Skip to main content

EC promotes ''against lock-in'' approach on ITS standards

According to the European Commission (EC), open standards for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) would save the public sector €1 billion a year US$1.5 billion a year, citing Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) as one of the standards being developed in the transport domain. Launched in 1997, the UTMC programme was the UK Department for Transport (DfT) main initiative for the development of a more open approach to ITS in urban areas. UTMC systems are designed to allow the different application
August 2, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
According to the 1690 European Commission (EC), open standards for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) would save the public sector €1 billion a year US$1.5 billion a year, citing 3549 Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) as one of the standards being developed in the transport domain.

Launched in 1997, the UTMC programme was the UK 1837 Department for Transport (DfT) main initiative for the development of a more open approach to ITS in urban areas.  UTMC systems are designed to allow the different applications used within modern traffic management systems to communicate and share information with each other. Thereby a more robust and intelligent system can be used to meet current and future management requirements.

At the end of June 2013, the EC released a new policy to help public authorities avoid dependence on a single ICT supplier, together with a Guide for the procurement of standards-based ICT — Elements of Good Practice, which lists UTMC in the sources of information appendix.

The EC states that following the recommendations in this new "against lock-in" approach could save the EU's public sector more than US$1.5 billion a year. For example, open tendering procedures can attract increased numbers of bidders with better value bids (doubling the number of bidders typically lowers contract size by 9 per cent).

The full story and a copy of the guide, aimed at officials responsible for planning and purchasing ICT systems and services for public authorities, can be found on the EC %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal webpage http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/open-standards false http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/open-standards false false%>.

Related Content

  • London Science Museum hosts free driverless vehicle exhibition
    March 8, 2019
    Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are at the heart of a new exhibition at the London Science Museum. Driverless: Who is in control? opens on 12 June and looks at “how close we are to living in a world driven by thinking machines”. Continuing until October 2020, the show examines themes familiar to ITS professionals wrestling with the legal, ethical and logistical issues around the introduction of driverless cars to public roads. The museum says it will focus on “how much of this seemingly futuristic technolog
  • Q-Free showcases expanded transport management, tolling, ANPR portfolio
    August 11, 2014
    As visitors to the Q-Free booth at the ITS World Congress Detroit will see, the company has transformed its portfolio, shifting from a predominant focus on tolling to cover all aspects of road operations – financing, condition monitoring, real-time management and emerging cooperative ITS applications. With the event being staged in Detroit, it provides Q-Free with an opportunity to highlight its appreciable presence in the North American market. Recently it acquired Open Roads Consulting, a specialist i
  • ITS America webinar: Off-the-Shelf Road Incident Management
    June 3, 2015
    The ITS America webinar to be held at 2pm Eastern US time on 11 June 11 will focus on Off-the-Shelf Road Incident Management (RIM), presented by Gewi, which recently implemented the first phase of this system for a European customer. The session will focus on the advantages of a system which can be customized to each organisation’s specific response plan, based on the type of incident. Beyond accidents, the RIM system enables organisations to handle traffic infrastructure events as projects, managed by
  • ITS America on-demand archives
    September 28, 2012
    Archives of sessions at the 2012 ITS America Annual Meeting and 2011 World Congress on-demand archives of sessions are now available. They offer many hours of recorded content for reference to sessions attended and those that you just didn’t get a chance to hear. Click on http://www.itsa.org/events/meeting-archives to view the full set of available recordings and instructions about how to download and purchase. Starting at the 2013 Annual Meeting in Nashville, ITS America will offer these audio synch-to-s