Skip to main content

EU to support European ITS and cross-border traveller information services

The EU's TEN-T Programme will provide over US$58 million of co-financing for the deployment and use of intelligent transport systems (ITS) on European highways to improve their safety, security and efficiency. The projects will address several ITS services, including intelligent truck parking, travel time and real-time traffic information. Close cooperation among 20 EU Member States, road authorities and private stakeholders will improve and support ITS on the main European road network. It will provide
January 21, 2015 Read time: 3 mins
The EU's TEN-T Programme will provide over US$58 million of co-financing for the deployment and use of intelligent transport systems (ITS) on European highways to improve their safety, security and efficiency. The projects will address several ITS services, including intelligent truck parking, travel time and real-time traffic information.

Close cooperation among 20 EU Member States, road authorities and private stakeholders will improve and support ITS on the main European road network. It will provide safety and traffic related information to all users and ensure the interoperability of ITS services across the EU.

ITS will be deployed in five separate projects, each of them focussing on a specific part of Europe:

The URSA MAJOR project will cover roads linking the North Sea ports, the Ruhr and Rhine area, as well as metropolitan areas in southern Germany and northern Italy. Austria and Switzerland are also involved in the project as transit countries.

The CROCODILE project includes three main road corridors:  Baltic-Adriatic (linking Germany to Italy and Slovenia), Rhine-Danube (Germany to Bulgaria) and Orient-East-Med (Germany to Greece).

The NEXT-ITS project will deal with the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor from Oslo and the Finnish-Russian border in the north via Copenhagen, to Bremen and Hannover in Germany.

The MedTIS project will deploy ITS services in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal along the Mediterranean corridor, linking several major sea ports and connecting the Mediterranean with the Atlantic coast.

The Arc Atlantique project will link key economic nodes in the UK (Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff, London), Ireland (Dublin), France (Calais, Lille, Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse), the Netherlands (Rotterdam, Amsterdam), Belgium (Antwerp, Brussels, Charleroi, Liège), Spain (San Sebastian, Bilbao, Valladolid, Santander, A Coruña) and Portugal (Porto, Lisbon).

Examples of ITS services deployed by the above projects are: Intelligent truck parking services, based on common European standards to find available, safe and secure parking places for trucks; Road navigation services with reliable information on travel conditions, to plan the most cost-efficient journeys and receive accurate travel time estimations

The projects will also improve traffic management and the cross-border exchange of information among the EU Member States, reducing delays due to traffic congestion and increasing the safety level in the European roads.

The projects were selected for EU funding with the assistance of external experts under the TEN-T Multi-Annual Call 2013, priority 'Intelligent Transport Systems'. Their implementation will be monitored by INEA, the European Commission's Innovation and Networks Executive Agency. All projects are to be completed by December 2015.

Related Content

  • February 25, 2015
    New legal basis brings EU wide cross border enforcement
    Pan-EU enforcement is set to become a reality after legislation is revised. In May 2014 the European Court of Justice ruled that European Directive 2011/82/EU, which came into force in November 2013 to facilitate the exchange of information between member states in relation to eight road traffic offences, had been set up on an incorrect legal basis. The regulations had been introduced under police cooperation rules on the prevention of crime, but the Court decided that the measures in the Directive do not c
  • May 6, 2016
    20 cities challenge relaxation of EU air pollution standards
    Ordered to cut air pollution levels by Brussels, a group of EU cities are taking the European Commission to court over its decision to relax car emissions standards, making their objectives even less attainable, according to EurActiv France. The EU’s muddled position on air pollution has angered the bloc’s major cities. For Paris, Madrid and Copenhagen, the EU’s decision to give carmakers more freedom to pollute is unacceptable. But since it was discreetly added to the Official Journal of the European Unio
  • March 17, 2017
    Better websites build smarter transport participation
    Transport initiatives are gaining traction through well-designed websites. Four European smart transport-oriented websites have gained honours in the 2016 .eu Web Awards, an online competition inaugurated in 2014 to recognise the most impressive sites within the .eu internet domain in terms of their design and content. The four were among 15 finalists across all five categories of the scheme, giving the transport sector a high profile for its proactive use of sites as communications tools for driving major
  • March 2, 2012
    First 3D dataset of all Roads in Western Europe completed
    Intermap Technologies has announced the completion of its 3D Roads - the only dataset to provide accurate 3D models for every road, from the largest highway to the smallest urban and rural roads, throughout Western Europe.