Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are vital to increase efficiency, safety, mobility and tackle Europe's growing emission and congestion problems. They can make transport safer, more efficient and more sustainable by applying information and communication technologies to all modes of transport. Moreover, the integration of existing technologies can create new services.
The full potential of ITS can only be achieved if deployed worldwide. Research has a major role to play in developing and deploying key ITS technologies, and contributing to standardisation, interoperability between transport modes and countries, and cross-border continuity of services.
On the other hand a deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems also faces some barriers, only some of which are technological. Deployment costs, funding restrictions that prevent from facilitating investments, privacy and liability concerns, uncertain demand, and lack of legislation have limited the roll-out of ITS implementation in a number of cases.
Limited communication or too ‘technical’ communication on the benefits of new technologies to policy makers who make decisions about whether to invest in new technology development can also be an obstacle for faster deployment of ITS. Policy makers need a clear description of the benefits of new technologies including cost-benefit analyses that would enable them to compare traditional solutions with the new ones.
Lack of or limited cooperation between research and industrial sectors is another aspect which is slowing down the uptake of research results by a market. Not always research results are likely to be deployable in the short or even medium term, but this is not always understood by industry who wants to see results from their investments in ITS quickly.