Proceedings of the ITS World Congress in Bordeaux have been released. Read Eric Sampson’s Executive Summary below . You can also download a report from the Ministerial Round Table discussion that took place during the congress here.
Congress Report – Executive Summary
Bordeaux was all about deployment issues but especially so for connected and highly
automated vehicles. In just about every sector we have moved from “supplier push” to “user
pull” for systems design in most cases.
There’s still a lot of change happening, with more to come, because
- Everything is becoming instrumented and digital
- Everything and everyone is getting interconnected
- Open Data is starting to transform transport markets
- Universal smartphones/tablets = permanently connected travellers
- We now have the Internet of Things as well as the plain vanilla version – this includes “vehicles”
- We’re moving from management of assets to provision of services.
The Space topic created a lot of interest and showed new and affordable possibilities for
collaboration between the two communities particularly for location and communication
services.
Mobility as a Service is becoming a common goal – but delivering it requires new and
complex business-to-business agreements which may require changes to Competition
legislation. And it will certainly require new business models for both suppliers and users.
The announcement by ERTICO of the European Mobility-as-a-Service Alliance involving
national governments, key cities and major industry stakeholders established a strong
platform for developments.
Many sessions and numerous papers addressed connected and automated vehicles.
Cooperative ITS is starting to move to the deployment phase but so far only pilot
deployments and corridors have happened in real life; larger-scale deployment is not yet
here. The demonstrations have shown how to put the various pieces together to get
increased benefits from increased connections, but we haven’t yet seen the ongoing
business case to ensure long-term financial sustainability
For highly automated vehicles it seems to be assumed that someone somewhere will want to
pay for installation in vehicles and for the infrastructure to support that automation. The
benefits and costs often sit in different places and there are still silos between road
operators, service providers and automotive manufacturers that need to be overcome.
There was much debate regarding the cybersecurity on both connected and highly
automated vehicles.
A fully connected car will have a number of interfaces all potentially allowing access
to valuable data but also to the vehicle’s controls and safety systems. It was
essential to recognise that a vehicle would always be exposed to physical and remote
attacks so the protection systems had to be designed to detect intrusion at all stages
including ‘routine’ upgrading of in-vehicle software.
Cars are systems of specialist devices and the security of embedded systems in cars
is neither well-understood nor well-regulated. The concept of a vehicle as connected
devices is still relatively new and the approach to security for traditional IT systems is
inadequate. The need for over the air upgrades demands a different approach.
Connections with the internet mean that vulnerable systems can be spread across
the globe and accessible from anywhere. The Internet of Things will magnify this
problem and increase the risks. Remote operation of safety-critical systems is
becoming routine but the standard solutions intended for less critical IT systems are
being used to make safety-critical systems accessible.
Many papers and sessions at all levels argued for greater levels of cooperation among all of
the players in a transport system (eg automakers, OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers; technology
companies; researchers and academia; service suppliers such as telecom operators; public
agencies, road users). Pilot and demonstration projects presented at the Congress easily
made the case that, by working together in a collaborative manner, a great deal more can be
achieved.
The automotive world still hasn’t woken up to the arrival of smartphones and tablets.
“Smart Cities” were much discussed but often from the limited perspective of ‘smart’ traffic
control or ‘smart’ environmental impact policies. The true Smart City involves transport,
energy, environmental, water and waste systems working together and this objective is
proving to be very difficult. A lot more research is needed to understand the impact of highly
automated vehicles on inner-cities.
Bordeaux was one of the best Congresses for Freight and Logistics but it’s still the topic
everyone remembers after they have thought about people movements. Economies need
Freight and Logistics as do cities to bring in supplies, take out waste. We need to focus
more on this sector; it may well be the place where driverless vehicles are first deployed
profitably. The “Future Freight” Headline Theme in Melbourne may be the path forward.
We still lack deployment impact assessments which frustrate the development of benefit/cost
analyses. By contrast conventional B/C A for infrastructure (roads, bridges, tunnels) is well
established. The valuation of ‘soft’ benefits has been neglected
Professor Eric Sampson – Chief Rapporteur
