bn), and Dubai Waterfront, (to house the first building in the world over 1km high), will need a sustained and integrated approach to increasing the level of road infrastructure together with innovative and intelligent transport solutions.

Solving the problemsInvestment in public transport is a major component of Dubai’s plans for the future. Dubai Municipality has been instrumental in the transformation of Dubai emirate into a modern, efficient commercial and tourist center. In view of the expected increase in Dubai’s population by the year 2011 to more than double the present number and the consequent increase in the number of vehicles, Dubai Municipality has prepared a comprehensive traf-fic flow master plan.

Key aspects of the plan are the construction of new roads between Dubai and Sharjah, construction of a ring-road around Dubai, re-planning of traffic circula-tion, especially the flow of traffic crossing the Creek and

construction of parking lots, and effi-cient connectivity to the sizable infra-structure developments.

Building additional road space is of course not the only way to ease the traffic problems and enable more flu-ency on the city’s road infrastructure. Dubai has initiated a number of

projects to improve the problems being encountered today. These Intelligent Transport Systems vary from car navigation systems which are so popular in Europe and America, to variable message signs to feasibility studies on road tolling.

Variable message signsThe city will enter an era of improved road management later this year with the introduction of electronic display signs updating traffic conditions and directing motor-ists away from congested routes. It is the first venture of its kind in the Middle East and it is seen as a much needed move towards smoother roads and better-informed motorists. A major advantage of this imple-mentation will be the subsequent reduction in delays for emergency vehicles on congested roads, a growing problem causing concern to the Municipality. The signs will update road conditions and list congested routes and suggested alternatives.

They may also warn of lane closures or blocked inter-sections. It is hoped that the US$17.8m project will even-tually reduce traffic accidents by 15 per cent in Dubai and slash travel time by 1.4m driving hours per year. The project comprises 17 electronic signs around Dubai, and about 300 monitor boards which will direct motor-ists to roads with less traffic.

Illustration by Tom Waldschmidt

“The Palm will house 140,000 on an island reached

via a single bridge”


Dubai

The messages will be displayed in both Arabic and English and there will be no need to call the police if there is an accident because all roads will be wired with radar and speed-control devices, accessible to both the municipality and police. The central communication centre will have all the information to display traffic messages in time and also alert the police on time, giv-ing minute details of the location so that they can respond in the shortest possible time.

Electronic sensors and cameras will be installed to capture traffic volume data and transfer it instantly to the traffic control centre. Pictures of accidents will be trans-ferred to an electronic map, which will help traffic con-trollers analyse information. Engineers will be able to find solutions to the problem in cooperation with the police and re-route traffic by sending instructions to the electronic boards. Traffic signals will also work in tan-dem with the electronic sign system.

Navigation systemsIn February 2003, the Dubai Municipality Roads Author-ity initiated the implementation of Dynamic Integrated Navigation System (DINS). This project is a logical and functional extension of the existing Intelligent Traffic System of Dubai.

The system uses the support of GPS to provide naviga-tional data and Traffic Messaging Channel, which uses radio frequency to broadcast real time traffic update to drivers. The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is offering the system, named ‘Dalili’ or ‘My Guide’, point-ing out the roads to avoid if there are traffic jams ahead and the alternate streets to take.

Each of Dubai’s streets and roads has been charted and sensors installed at various points in the city for the system to work in real time. As with the popular Euro-pean equivalents, the system can be installed as stand-ard on the dashboard, although if the car already has a built-in navigation system, all one needs to do is to download the software.

On-Board UnitsAn ambitious and cutting edge enforcement initiative is the implementation of ‘smart boxes’ or on-board units (OBU’s) within vehicles. The UAE signed a US$125m contract earlier this year to provide the high-tech traffic monitoring and speed-enforcing system in which a GPS-enabled OBU would be installed in cars to provide a voice warning if the driver exceeds the local speed limit for wherever they may be driving.

If the voice warning is ignored, the system will use a GSM/GPRS link to beam the car’s speed, identity and

Dubai


location to the police so that a ticket could be issued, potentially generating millions in traffic fines for the Gulf state. The system will also be able to track and mon-itor any other driving violations, including reckless behavior. The first 10,000 units will be installed in Abu Dhabi and Dubai with 700,000 installed by 2009.

Road tollingAnother more contentious method of reducing conges-tion whilst raising revenue at the same time is the intro-duction of road tolls. The Dubai Road and Transport Authority is stated to be assessing the feasibility of installing a manual and electronic toll system in and around Dubai with specific focus on entry from Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.

