Towards seamless mobility addressing fragmentation in ITS deployment in Europe

Specific challenge: Although the application of technology has been the primary means of reducing the environmental impacts of transport in the last two decades, technical solutions alone cannot solve all the economic, environmental and societal problems Europe is currently facing.

Multimodal integrated travel information, planning and ticketing services could play a significant role in improving modal integration, thus increasing the attractiveness of collective mobility and transport modes alternative to road and hence be inclusive of user group specific needs (including cyclists or pedestrians). However, the current fragmentation of the landscape in this field, including dispersed knowledge and lack of cooperation between various stakeholders involved in service provision, does not allow the user to easily organise a door-to-door pan-European intermodal trip while taking into account the emissions that will be caused by a specific travel choice.

It also constitutes a major barrier in developing and enacting a truly comprehensive and cohesive strategy for ITS deployment in Europe.

Scope: Proposals should focus on one or several of the following domains:

      Interoperability and linking of the existing services, including necessary interfaces, in order to achieve the widest possible geographical and modal coverage to enable an open single European market for mobility services. The scope of the work should extend towards full-scale early take up and solutions should be tested on large scale.

      Developing EU-wide common minimum standards for interoperable navigation and ticketing services, thereby facilitating regional solutions compatible with generic nomad devices (smart phones etc.).

      Exploring more effective and more efficient cooperation and decision making mechanisms between stakeholders, including coordination of the existing European, national and regional initiatives, to foster EU-wide consolidation and deployment of high-quality integrated multimodal travel information, planning and ticketing services. This could encompass setting up a cooperation platform.

      Exploring mechanisms and structures for consensus building among stakeholders to foster EU-wide consolidation and deployment of cooperative ITS. This could encompass setting up a cooperation platform.

      Exploring ways to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge with regard to ITS deployment across the EU, by setting up a dedicated observatory monitoring all major developments in ITS deployment across Europe, to facilitate fact-based policy making at all levels and to engage a large number of local authorities and industrial stakeholders. Special attention should be paid to broad coverage both in geographical and thematic terms.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 2 and 4 million each for Research and Innovation Actions would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected impact: The work should contribute to:

      Better modal integration by providing travellers with information about various options to travel from A to B according to their needs, thus improving European citizens' mobility in general with increased awareness of the ecological footprint of their journey.

      Increased travel time reliability.

      More efficient use of the existing transport infrastructure.

      More inclusive transport services across Europe by better responding to the special needs of population groups such as the elderly and disabled travellers.

      Better informed and more efficient policies for ITS deployment based on consolidated knowledge on the state of play across Europe and thus accelerated roll-out of the related services and technologies.

Type of action: Research and Innovation Actions