iCar Support Newsletter, 5th edition

The iCar Support Newsletter Issue 5, January – June 2012

In this issue...

Table of Contents Second iMobility Forum Plenary Meeting: Paving the way to Cooperative ITS Standardisation..................................................................................................................................... 2 The iMobility Forum Launches New Working Groups .................................................................... 3 Legal Issues Working Group .............................................................................................................. 3 Automation Working Group ................................................................................................................ 5 Implementation Road Map Working Group: Monitoring and Promoting the Deployment of Priority Systems.................................................................................................................................... 6 ITS Standardisation in a Nutshell ...................................................................................................... 7 iMoblity Forum Recommendations .................................................................................................... 8 8th European eCall Implementation Platform Meeting .................................................................... 9 ElectroMobility pilot projects launched at the European Parliament ............................................ 9 Intertraffic Amsterdam 2012: Smart Mobility Knowledge Centre ................................................ 10 EU Emergency Services Workshop 2012 ...................................................................................... 10 TRA 2012: Greener, safer and smarter surface transport for Europe ....................................... 11 Successful Cooperation Workshops on ITS in Beijing and Tokyo ............................................. 11 First eCall Interoperability Testing Event ........................................................................................ 12 FREILOT Final Event ........................................................................................................................ 13 UAMK Road Safety Day.................................................................................................................... 13 euroFOT Final Event ......................................................................................................................... 14 DG INFSO becomes DG CONNECT .............................................................................................. 14 19th ITS World Congress & Exhibition ........................................................................................... 15 iCar Support at the ITS World Congress ........................................................................................ 15 iMobility Awards 2012........................................................................................................................ 16 EU/US announce plans for a Joint Showcase at the Vienna ITS World Congress ................. 16

Second iMobility Forum Plenary Meeting: Paving the way to Cooperative ITS Standardisation On 24-25 May 2012, the iMobility Forum met in Brussels for its 2nd Plenary Meeting.

Over the course of the two days, over 65 participants heard from and engaged in discussion with speakers from a variety of backgrounds and organisations.

The event was opened by Mr Paul Timmers, Director of the European Commision DG Connect, who gave an introduction the new DG, including its unit dedicated to smart cities and sustainable mobility and commended the dedication and cooperative spirit of the members of the iMobility Forum.

The latest developments and upcoming plans of the iMobility Forum Working Groups were nd presented during the afternoon, The 2 iMobility Forum Plenary Meeting was opened by Mr Paul Timmers, Director of the European Commision DG Connect. including the studies on the deployment rates of priority systems in Europe in 2010 and the estimated deployment rates of priority systems in the future currently being run by Implementation Road Maps Working Group, the outcomes of the recent workshops organised in China and Japan by the International Cooperation Working Group, the Digital Maps Working Groupâ€&#x;s plans for a Memorandum of Understanding between public authorities and map makers, and the plans of the Automation Working group to develop a roadmap for automation in road transport.

Participants were treated to updates on the European eCall Implementation Platform, the impending ITS World Congress in Vienna and EU-US Joint Showcase which will take place as part of this momentous occasion. The recently launched SATIE (Cooperative Systems as an Element for Large Scale Actions) support action was also featured. Finally, participants were encouraged to nominate their candidates for this yearâ€&#x;s iMobility Awards, which will also be held at the ITS World Congress.

Day two of the event was focused on cooperative ITS standardisation, a theme which proved to be of great interest for attendees. During the morning, experts shared their knowledge and experience of the standardisation process, progress made on the international harmonisation of standards and the work of CEN and ETSI in this field.

A sneak peek at the preliminary results of the iCar Support standardisation questionnaire was provided, which showed that whilst there is a lot of positive feeling towards the work of Standardisation Development Organisations (SDOs) and that

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standards are highly valued by the ITS community, stakeholders feel that more could be done to open up and facilitate contributions to the standardisation process.

