A leading transport official in the European Union has hailed the contribution intelligent transport systems has made to making the continent’s roads safer, cleaner and more efficient.
Kristian Hedberg, an official at the European Commission’s transport directorate, told a conference that ITS on European highways have led to at least 75 fewer fatalities and prevented thousands of road accidents, and saved 1.2 million hours of congestion.
The website euractiv.com also quotes him as saying the Ursa Major corridor, which runs from the Netherlands through Germany to the south of Italy, was digitised to improve the flow of freight traffic, resulting in a 13% reduction in journey times and a 22% drop in carbon emissions. Advances in data connectivity and artificial intelligence have opened up mobility solutions that would have been considered “fantasies” years ago, he said.
The report also quotes Highways England’s Daniel Cullern as saying, “We can see that for the combined investment of just over €230 million, annual safety and socio-economic savings are around €55 million, which would mean an overall average return on investment of around four years.”
Read the full report here.
(Picture – Yay Images)