As many as 350,000 vehicles travel to Dubai from Shar-jah and Abu Dhabi every day, the majority of which pass along the Sheikh Zayed and Ittihad Roads. Although clearly still in the conceptual stage, it has been men-tioned that the authority will issue motorists prepaid cards and electronic transponders so they can track vehicle movements and collect the toll charges. The Government will be conducting a public survey before the implementation.

In Ras Al Khaimah, tolls are already is use on a new route connecting the Emirates Southern industrial areas with the Emirates Road. Fees are imposed on each vehi-cle depending on the size of their load. This route requires frequent maintenance due to the heavy load it bears and the fees will be used to generate the money needed for construction and maintenance.

ConclusionUnfortunately, success often comes at a price, and for those that live and work in Dubai, that price is the bulg-ing road infrastructure and the consequential traffic congestion which have been borne from a rapid growth in population and car ownership. However, as with most things in this truly amazing Emirate, the response to problems is both rapid and comprehensive. The Munic-ipality have not just initiated single projects but a series of complex ones within ambitious timelines.

With all these measures in place, along with the vision, investment and leadership that prevails, it should not be long before the road systems in Dubai are back in keep-ing with other elements of the Emirate, that is modern, efficient and on a major scale. TH

Darren Bance is Vice President of System Design & Integration for the Olive Group,

based in Dubai. He can be contacted by email at [email protected]

Intelligent Speed Adaptation


Adapt to survive

ANDREW HOWARD, the AA Motoring Trust’s head of road safety, looks at how intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) may be exactly what most motorists are looking for



There is a vociferous minority who oppose speed limits, speed management and speed enforcement. However, our research shows that the majority of both drivers and indeed the whole population, in the UK at least, support measures to control vehicle speeds.

Our headline figure for drivers’ attitude to speed is always that 75 per cent of drivers find speed cameras acceptable. This acceptability figure raises many eye-brows, in spite of the fact that it has hovered in the seven-ties for many years, and that it reflects other research, especially by the speed camera partnerships. However, it doesn’t seem to reflect conversations that even road safety workers have with other drivers. The explanation for this is that our question does not ask them to respond

as a driver – just as a human being. When drivers are asked in their own homes for their

opinions they have to balance their views as drivers with their views as residents and parents, just as they seem to when they reach the ballot box. When in this “mode” suddenly the idea of enforcing speed limits for safety overrides the feeling of restriction they feel when in driver mode, and on balance speed enforcement becomes desirable. If asked for their level of agreement with the statement “The roads would be safer if drivers kept to the speed limit”, 83 per cent of drivers agree, as do 88 per cent of the public. This latter figure is up from 79 per cent agreement in 1986.

Fast talkingBroadly speaking the complaints the AA Trust receive about speed management, and particularly speed enforcement, fall into two groups. Those who think it is outrageous that it happens at all, and those who have been caught out in one way or another - the “I didn’t know the speed limits”, the “what is this ridiculous law about lampposts?”, and the contradicting pair - “the road didn’t look like a 30” or “the speed limit kept changing”. A number of these also ask “can’t I have a device that tells me the speed limit inside the car?” or “can’t I have a device which stops me speeding?”

Every time ISA appears in the news we get asked how drivers can get hold of this wonderful idea. It must be pointed out that the AA Trust also receives complaints about speed limits being too high and requests for assistance in getting limits lowered.

In the autumn of 2003 we asked around 1000 people whether or not they agreed with the statement “devices should be introduced which prevent cars exceeding the speed limit at any time.” Forty-seven per cent of drivers, and 56 per cent of the whole sample agreed with this very bland statement. Incredibly, the level of driver support is practically identical to that recorded for a seat belt law in 1980 – just three years before the law came in with near 95 per cent compliance – and this sug-gests that it is a proportion that can be increased.

This proportion is higher than most people in the ITS world expect and there are many working in this field, and in the broader road safety field, who feel that motor-ists are wholly against the scheme. In reality, ISA is more popular with drivers than black boxes (39 per cent acceptable). It may well be easier to “sell” drivers ISA – which can stop many drivers exceeding the speed limit, than to sell them black boxes, which only help allo-cate blame after the worst has happened.

Losing controlSo, ISA has much to commend it to many people – those who have offended, those who feel they are bound to get it wrong one day, those who don’t want to speed at all and those who walk or cycle or have children who walk or cycle. To others it is utterly loathsome. Others have fears of “big brother” and of the dangers of handing control of their vehicle over to technology. Many of these fears are based on a misunderstanding of the system, and it is important that the public are properly informed

about how the system works and how it will affect them.