The Plenary Meeting culminated in a fascinating panel discussion involving representatives from the following sectors: vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, road operators, the European Commission, mobile network operators and public authorities, who engaged in a frank and lively debate with the audience. The discussion kicked off on the timeline for the implementation of cooperative ITS and ended with The Plenary Meeting culminated in a panel discussion involving deliberations on mobile date representatives from the following sectors: vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, road operators, the European Commission, mobile charges as a potential barrier to network operators and public authorities. cooperative ITS deployment, with discussion deviations on the relationships between SDOs, the importance of standards in projects and past lessons can be learned from, to name but a few.

The event was brought to a close by Mr Emilio Dรกvila Gonzรกlez from the European Commission DG INFSO, who applauded iMobility Forum members for their continued commitment and dedication to reaching the widespread implementation of ITS. Read the full report and find the presentations for both days online.

The iMobility Forum Launches New Working Groups Legal Issues Working Group On 1 February 2012 the iMobility Forum opened the first meeting of the newly created Legal Issues Working Group in Brussels. This latest WG will enrich the list of activities of the Forum.

During the meeting held in the FIA premises, 12 participants set up objectives for the WG which include: investigating legal and liability issues related to safe, smart and clean mobility and new technologies; establishing recommendations for facilitating the market introduction of safe, smart, and clean systems, privacy issues, product and service liability issues; analysing the possible implications on competition law; investigating and promoting best practices; and sharing the outcome of EC Research Programmes.

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Those aspects are critical for the deployment of ITS services and application both for increasing the users‟ acceptance and for creating a stable framework for the industry. Just to mention some examples: who is liable for a vehicle accidents resulting from the malfunction of an ITS application/service that informs and warns the driver? Who should have access to the data captured when a consumer agrees to equip his/her vehicle with an event data recorder to reduce, for example, the cost of insurance (pay-as-you-drive)? Again, to which extent can a supplier develop an innovative braking technology if the legal framework is not stable? Or in which conditions is it possible the reuse of public data in commercial maps?

Luca Pascotto (FIA), iMobility Forum Legal Issues Working Group co-Chair.

Liability regime and data protection concern are ones of the most significant barriers for wide market penetration of ITS services, and the working group is actively supporting the development of European Policy framework and contributing to the ITS Action Plan.

Claudia May (ADAC) and Luca Pascotto (FIA) are co-chairing the WG. “The first phase of the WG aims to identify the legal problems when introducing and using ITS and to provide input into the EU ITS policy. In the second phase, the WG will look at prioritising the legal problems taking into account the recommendations from the dedicated EC studies in this field and developing potential recommendations”, Claudia May (ADAC).

The transport sector is facing an increase of the complexity of the chain (suppliers; manufactures; operators; users) which requires greater cooperation. As Luca Pascotto (FIA) stated, “the challenge of the connected vehicle poses open questions regarding which Claudia May (ADAC), iMobility services will be valued by consumers and which will be Forum Legal Issues Working Group co-Chair. rejected: we need to remove and clarify some key legal aspects in order to improve cooperation to the benefit of users and industry”.

The next Legal Issues Working Group meeting will take place on 10 July in Brussels and will be followed by other two meetings in September and November.

For more information, please contact Claudia May (claudia.may@adac.de) and Luca Pascotto (pascotto@fia.com), or visit the Working Group webpage.

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Automation Working Group The Automation Working Group was formed under the iMobility Forum, with the initial high level aims of exploring and promoting the potential of highly automated vehicles and applications and working towards the development of a roadmap for the deployment of automated systems.

Achim Beutner, Specialist for Automation & Active Safety at VOLVO Group Trucks Technology, Advance Technology & Research and Maarten Oonk, Market Manager of Transport and Mobility at TNO (working on behalf of the ERTICO Research Sector Platform) were elected as co-chairs of the Automation Working Group. For Achim, the Working Group “provides a unique opportunity to bring together stakeholders from throughout the ITS community to work on a common goal of assessing the steps which must be taken before automation can be a reality of everyday life”.

