We don’t understand ITS, say transport companies: new IRU report

Half of transport companies say that ITS adoption is being held back by a “limited understanding of the range of emerging technologies available”, according to a new global survey. The sobering finding – which indicates that ITS providers and policy makers have more to do to explain some of the benefits – comes from the IRU’s ‘The future of road transport’ report. The other major barrier to adopting technology is cost, say 71% of respondents. The IRU says: “This suggests that pockets of the industry have
November 6, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Half of transport companies say that ITS adoption is being held back by a “limited understanding of the range of emerging technologies available”, according to a new global survey.


The sobering finding – which indicates that ITS providers and policy makers have more to do to explain some of the benefits – comes from the IRU’s ‘The future of road transport’ report.

The other major barrier to adopting technology is cost, say 71% of respondents.

The IRU says: “This suggests that pockets of the industry have yet to embrace new technologies and processes, and that there is still work to do to fix the digital foundations of the industry before technology-driven innovation can be optimised properly.”

However, it is not all gloom. Even if there are knowledge gaps, much of the transportation industry at least sees the potential benefits: enhancing working conditions and keeping drivers safe will be one of the major advantages of new ITS solutions, respondents acknowledge.

Around 450 transportation companies were interviewed: the vast majority (92%) across every region “believe that improving safety while driving is one of the top benefits of technology and innovation”.

Meanwhile the use of ITS “to reduce difficult driving conditions, enhance safety and mobility and help trip organisation are also extremely important”, IRU says.

One in three (33%) transport companies believes that improving safety will be the biggest innovation opportunity, while one in five cite automation.

In fact, more than three quarters of respondents (76%) expect autonomous trucks to become a viable option on the roads within the next decade – and 29% believe they will be a reality on our roads in the next five years.

However, although transport companies are “excited about the potential”, the “reality on the ground is that adoption is patchy”. “There is a long way to go before driverless trucks are a safe, secure and sustainable option worldwide,” the survey concludes.

“There is no question that autonomous trucks will eventually be transformative for the industry – helping boost productivity, create efficiencies and enhance driver working conditions,” says Boris Blanche, IRU managing director.

The IRU World Congress, a new event for transport, logistics and mobility, runs this week in Muscat, Oman.

Air Quality & Weather Systems

Related Content

  • Sign language reduces human error says Clearview
    September 26, 2019
    Wrong-way warning systems and advanced queue detection can help to reduce human error. They can also cut road accidents – and therefore road deaths, says Clearview Intelligence Where were nearly 1,800 deaths on the UK’s roads in 2018 – an average of five people dying each day. The largest single cause of serious injury is crashes at junctions (accounting for 33% of incidents), while the largest single cause of death was run-off road crashes (30%) “With vehicles increasingly being designed with saf
    Read More
  • Remote remedies help US authorities identify bridge deficiencies
    September 6, 2017
    Every day 185 million vehicles – cars, trucks, school buses, emergency response units - cross one or more of America’s 55,710 'structurally compromised' steel and concrete road bridges, the highest concentration of which are in Iowa (nearly 5,000), Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Nearly 2,000 of these crossings are located on interstate highways, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's recent analysis of the US Department of Transportation's 2016 National Bridge Inventory.
    Read More
  • Vision technology: the future in focus
    November 23, 2018
    Just a few years ago, terms such as ‘embedded’ and ‘polarisation’ were buzzwords. But now they are real and present examples of vision technology in action – and, Adam Hill finds, the ITS industry is waking up to a number of possible applications Every aspect of the intelligent transportation systems industry moves quickly – but developments in camera technology change with a rapidity which can appear quite bewildering. And with ITS providers constantly searching for an edge against fierce competitio
    Read More
  • Cost benefit analysis ‘can’t be carried out with a cookbook’
    June 25, 2018
    There is far more to working out the worth of a project than simply filling in a few headings on a spreadsheet. David Crawford surveys some recent thinking from the US and Canada. Cost benefit analysis (CBA) “can’t be carried out with a cookbook”, warns US analyst Professor Robert J Brent. “ You can’t just get out a spreadsheet and fill in the data for all the headings. Each transport CBA should have something that is distinctive, in terms of location (for example, for a rural area), types of user
    Read More

Highlighted Content