The AA Trust’s view of an ISA system has been built round the system tri-alled by the University of Leeds and which we have had the chance to sam-ple as drivers as part of a demonstra-tion in West London. This was a system where:

• A GPS system locates the position of the car and in conjunction with a digital map held in the car establishes the speed limit for the length of road being used;

• The system prevents the car being accelerated past this limit unless the driver overrules the system. An audible warning is available both for speed limit changes and when the system operates;

• The accelerator pedal vibrates when the system is operating – ensuring the driver knows his speed is being restricted;

• The system can be overridden both by a button on the steering wheel and by a kick-down process similar to that used on automatic cars.

This is a practical arrangement. The ability to overrule the system will be very important, particularly while unfitted vehicles predominate in the traffic mix. It would be very hard for the drivers of the first equipped vehi-cles to, for example, overtake a lorry on a motorway without exceeding 70 while all around are.

The driver in controlOther factors to consider are that many other drivers will not understand that some cars are limited and that there will also be problems for anyone who has a car without ISA but who finds himself driving a car (a hire car, for example) without it and vice versa.

We would argue that any initial application of the sys-tem should include these features. This arrangement means that the driver controls the car with the assist-ance of ISA. ISA doesn’t control the car.

At first ISA should be made available as an optional extra for vehicles that could be marketed on the “never get another speeding ticket” slogan. Later it would almost certainly become a standard fitting, and later still

could be legislated into vehicle design. Otherwise tax incentives (as used to promote more environmen-tally friendly, less polluting cars) could be used.

While no further legislation may be needed there would always be scope for a third stage – where speeding in a car equipped by law with ISA is a more serious offence than in an unequipped car – after all any driver caught speed-

ing would have made a deliberate choice not to use an available aid.

It would be relatively easy for ISA-equipped cars to be recorded on the DVLA database, particularly once fit-ting was required.

Although this approach will not generate the maxi-mum road safety benefit in the shortest time possible, it seems the best way to gain the public’s acceptance of the system. Those who felt that ISA impeded their driv-ing style, or was dangerous need not use it. They would however face stiff penalties if they could not stay within the legal limit.

Orwellian motivesThe “big brother” effect needs to be countered too. It is practically certain that there will be those who will see ISA as a “Trojan Horse” for getting road pricing equip-ment into cars, even if the people believing this would happily buy a satellite navigation system. There are also a number of people who seem to think that any scheme will mean that their every move will be tracked.

Before any ISA system can be brought into operation a digitised map of Britain’s speed limits needs to be made. The speed with which this task is completed has a huge bearing on the overall effect of ISA on road safety as the system cannot work without the maps. Not only does this have to happen to facilitate ISA, but it would also help local authorities keep their speed limit databases up to date. Compiling this map is a key task.

ISA offers much to road safety. It also offers much to the motorist. It is important that we remember that driv-ers need to be persuaded of its value, and that the indi-cations are that many will be responsive to such persuasion. TH

“There will be those who see ISA as a Trojan Horse for getting road

pricing equipment into cars”

(Left) The University of Leeds Instiute of Transport Studies’ ISA-equipped Skodas and (right) how the equipment was installed in the cars’ bootspace



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Transport information and control systems (TICS) include a very wide range of systems and their infra-structure.

A useful framework to consider this is a four-layer architecture as follows:

Layer 1: Business architecture – describing the serv-ices provided and the business processes followed;

Layer 2: Information architecture – the comprehen-sive aggregation of information and data that provides the basis for every business in the modern age;

Layer 3: Application architecture – the collection of discrete system applications that work concurrently and together power the business activity; and

Layer 4: Infrastructure architecture – proving the plat-forms and support services common to many applica-tions but without being directly involved in the specific design for a customer.

These viewpoints on the systems architecture are all needed for a full appreciation of a system capability, benefits, costs and risks, whether societal, technical, business or environmental. This accords with the classi-cal doctrine on formation of a holistic appreciation of the major and critical elements of a major system in its intended context before embarking on design, devel-opment and deployment. This fundamental principle is true for every type of transport and logistics system and for every vehicle-based system no matter how it is inte-grated into multimodal networks.

An enterprising situationThe growing realisation of the need for such approaches has given rise to a new discipline for the development of large-scale, heterogeneous network systems for trans-port as in other business domains. The new discipline is

Layer cakeMaybe one day someone will invent a navigation system for the information superhighway. Until they do, metadata (literally data about data) registries are the way forward. CHRIS SKINNER looks at the latest innovations in information management

Information Management


entitled Enterprise Architecture Integration (EAI) and it is catching on very rapidly. Transport is in line for the adoption of this approach also, but to do so requires acknowledgement that the current Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) architectures have not lived up to their expectations.

Perhaps a major reason for this is that the business architecture has not been given enough attention. Another possible cause is the difficulty of some practi-tioners to relate the architecture to their needs and requirements in a familiar manner.

