19 Oct 2020

The importance of connected bikes, apps and services has increased a lot during the last years and has recently accelerated due to the pandemic: having an efficient connected mobility with well-balanced data protocols is now more than ever at the centre of the EU agenda.

Policy makers at the EU level are more and more interested to deal with what they call the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This term refers to a broad category that includes many different topics such as connected mobility, the automotive sector, multimodality, road infrastructure, etc. As we can see ITS covers so many branches, that’s difficult to have a clear overview of what is happening in which area. That’s why CIE and the BITS project decided to make a breakthrough for the cycling a sector and come up with a strategy.

Even if ITS has been driven by cars so far, we believe that active mobility could play a very important role on that topic. Cycling growth is a case study and an inspiration for ITS as a catalyst for city change. It brings together leaders who are using ITS tools to remodel the physical space in the city for more and safer cycling. It demonstrates that the cycling sector is using ITS as a basis for a new collaborative approach to innovation, building new business models with partners such as multi-modal transport operators, ITS partners, financial services and governments.

CIE’s strategy on ITS focuses on 5 dimensions:

  1. Smarter cycling: new bike technologies, apps and digital mapping allow cyclists to be better informed in order to better plan and enjoy their journeys.
  2. Multimodality: the combination between cycling and other services is a very important step towards an efficient connected mobility. On that point, cooperation and coordination with MaaS could play an important role to improve bike sharing services.
  3. Interaction with the environment and the vehicles around: a very important pillar of this strategy regards road safety. Thanks to the interaction with vehicles and infrastructure, cyclists’ journeys will be safer.
  4. Data management: it’s very important to create data standards that are compliant with privacy laws. Data sharing and data protocols needs standardisation to make data management through different platforms more effective.
  5. Data use: an efficient use of collected data can be very valuable for market intelligence, better transport planning and industry information.

Those are the major pillars that have been endorsed by different Expert Groups of CIE and that will be presented as CIE’s contribution to the ITS European Congress on 9-10 November. The ITS European Congress is the largest event entirely dedicated to smart mobility and digitalisation of transport. It’s a strategic opportunity for the transport industry to come together and show the latest innovations, exchanging information with experts, industry stakeholders and influencers.

The session organised by CIE and the BITS project will be structured as follows:

Moderator

Kevin Mayne, Cycling Industries Europe/Bicycles and ITS Project, Belgium

Speakers

  • Jamie Cudden, Smart City Programme Manager, Dublin City Council, Ireland
  • Nikolaus Stieldorf, Global Business Development Manager - Software Platforms, SWARCO, Berlin
  • Ronald Jorna, Senior Advicor, Mobycon, The Netherlands, coordinator of the Bicycles and ITS Project (BITS)
  • Raymond Gense, Director of Future Technologies, PON, The Netherlands, Chair of the European Expert Group on Cycling and ITS

The ITS Congress will be an occasion to test if CIE and BITS strategy on ITS is on the right path and how it could be further improved.

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