In October 2011, the European Commission DG INFSO held a workshop on automation for road transport, with the aim of exploring and promoting the potential of highly automated vehicles and applications for intelligent and sustainable mobility.

Additional requirements for automation including HMI, user acceptance, standardisation and certification, liability and legal aspects were presented and discussed, in addition to application areas such as cooperative systems, urban and inter-urban mobility, platooning and freight and logistics. The high level of participation and broad range of conclusions from this event demonstrated a clear remit for further work to be carried out, therefore encouraging the creation of a dedicated Working Group by the iMobility Forum.

On 7 March 2012, the Automation Working Group kick off meeting thus took place in Brussels, with around 30 attendees from over 25 different organisations, ranging from research institutes to suppliers and other membership associations.

Discussion was focused on defining the aims of the Working Group - in itself no simple task, given the wide and complex range of issues to be solved on the journey towards the deployment of automated driving technologies! Questions such as how to define a common terminology, how to assess the state of the art, and how best to work with relevant experts on the legal and liability aspects of automation, were debated.

Maarten Oonk (TNO), iMobility Forum Automation Working Group co-Chair.

As Maarten summarised, “the level of interest and the range of different perspectives offered at the kick-off meeting clearly demonstrates that figuring out how to solve these problems is a valuable and worthwhile task to take on”.

The Automation Working Group will focus its initial efforts on agreeing on terminology and structuring the work plan by mapping the components and aspects

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of automation. And the first steps towards cooperation with other stakeholders, notably its fellow iMobility Forum Working Group dedicated to legal issues in ITS, will be made.

For more information, please refer to the Working Group webpage, or directly contact Maarten (maarten.oonk@tno.nl) or Achim (achim.beutner@volvo.com) or visit the Working Group webpage.

Implementation Road Map Working Group: Monitoring and Promoting the Deployment of Priority Systems In the first semester of 2012 the iMobility Forum Implementation Road Map (IRM) Working Group (WG) concentrated its effort on monitoring and promoting the deployment of priority systems using a two way approach.

The short-term approach to monitoring had to be based on existing data sources and tools. The methodology, as described by the IRM WG, includes five main components: the expert estimates and national data provided by the iMobility Observers network in the form of a response to a questionnaire, analysis of PTI data available from Germany (FSD) for vehicle based systems, literature study, supplier interviews and analysis of mobile applications available through platform-specific application stores such as iTunes, Android Market and Nokia Ovi Store. The estimates provided by the study will become more accurate when new and more detailed data becomes available from FSD and more responses to the questionnaire are received from the iMobility Observers and other stakeholders in Member States.

In the long term, the Member States will still be responsible for data collection, but the interpretation of the results will be handled by the European Commission or another stakeholder competent to carry out the task. The methods to be used will be clearly described and regulated to ensure consistency of data throughout the years and between Member States, and accuracy of the results.

The updated implementation road maps were provided for the following priority systems:         

Obstacle and collision warning Emergency braking Blind spot monitoring Adaptive headlights Lane keeping support (including Lane departure warning and Lane keeping assistance) RTTI (Real-time travel and traffic information) Dynamic traffic management Local danger warning Extended environmental information

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   

eCall Speed alert Dynamic navigation Eco-driving

Read more on the iCar Support website, and download D3.1 Implementation Road Map

ITS Standardisation in a Nutshell On 23 March 2012, Intelligent Car Support and the COMeSafety 2 project joined forces to present the latest information and updates in the ITS standardisation arena, in a webinar moderated by Emilio Dávila González from the European Commission DG INFSO.

Knut Evensen (Q-Free) presented the CEN & ISO standardisation activities.

Soeren Hess (ETSI TC ITS) gave a presentation on ETSI standardisation activities.