The information architecture is also a critical focus area. Transport systems can produce immense quantities of sensor and transaction data and logis-tics systems produce many forms of transaction data.

These data sets are required to pass through many stages of processing and interfacing to other systems in a value chain or supply chain. This requires attention to interoperability and that is often neglected until the other views of the architecture are well advanced.

What should happen is that the information architec-ture is developed at the same time as the application and infrastructure architecture so that all of them work together to deliver the functionality defined in the busi-ness architecture. This requires that the same level of attention is devoted to data structures and messages as to hardware interfaces and telecommunications.

Interoperability within the information architecture is typically addressed in a layered approach as with clas-sical telecommunications.

There needs to be recognition and acceptance of the parameters and semantics at each layer and the quality of services provided need to be within predictable or known limits. However this area is complicated by a pro-liferation of standards and protocols and of proprietary service interfaces.

A question of semanticsThe solution to these issues is to follow an open systems interconnectivity approach based on the seven-layer OSI standard from the ISO, with the additional require-ment of semantic interoperability to ensure a common

understanding of the concepts transported over inter-faces. Nevertheless in a world that is heterogenous in most respects there is a multitude of languages and def-initions. In some cases we have achieved widespread standardisation but rarely is this universal – either in geographic extent or in a common timeframe.

Some people would argue that this is to be expected and even encouraged. They say that if we ever achieve that identical approach then that milestone will mark the end of innovation and improvement.

A more practical and realistic approach is to assume convergence to some degree but with significant variety and a constantly changing mix of technologies, stand-ards, protocols and business models.

To operate effectively in such a milieu demands methodologies and processes that produce effective har-mony and interoperability in a dynamic environment.

From the core outHarmonisation of competing definitions of data and information is a process for finding the common or core components and then building out from that core to develop further areas of defined relationships. The process for this is still a research area in many respects but is being driven by creation of ontology frameworks as part of the semantic web extension to web services technology.

The achievement of greater levels of harmonisation may be confidently expected but there are likely to be diminishing returns on investment of effort and steadily increasing complexity – itself a cause for concern.

In the complementary direction of interoperability a similar process applies. Increasing levels of interoper-ability will be possible with greater standardisation and attention to common frameworks and processes, but it will never reach perfection.

So where does this leave us for transport and logistic systems? There will be increasingly effective levels of integration, producing enhanced harmony and interop-erability, but with the downside of exponentially increas-ing levels of investment needed and the increasing risk from creeping complexity.

“The achievement of greater levels of harmonisation may

be confidently expected”

Information ManagementInformation Management


The solution existsThe upside is that ever-advancing innovation will find solutions for current issues and will provide greater effi-ciency and predictability. What should transport and supply chain professionals do to reap the potential ben-efits? Ensure that standardisation is part of all develop-ment and integration but not to the point of rigidity or impedance to new technologies and the application of new knowledge and processes.

This means continual revision and renewal – and con-tinual supersession of current methodologies. Most importantly it means embracing a culture of managed and encouraged change – change that delivers benefits and reduces costs and does so within a risk framework that is understood and also is managed effectively with no surprises.

So, don’t expect that the next technology will solve all the current problems – it never will – but it could take you a step further in making improvements and making you better able to adopt the next innovation success-fully and ahead of your competitor. TH

Christopher J. Skinner, BSc(Eng) MEngSc MIET, MIEAust, MACS, CPEng is Principal, DISplay Pty Ltd in

Cremorne New South Wales, Australia and can be contacted via email at: [email protected] or by

telephone on +61 4 1499 0834

FootnoteFor an example of the need for effective information management through harmonisation and integration to produce interoperability, one only has to look at the Australian National Transport Data Framework (NTDF) which describes no less than 66 disparate and incom-patible databases. For more information visit www.atcouncil.gov.au.documents/NTDF. aspx

Some of the terminology of the emerging technology to manage information such as the NTDF includes:

MDA Model-driven architectureMOF Meta object facilityOWL Web ontology languageSOA Service-oriented architectureXMI XML metadata interchangeXML eXtensible Markup Language

Information Management

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In the field of transport engineering, simulation software has for many years been a helpful tool on which specialists rely for analysing and assessing transportation networks.

However, during the last decade, the diversity of these tools has broadened. Indeed, the classical planning (macro) software packages, generally based on static paradigms, are no longer the only type of application available to face transport engineering challenges. This is due, among other reasons, to the permanent computational power progression and, more disaggregated and dynamic models appearing in the field.

This is the case of the microscopic, currently the most-used model for operational studies, and the mesoscopic which, even if the concepts has existed for many years, has only recently started to be seen as an interesting compromise between macro and micro.

