The paper assesses the effectiveness of the European approach to testing Advanced Road Transport Telematics (ATT, or IVHS in the US) systems within the urban field trials of the European “DRIVE” programme of research and development. It reviews progress in the major urban pilot projects, or “Euro-Projects”, and anticipates future achievements building on the results of the projects. It reviews the currently competing technologies and provides an update on their evolution. It discusses in-vehicle systems in particular and concludes that the widespread commercially availability of driver information and navigation systems could follow soon after the completion of the current projects.
The main objective of the European Commission's current DRIVE programme of Advanced Road Transport Telematics (ATT) is to validate results from DRIVE 1 projects by means of field trials, or pilot projects. There is a strong emphasis on the integration of ATT applications within pilot projects.
There are currently 56 projects in the programme, of which about 20 are major field trials. The five largest urban field trials -known as “Euro-Projects” - were all developed from the POLIS initiative, which involves some 30 major European cities. 19 of these cities are actively participating in these five projects, known as GAUDI, LLAMD, SCOPE, CITIES and QUARTET.
Each of the five projects includes a number of applications of ATT, although there are emphases on different aspects in each of them. Between them, almost the full range of potential ATT applications is included, including automatic debiting, dynamic route guidance, travel and traffic information, public transport management and information, parking and Park-and-Ride management and information, fleet management, trip planning, and advanced traffic control. Each of the projects is investigating aspects of the integration of ATT applications into an Integrated Road Transport Environment (IRTE).
This paper describes the background to the emergence of the Euro-Projects from the POLIS initiative and the scope of the five projects (Reference 1). It describes the technical systems on trial and the potential for moving towards widespread implementation of these systems after the conclusion of the pilot projects. It discusses the extent of the level of political and financial commitment within the participating cities. It also includes a summary of issues being investigated on the roles of the authorities in establishing services based on ATT technologies.