András Csepinszky (ERTICO – ITS Europe) presented the preliminary results of the ITS standardisation questionnaire.

Knut Evensen (Q-Free) presented an overview of standardisation which included a brief history of ITS standardisation and an introduction to cooperative ITS and its definition: a co-operative ITS is a subset of the overall ITS that communicates and shares information between ITS Stations to give advice or facilitate actions with the objective of improving safety, sustainability, efficiency and comfort beyond the scope of stand-alone systems. Mr Evensen also provided information on the various standardisation development organisations (SDOs) at international and national levels and how they work together on ITS standards.

Soeren Hess (ETSI TC ITS) gave a presentation on the ETSI Task Force on ITS standardisation, including the benefits of cooperative ITS, use cases and road safety applications, EC standardisation mandate M/453 and its current status, the standards development process, and ETSI TC ITS events. In addition, global

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coordination standards for deployment and a detailed status report of TC ITS standardisation was provided.

Mr Csepinszky (ERTICO – ITS Europe) presented the preliminary results of the ITS standardisation questionnaire which was organised by iCar Support. Over 80 contributions have been received thus far and the questionnaire is open online until September. The final analysis and results will be presented at the ITS World Congress in Vienna.

The preliminary conclusions drawn are as follows:             

Many the stakeholders are using SDOs as an information source; thus they are less informed about European initiatives New media is not very well recognised as a means of dissemination Stakeholders stress the high cost and time consumption of the standardisation work as a barrier The timeline of the standardisation process is openly criticised (too lengthy) Access to standards is still an issue for the projects Everyone recognises the importance of standards The European ITS architecture is recognised, however around a quarter of respondents consider it “not useful” The need for global cooperation in standardisation is strongly agreed The usefulness of the conformance and interoperability testing is also recognised Most respondents (70%) are contributing to the standardisation process. The most frequent reason for not contributing to the standardisation is a lack of resources/budget Respondents recognise the usefulness of the support actions like iCarSupport Answers underline the need to increase standardisation related tasks in the EU co-funded projects They underline the need of further standardisation efforts in the ITS domain

For further information, presentations are available for download on the iCar Support website.

iMoblity Forum Recommendations On 19 June 2012, the 5th Recommendations workshop was organised by iCar Support with the assistance of the iMobility Forum Working Group chairs and the Steering Group members. The focus of the workshop was on the following items:  

Agree on which of the 23 Recommendations can be considered as “achieved” and do not need further monitoring Identify new recommendations, mainly resulting from the work of the active and/or new Working Groups

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

Set up a new list of recommendations and monitor their progress (traffic lights)

More information can be found on the iCar Support website

8th European eCall Implementation Platform Meeting On 3 May 2012, Juhani Jääskeläinen (EC), chair of the EeIP, reminded the members of the importance of the EeIP as coordination body bringing together all stakeholders to ensure coordinated and timely implementation of an EU-wide seamless eCall service across Europe. He recalled the numerous activities that are taking place around eCall, i.a. pre-deployment pilots, standardisation activities, and debates in the European Parliament. He concluded recalling that scope of the EeIP meeting remains the harmonised interoperable EU-wide eCall based on 112.

Harry Evers (ITS Niedersachsen - Germany), as co-chair of the EeIP, highlighted the essential role of the Member States in the EeIP and remarked the importance of working together to find solutions for common issues. Mr Jääskeläinen also announced the recent signature of the eCall MoU by Turkey and mentioned that Bulgaria has sent a letter of intent supporting the mandatory implementation of eCall. The signature of the eCall MoU by the European Confederation of Contact Centre Organizations (ECCCO) was made public and Mr Vincent Vanden Bossche (ECCCO) handed over the signed MoU to the Chair.