With the presence on the market of these three types of traffic simulation approach, too many people have had the unfortunate tendency to compare them in order to find the “winner”. It must be understood that

“The models should be complementary

instead of antagonistic”

Test for levels Why choose one traffic simulation model when you can combine them all, ask ALEXANDRE TORDAY and JAIME BARCELO of Barcelona’s TSS – Transport Simulation Systems

T-Focus


T-Focus

each application has specific advantages and disadvantages and the selection of the adequate tool largely depends on the objectives of the study, the data available and the temporal window. Let’s go even further by admitting that transportation studies are becoming more and more multi-objective and that the models should be complementary instead of antagonist. Consequently, the

question to be raised is: How can we make the three approaches work together in an efficient way?

When the modelling approaches have been developed independently and implemented in independent software packages, the exchange of information between the three levels based on file exchange is the only way forward, but it is not the most efficient way. It requires a complex overhead when time-dependent paths of vehicles

travelling across the network from origin to destination must be taken into account, as is the case of hybridizing meso and micro approaches.

An efficient answer to these questions must be based in a flexible combination of computer modelling and transport modelling, which is an implementation of transport models supported by advanced software architecture. This is definitively the current trend on the simulation market where the systems are conceived as integrated environments enabling the direct exchange of information among various transport analysis tools.

Ideally, the key component is an extensible object model common to all applications that share a unique Model Database. Transport Planning, mesoscopic simulator and microscopic simulator, among other applications, exchange the information directly in this way, each one using the information and modifying the stored information accordingly. All the data have a common storage and the type of network representation depends only on which subset of data is used.

The object model for the macro

T-Focus


microscopic level lanes must have a width, and other additional numerical attributes are necessary. For example, the speed limits on the section, although macro and meso, or meso and micro, can share some of the numerical attributes.

At macro level nodes representing intersections include a detailed definition of the allowed turnings, but no information on signal setting at signalized intersections, or specific give way or stop rules at unsignalized intersections as far as they do not account for signal control. Meso and micro approaches need all the information concerning phasing schemes and time settings at controlled intersections as they deal explicitly with signal control, as well as information on ‘give way’ and ‘stop’ signs at unsignalized intersections to model traffic behaviour appropriately.

This means that when moving from the upper aggregated level of network representation of macro approaches to the lower level of meso and micro there is information missing that should be additionally provided to ensure the model consistency at the corresponding lower level. When moving in the opposite direction, from the fully disaggregated lower microscopic to the upper aggregated levels meso or macro, the appropriate aggregation rules must be defined to keep the models consistent.

In an ideal worldThe ideal situation is that depicted in the figure on the previous page, where starting at the macro level with a very large model of a region or a metropolitan area. the analyst, after conducting a transport planning analysis window into a large sub-area (possibly the whole area spanned by the model) is able to get a deeper insight into the dynamic effects of time dependencies of traffic phenomena through the meso level.

The dynamic analysis may then reveal potential conflicts in smaller sub-areas requiring a further detailed analysis, namely when accounting for ITS applications for which microscopic simulation is the suitable model. TH

level contains attributes exclusive of the macro network representation and attributes which are shared with the meso level. Similarly, the micro level shares some of the attributes with meso and macro, but has other exclusive attributes but all of these attributes are stored in a unique model database.

A visual feastFigure 1 (above) shows the case in which the left window has executed the user equilibrium assignment. Link colors visualize the expected level of service after the assignment, the central window visualizes similar results for a given time interval from a mesoscopic simulation, and the right window is a microscopic simulation is being executed and the corresponding animated view visualizes the individual vehicles, queues at intersections and so on.

Macro, meso and micro approaches to traffic modelling, although sharing some common concepts, are in reality based on different types of network representations.

They all have in common the demand model in terms of an Origin Destination Matrix whose entries represent the number of trips from the selected origin to the chosen destination, for a given time period and trip purpose; origins and destinations are represented in the model in terms of artificial nodes, or centroids, where traffic flows are generated and sunk.

The differences in demand

“All these attributes are

stored in a unique model database”

Figure 1: the left window has executed the user equilibrium assignment

T-Focus

representation lay in that, for macro approaches usually based on static user equilibrium, the demand matrix is unique for all of the considered time horizon, while in the meso and micro approaches the demand matrix is usually split in a set of matrices for a smaller time period spanning the whole temporal horizon, to better approximate the time-specific traffic demands.

Macro/meso/microMacro and meso approaches are based respectively on link node and extended link node network

representations, with nodes modelling intersections and links modelling the transportation infrastructure, while microscopic modelling to traffic networks requires explicit and detailed modelling of the road sections, intersections, roundabouts and so on.

