• Promote and develop the benefits of using the Intelligent Transport Systems in urban areas along the individual passengers’ mobility chain;
• Concern the organisations in charge with the decision-making and the technical development of the ITS at local level and approach four key ITS applications;
• A useful instrument in reaching the objectives of transport efficiency policies.
In Europe, each city is confronted with challenges in the transport sector, the increased level of congestion being one of the main factors which trigger not only problems related not only to the poor life quality, but also costs of around 1.5% of the European GDP per capita, or several hundred euros every year. Therefore, it is essential to adopt policies and measures aimed at reducing the problems created by inefficient traffic. The economic, social and environmental sectors depend on intelligent solutions, their implementation being important in reducing costs and negative effects on the life of each citizen. In this context, “the Guidelines for ITS deployment” was published in February 2012, a study developed by the ITS Group of Experts, established by EC within the ITS Action Plan (Action 6.4) and of the Action Plan for Urban Mobility (Action 20) in December 2010 on a period of 24 months. The main task of the Group was to develop the specific guidelines for promoting and implementing the use of ITS in urban areas along the individual passenger mobility chain. In fact, the guidelines refer to the organisations responsible with the decision making and the technical development of the ITS at local level and approaches four key ITS applications: traffic management, multimodal information services, urban logistics and intelligent ticketing solutions with the set goal of stimulating interoperability and seamless services.
ITS solutions are believed to be a very important instrument in reaching the objectives of the policy on the integration of transport modes, adopting traffic management systems to make traffic efficient and efficiently using the transport network in order to energy consumption.
Intelligent Transport Systems use IT and real time communications technologies that reduce congestion, pollution, the number of accidents, increase the speed of vehicles and consequently the market share of public transport in urban areas.
Efficiency in delivering information, traffic management and supply of flexible services
The ITS guidelines refer to the multimodal information segment, traffic management, urban logistics and intelligent ticketing systems. The ITS-based multimodal information services (MIS) help improve the existing infrastructures (as space and time) and develop other services aimed at improving life quality leading to a more intelligent use of personal vehicles and to its combination with other transport modes.
Modal shift addresses mainly to daily activities and habits for adopting a lifestyle according to the chosen mode of transport. That is why it is essential to keep passengers informed and multimodal information is most of the time a stimulant for users as it requires the change of perspective (from individual cars to public transport) and guarantees for the reliability of public transport. Multimodal information supplies data on all transport modes (vehicles, parking system, public transport, rail transport, bicycle, car sharing, services etc.) and allows users to choose any combination between transport modes to travel from one point to another. The support granted to modal shift also means increased quality of information on the trip and travel time making choices and decisions on one mode of transport or another more efficient and increasing the reliability of infrastructure.
As regards the ticketing system, the initial objective was to organise the collection of public transport tariffs and control by reducing frauds in the public transport network.
Another important feature of any other ticketing system is, in fact, the efficient collection of public transport tariffs while reducing the leakage of funds.
With the issue of the ITS guidelines, the ticketing system has incorporated an important statistical function which allows operators to better know the use of the transport network by tracking users (while observing confidentiality rights). This point is also important as it permits public transport operators or the authorities to have more statistical data that will contribute to the delivery of real strategic analyses. These analyses will help adapt transport offers to the requirements of passengers and manage the network efficiently. Moreover, adapting offers will also consider the method of delivering ticketing sale services, including the payment method, that have to be flexible and to answer to the passengers’ needs. Therefore, the sales and access control processes are to be considered as cost factors, requiring investments and high operational costs. Distribution costs may reach more than 15% in complex kilometric fare systems such as regional railways. The traditional acquisition of tickets involves several operators and the adoption of the new automated systems makes efficient the entire distribution chain and thus traffic becomes much more accessible and efficient. It is essential to mention that the implementation of intelligent ticketing systems is different and depends on the development of the existing ticketing systems (tariff principles, tariff structure etc.). Generally, a ticketing system can be much more efficient, but significant savings will not be possible while previous systems are still functional. A complete step by step migration strategy must therefore be built for an optimal benefit.
Smart Ticketing must allow the customer to receive travel information, plan their journey and book their travel through a range of distribution and retail channels with the speed, power and flexibility necessary to handle multiple distribution onto the customer’s preferred smart ticketing media.
“Integrating multimodal information with ticketing services can be an extra stimulus for people using public transport given the fact that they can buy their tickets rapidly and conveniently. Intelligent ticketing solutions can offer the possibility of connecting different services such as theatre or cinema tickets with integrated public transport tickets booked for a parking space, for bicycle and for many others”, declared in an interview Pawel Stelmaszczyk, C3 Unit Director – “Intelligent Transport Systems” DG MOVE.
There is no universal instrument for managing urban traffic and a series of applications has been developed over the past years. Signals for the control of parking lots, pedestrian areas, the provision of public transport, freight transport and access control are some of the typical management application for cities. Irrespective of the management method (local, national), the ITS guidelines play an important role in facilitating the adoption and delivery of sustainable transport policies in cities. While every urban area will have its own transport policies, currently there is a significant degree of harmonisation of political objectives in the urban regions across Europe.
Therefore, the objective of most urban areas is to reduce congestion, energy consumption and emissions, to improve life quality, increase the market share of sustainable, non-polluting vehicles, increase the efficiency of the transport system, of public transport activity (especially by encouraging modal shift) and by facilitating the delivery of freight and services. What is important is that the ITS guidelines are used to support the delivery of services as intelligently as possible by adopting transparent policies. The ITS systems can be optimally used when applied in a strategic framework with clear roles shared between interested parties.
Due to an increasing reliance on the private car, urban traffic management is as much about managing congestion as it is about reducing vehicle pollutants and promoting sustainable travel modes such as walking, cycling and public transport. Many of these policy objectives can only be effectively delivered through a well defined urban traffic management strategy supported by an increasing ITS toolbox.
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