ITS benefits need to be better explained to the public

Nine out of ten of ITS (UK) members believe that more needs to be done to explain the benefits of ITS to the public. Respondents to a survey said that raising awareness would help sell the case to decision makers to fund technology rather than infrastructure solutions. However, participants were divided in their views on the understanding of, and support for, ITS from national and local government: 56% agreed or strongly agreed that government is supporting transport technology transport technology, while
May 1, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

Nine out of ten of ITS (UK) members believe that more needs to be done to explain the benefits of ITS to the public. Respondents to a survey said that raising awareness would help sell the case to decision makers to fund technology rather than infrastructure solutions.

However, participants were divided in their views on the understanding of, and support for, ITS from national and local government: 56% agreed or strongly agreed that government is supporting transport technology transport technology, while nearly 40% either disagreed or were undecided. In addition, many believe that the main government focus is on future autonomous technologies and not solutions today.

Respondents’ suggestions on the biggest change to ITS over the next 12 months included Mobility as a Service solutions such as fare data in journey planning, benefits of connected vehicles and Internet of Things and a focus on the environmental benefits derived from transport technology.

Jennie Martin, ITS (UK) secretary general, said: “The industry has always been very committed to collaborating with each other and sharing best practice, but this survey suggests there is an expectation for us to provide information about ITS and their benefits to the wider public. We have started to deliver relevant messages to the travelling public about how ITS makes a daily difference to their lives but know that much more needs to be done and we will work with our members to formulate our plan.”

UTC

Related Content

  • February 1, 2012
    ITS needs continuity at the policy-making level
    ITS needs to be sold to politicians in plainer terms and we need to be encouraging greater continuity at the policy-making level says Josef Czako, chairman of the IRF's Policy Committee on ITS. At the ITS World Congress in New York in 2008, the International Road Federation (IRF) held the inaugural meeting of its Policy Committee on ITS. The Policy Committee's formation, says its chairman, Kapsch's Josef Czako, reflects an ongoing concern over the lack of deployment of ITS technology on roads in anything li
    Read More
  • June 29, 2018
    Atlanta ponders Mobility as a Service for seamless transit
    Drivers in Atlanta spent 70 hours in peak-time traffic jams last year. As the MaaS Market conference moves to the US’s fourth most congested city, we ask how Mobility as a Service can help. Colin Sowman winds down his window to listen. It is not by accident that ITS International’s first MaaS Market conference outside London is being hosted in Atlanta. The event is being supported by Georgia State Road & Tollway Authority and the City of Atlanta – and again not without a reason as metro Atlanta is looking
    Read More
  • January 19, 2012
    Safer roads need safe systems approach, better infrastructure
    Some developed countries are far from leading the way when it comes to making road infrastructure safe. In fact, says the Road Safety Foundation's Joanne Hill, they learn a lot from what is happening in emergent nations. A new report from the Road Safety Foundation, 'Saving Lives, Saving Money - the costs and benefits of achieving safe roads', makes some startling assertions about attitudes to road safety. Although concerned predominantly with the UK, there are some universal lessons to be learned, accordin
    Read More
  • October 12, 2018
    Trust me, I'm a driverless car
    Developing C/AV technology is the easy bit: now the vehicles need to gain people’s confidence. So does the public feel safe in driverless hands – and how much might they be willing to pay for the privilege? The Venturer consortium’s final user and technology test (Trial 3) explored levels of user trust in scenarios where a connected and autonomous vehicle (C/AV) is interacting with cyclists, pedestrians and other road users on a controlled road network. Trial 3 consisted of experimental runs in the
    Read More

Highlighted Content