Road sections at macro and meso levels are therefore represented in terms of abstract oriented arcs, whose characteristics are defined in terms of numerical attributes, i.e. capacity, number of lanes, associated volume-delay function, or speed density relationship in the extended link node, etc; while at the

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VISSIM’s evolutionary steps to simulate ITS on motorways by PTV AG’s MARTIN FELLENDORF

Although ITS may not be developing as fast as anticipated a decade ago, measures on motorways and other high performance highways are steadily growing.

Over 50 per cent of the motorway network in the Netherlands and more than 15 per cent of all German motorway kilometres are equipped with Variable Message Signs (VMS). Thorough planning is needed to design control logics which perform best with respect to safety and capacity issues. Due to the complexity of various control options traffic engineers searched for help to test the impact of control options before actually implementing control devices and software in the field.

As in other fields simulation models of various granularity were chosen to accompany engineers to gain the full merits of motorway control. The details of traffic micro simulation have proven to be a very valuable tool for many applications, in which the impact of single vehicles has to be investigated. A handful of commercial products are on the market claiming to model comprehensive ITS measures on motorways – VISSIM being one of them.

Research foundation Decades of research were needed until the current level of modelling functionality had been made available. In the first place the movement of a single vehicle over space and time had to be coped with. If the technical abilities of the vehicle to accelerate and decelerate are known and human intention of desired speeds is

measured it is easy to replicate a trajectory of a single vehicle. If several vehicles follow each other on a single lane a car-following model is required. In the 1960s and 70s extensive measurements were conducted to identify the process of an approaching vehicle following a lead-vehicle.

Drivers are not very good at accurately sensing distance and speed difference to a lead vehicle. Oscillations are observed in which speed differences and distances are constantly alternating. A series of action point models were published which resulted in the psycho-physical car-following model of VISSIM.

Each driver has individual perception thresholds at which speed difference and distance he will react, either by braking or by accelerating. These thresholds are stochastically distributed to model the full spectrum of cautious to aggressive drivers.

Not only the longitudinal movements of car-following but also lateral movements on multi-lane highways were investigated to replicate the process of decision making when passing a slower vehicle. Results of the lane changing process were validated against real-world lane utilisation measurements mainly in the 1980s on German motorways.

With solid work on car-following and lane-changing supplemented by the computing power and availability of upcoming PCs the first commercial version of VISSIM has been launched in 1992. However, research is never ending, and recent measurements and findings of the NGSIM initiative

funded by the Federal Highway Agency of the USA are already embedded within VISSIM.

Traffic flow modelsMicroscopic traffic flow simulation has long been viewed as playground within a small academic world. Increasing congestion on our roads and easy-to-use implementations of the models provided a base that traffic engineers required and were able to use these tools themselves.

Without micro simulation a number of urgent questions on motorways could not have been answered, except by trial and error. Field tests are impossible or a waste of resources in many cases, especially if large investments in infrastructure are required.

Here’s a taste of early VISSIM examples. Practitioners wanted to test the location and length of extra lorry lanes at uphill sections, the length of weaving section for an on-ramp to merge with the main traffic in hilly terrain and the likelihood of spill backs from an off-ramp.

In all these cases you could not just build a pattern without the risk of failure of investment, nor could guidelines be applied since the local constraints did not match the assumptions made in the guidelines.

From the beginning it was clear that a multi-purpose simulator was needed. Each application was different regarding local conditions, traffic compositions and objectives. Therefore the versatility of the simulation tool was of utmost importance even though the first examples looked at motorway segments of a couple of kilometres.

A model proT-Focus

Vol No 1 Thinking Highways76 www.h3bmedia.com

Small universal building blocks were designed as little objects with changeable attributes allowing the user to assemble it the way he needs it. Some training and basic understanding of traffic flow is needed but once this learning curve is conquered, the benefit of micro simulation has already been seen in these early applications.

Generic interfaceMotorway control via VMS became more and more important in the late 1990s and control logics of increasing complexity were designed. The advantage of these complex systems has to be justified by analysing its benefit with respect to safety, capacity or environment.

Since the control software of a ramp metering system, a contra-flow system, a dynamic speed system, tunnel control or a toll booth imposes different requirements on the traffic simulator, VISSIM has a generic programming interface which allows developers to attach to. The simulator moves vehicles and activates detectors which are visible to the control logic, so that

the control can decide on rerouting vehicles, stop single vehicles or accelerate platoons to name but a few of the interface functions.

The control logic itself is often hidden as a compiled piece of software and attached as a Dynamic Link Library in order to retain intellectual property. Examples of simulating Automatic Cruise Control indicated the attention paid by the automobile industry to hide confidential developments.

