In June this year, Martin Leak, Philippa Walker and Steve Griffith attended the 20^th Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Congress, in Tokyo, and were impressed by the progress they saw in electrified vehicles and information and communication technologies (ICT).

Starting with safety and traffic management as basic concerns, ITS is reaching out to three new domains: energy management, personalized mobility services navigated by big data, and resilient transport systems.

Regardless of mode of transport, all societies need to look at introducing greater numbers of lower-emission forms of mobility. There are more and more electrified vehicles being launched onto the market (including EV, HEV, pHEV and FCV) and these require closer information exchange via Information Communication Technology (ICT) between vehicles and infrastructure.

This new ICT need brings various new services and businesses into reality as it requires big data deployment in the form of collecting information from and delivering to, mobile devices via information networks. Some services are already in the market and this is an area with high potential for entry by business newcomers. Various institutional approaches and cross-organizational cooperation will be necessary to ensure a liveable society with enhanced mobility on a global scale in the future. Issues include regulation and enforcement, funding and costs/benefits, security and privacy, standardisation and architecture as well as professional education and training.

At the beginning of June, Resolve Group’s Managing Director, Martin Leak, attended the 9^th ITS European Congress in Dublin, the theme of which was ‘Real Solutions for Real Needs.’ Addressing the similar challenges all regions face in delivering sustainable transport solutions to meet current and future mobility requirements, the event  was designed to be a place where transport authorities could find detailed information on targeted ITS solutions that would deliver tangible positive outcomes for real needs specific to their region.

Martin was particularly impressed by the level of technological connectivity that will be available in the immediate future in the vehicle fleet, and was surprised at how much of the technology that was experimental only a few years ago is now available to the consumer, “What I saw on test tracks two years ago is now appearing in commercial vehicles.” As an example, by 2015 all new vehicles will have ‘Eco Call’, an automated emergency response beacon. And by 2017, it is forecast that 60% of the vehicle fleet will be interconnected via the ‘cloud’ allowing for crowd source networking of huge amounts of data accessible to the travelling public via their vehicles.

Martin foresees rapid change in the next five years, with Europe on the cusp of the mass market introduction of Electric Vehicles. A number of new models from major manufacturers will be arriving on the market by the end of the year and issues of fragmentation within the Electric Vehicle market around easy, interoperable charging in public spaces are currently being addressed throughout Europe in order to support mass market adoption.

Dublin City works with IBM on transportation research and practice and as one of the ancillary events to the conference, Martin visited the IBM Smarter Cities Technology Centre in Dublin where a highly skilled and cross-disciplinary team are helping the city better understand, interconnect and manage its core operational systems such as transport, communication, water and energy.