Getting the big pictureNowadays motorway agencies are concerned with network stabilities. Rerouting of vehicles in case of available alternatives is being looked at on a local scale as much as a national scale.

Computing power now allows for networks with several hundred kilometres to be modelled on a PC. If this is still not sufficient, VISSIM runs on multi-processor units or a cluster of PCs.

This provides computing power which comes close to what was limited to supercomputers not long ago. However, computing power is

just one piece in the process to of building large micro simulation models. Setting up the necessary data and calibrating a large model are two different items which also have to be considered.

Today Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide excellent data to model the real road network but difficulties arise when obtaining travel demand information. Hybrid modelling is now the buzz phrase – micro simulation models are linked with less detailed models which deal with the demand side on a higher level of aggregation. PTV has built national models on a disaggregate level feeding VISSIM with trips. Distributing single vehicles on different routes is done on the microscopic level in order to model decisions of individual drivers – some decide before beginning the trip, others prefer rerouting options during the trip.

Simulating decisions of this kind is becoming relevant for the navigation market. VISSIM and its accompanying tools within the PTV Vision family are prepared to tackle this challenge. TH

T-Focus


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In the first of a series looking at transport funding issues affecting the European Union and states likely to join it, Ukraine and Belarus come under MARGARET PETTIT’s scrutiny

The situation regarding funding for Eastern Europe is changing.

The current EU Fund, TACIS, for Ukraine and Belarus is to be phased out at the end of this year and will be replaced by the new European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) in 2007 under the Euro-pean Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

In addition, INTERREG, an EU Community Initiative under the European Regional Development Fund that has been funding certain projects in Ukraine and Bela-rus, will also cease at the end of 2006 and its activities will be integrated into the ENPI.

The following indicates what opportunities we might expect. Forecasts of the annual work programme for Ukraine and Belarus for 2006 are given in the accompa-nying box.

Cross-Border Co-operation ProgrammeAt present CBC is the area likely to provide opportuni-ties for ITS in the countries under review. The CBC Programme aims to strengthen management and infra-structure of eastern borders of EU candidate countries and to achieve partnerships between Central European accession countries and Russia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus. Possible opportunities for ITS may exist in the Programme’s purpose to encourage the linking of net-works on both sides of a border (for example border crossing facilities) and the development of infrastruc-ture networks.

To give an indication of the location of some future CBC projects, there is currently a Call for Proposals within the Neighbourhood Programme for Poland-Bela-rus-Ukraine, seeking proposals for co-financing of cross-border projects on the Ukrainian and Belarusian borders in Podlaskie, Mazowieckie, Lubelskie and Pod-karpackie Voivodeships in Poland, Lviv, Volyn and Zakarpatska Oblasts in Ukraine and Brest, Grodno and western districts of Minsk Oblast in Belarus. Financial assistance is granted by the ERDF under INTERREG (€4.9m) and TACIS CBC programme (€1m). The dead-line for co-financing proposals is 20 October 2006 and

the client is the Joint Technical Secretariat of the Neigh-bourhood Programme at Solec St. 38, Warsaw, Poland. Further details can be gained from this website: www.pbu.wwpwp.gov.pl.

UkraineFor Ukraine, TACIS currently has an Indicative Pro-gramme covering the period 2004-2006. In 2005, TACIS committed about €90m covering all sectors. Ukraine is a priority partner country within the European Neigh-bourhood Policy (ENP), which also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova. The ENP has been developed in the context of the EU’s 2004 enlarge-ment, aiming to strengthen stability and security and opens the way for economic integration. The new ENPI will cover cross-border co-operation and should later provide opportunities for environmentally related projects and technical and scientific links.

The ENPI will also receive support for investment in infrastructure projects from the European Investment Bank. An EU-Ukraine Neighbourhood Action Plan was agreed last year by the EU-Ukraine Co-operation Coun-cil and will build on the existing Partnership and Co-operation Agreement (PCA).

The PCA has been in existence since 1998 and was extended in 2004 to the 10 new EU Member States. This Ukraine PCA sets an institutional framework and

Neighbourhood watch

Finance & FundingFinance & Funding


INTERREG funding for this priority amounts to €66 mil-lion. Further development of this region will be contin-ued under ERDF for the EU Member States.

The Managing Authority of the BSR is: Investitions-bank Schleswig-Holstein, Grubenstrasse, 20, D-18055 Rostock, Germany.

Within the Baltic Sea Programme, Ukraine and Belarus will be eligible for cross-border co-operation funding under the new ENPI from 2007.

2006 Work Programme for Ukraine & BelarusThere are generally three priorities within each Neigh-bourhood Programme and these are the measures of possible interest.

Hungary/Slovakia/Ukraine Neighbourhood ProgrammeSource: Tacis 2004 CBC Action Programme – Neighbourhood Project Facility.Priority 2: Cross-border environment and transport with 3 measures.Indicative budget: maximum €100,000 per measure.

Poland/Belarus/Ukraine Neighbourhood ProgrammeSource: Tacis 2005 CBC Neighbourhood Action Programme.Priority 1: Increasing the competitiveness of the border area through modernisation and develop-ment of the cross-border infrastructure.Indicative budget: maximum €100,000 per contract.

Baltic Sea Region Neighbourhood ProgrammeSource: Tacis 2005 CBC Neighbourhood Action Programme.Priority 2: Promotion of territorial structures supporting sustainable BSR development.Indicative budget: maximum €100,000 per contract.

Latvia/Lithuania/Belarus Neighbourhood ProgrammeSource: Tacis 2005 CBC Neighbourhood Action Programme.Priority 1: Cross-border cooperation to enhance the competitiveness of regions involved and improve the access to markets across the borders.Indicative budget: €50,000 max per contract.

Romania/Ukraine Neighbourhood ProgrammeSource: 2004 Tacis CBC Action Programme – Neighbourhood Project Facility.Priority 2: Developing cross border integrated infrastructure systems.Indicative budget: €50,000 maximum per contact.

ContactsAll calls for proposals will be published by the local Secretariat of the Neighbourhood Programme. Details of the local Secretariats may be sought from the EC Delegation to Ukraine and Belarus at this website: www.delukr.ec.europa.eu.

The Belarus (TACIS) Branch Office is contactable on Tel: +375 17 229 26 13; Fax +375 17 289 12 81.

includes these elements of interest to the ITS sector:• Transport, Galileo and Telecommunications;• Cross-border Co-operation; • R & D – satellite navigation and IT.The European Commission reported in June that the

Galileo agreement just signed with Ukraine “…provides for co-operative activities on satellite navigation, par-ticularly in science and technology, industrial manufac-turing, service and market development, as well as standardisation, frequency and certification. It also rep-resents the first step towards the extension of EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) to Ukraine and the participation of the country in the programme through a stake in the Galileo Joint Under-taking. Ukraine is one of the eight countries within the world space community with significant technological knowledge on space programmes and important achievements on GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) applications, equipment, user segment and regional technology. The Ukrainian space industry is among the world’s leader in the design and production of launchers and GNSS components…”

BelarusUnder the European Neighbourhood Programme and the new ENPI, Belarus will be eligible for cross-border cooperation as from 2007. Initially, cross-border projects will be assisted between Belarus-Poland-Ukraine and Belarus-Lithuania-Latvia.

Further assistance will depend on the progress towards democratisation and reform. During 2005 TACIS committed €8m for various projects.

Baltic Sea ProgrammeCurrently the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) is funded under INTERREG, an EU Community Initiative to develop inter-regional and trans-national regions and supports towns and provincial capitals in trans-frontier regions. INTER-REG has a current programme over 2004-2006, in excess of €200m to develop the whole of the BSR (Denmark, North-East Germany, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in the EU, as well as Norway, Rus-sia, Ukraine and Belarus).

The region covers some 2.3m km2 and has a popula-tion of 103m. The main priority is Pan-Baltic inter-modal transport and IT, and aims to develop technological and scientific networks between Baltic cities. Current

Finance & Funding


WE REL IEVE TRAFF IC HEADACHES

ELECTRONIC INTEGRATED SYSTEMS INCTel: 416.785.9248 info@eistraffi c.com www.eistraffi c.com

Collected data from the Traffi c Reporter can be viewed through comparison charts, stations lists. Count stations can be groups into a system sharing report, or batch processes can be applied to the logged information.

EIS TRAFFIC REPORTER™

Traffic Counting for future planning

Traffi c Reporter™ stations store time stamped RTMS data for later collection. Each station can store 30 weeks of data, recording at 5 minute intervals. Reporter stations can be set-up in remote locations for both permanent or temporary use.

The Central Offi ce PC can collect data automatically on schedule, or manually. Reports can be generated in a user-defi ned format including FHWA and ASCII.

Solution BLay points around knot. Apply constant pressure at desired intervals. Allow data to fl ow over connecting strand and pull. Tighten results as needed.

RTMS™ Sensors measure volume, occupancy and speed across 8 individual lanes. Using existing road-side poles, the average installation is simple, smooth and fast, requiring no road closures. RTMS high accuracy performance is unaffected by weather and virtually maintenance free. It supports a variety of outputs, including serial, wireless, TCP/IP or contact closure. Each station can be powered by solar, batteries or AC.

thinking highways europe/rest of the world, october 2006

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