Mr Vanacek (assistant of MEP Olga Sehnalová) announced the latest development on eCall at the European Parliament. There was a joint meeting of the TRAN and IMCO committees. The joint own initiative report supports the deployment of the eCall service based on 112. The Parliament considers that eCall should be a public EU-wide service, based on 112 and on common pan-European standards, available and embedded in all automobiles, irrespective of make, country or actual location of the vehicle, thus maximising the benefits of eCall for all road users.

Should you wish to know more about the outcome of the 8th EeIP meeting, click here.

ElectroMobility pilot projects launched at the European Parliament Smart Connected ElectroMobility holds the potential to fundamentally change today's transport system and patterns and make a quantum leap towards sustainable mobility. Four European “eMobility” pilot projects (SmartCEM, ICT4EVU, MOBI.Europe, and MOLECULES) joined forces for their launch in the European Parliament on 8 February 2012. The four pilot projects, run under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP), strive to facilitate and enhance user experience and acceptance of electric vehicles by offering various ICT services

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for urban and inter-urban mobility. These services will be tested and evaluated on test sites in EU Member States all over Europe.

Read the full report and watch all the podcasts on the iCar Support website.

Intertraffic Amsterdam 2012: Smart Mobility Knowledge Centre Intertraffic Amsterdam, the world‟s leading trade event in the field of infrastructure, ITS traffic management, safety and parking concluded yet another successful edition. The Smart Mobility Knowledge Centre was introduced and received with much enthusiasm.

On 27 March iCar Support was represented by its Project Coordinator Lina Konstantinopoulou (ERTICO – ITS Europe), who introduced the project to a wide audience in a session entitled “DITCM R&D Environment – A smart approach to cooperative diving make cooperative driving work”. Some 810 exhibitors from 50 countries presented their latest products and solutions to a global audience of traffic professionals. Intertraffic Amsterdam 2014 will take place from 25 - 28 March in Amsterdam RAI.

EU Emergency Services Workshop 2012 Each year, the EENA organises the EU Emergency Services Workshop that gathers European emergency services, public authorities and industry representatives.

This 3-day conference aims at fostering sharing of best practices between the relevant stakeholders.

From 18 to 20 April, in Riga (Latvia), national 112 systems and regulation were discussed during plenary sessions while operations and technical issues, including Next Generation 112, were addressed during parallel tracks. The EU Emergency Services Workshop welcomed about 320 participants, including about 150 emergency services and public authorities' representatives from all over Europe as well as other stakeholders such as telecom regulators and suppliers. iCar Support, in an effort to foster eCall, shared an exhibition stand with HeERO.

iCar Support participated in the EU Emergency services Workshop in Riga (Latvia).

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TRA 2012: Greener, safer and smarter surface transport for Europe On 23 April 2012, the Transport Research Arena opened the way to „sustainable mobility through innovation‟ with a four-day conference that has brought together surface transport stakeholders from all over Europe. In the Greek city of Athens, this year‟s edition of TRA focuses on finding solutions to a sustainable integrated transport system – including rail and maritime transport – in order to bring about transborder commercial opportunities and ensure sustainable mobility of goods and people within the Union.

Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Maire Geoghegan-Quinn (on the right) visited the iCar Support stand.

The Transport Research Arena thus aims at fostering excellent research, sharing ideas and finding solutions to the challenges of this era in an area that represents 5% of Europe‟s GDP. With Horizon 2020 in mind, stakeholders will take this opportunity to develop smart, green and integrated transport systems across Europe and across all transport modes in order to guarantee sustainable, efficient and clean transport for the future.

Successful Cooperation Workshops on ITS in Beijing and Tokyo A successful EU-China cooperation Workshop on ITS took place in Beijing (China) on 11 May 2012, attracting about 50 people from both the European and Chinese governments and industry. The workshop focussed on smart mobility services, energy efficiency and harmonisation of standards in the context of the EU-China Information Society dialogue between the European Commission DG INFSO and the Chinese The EU-China cooperation workshop focussed on smart Ministry of Transport. Smart motility and mobility services, energy efficiency and harmonisation of standards. energy efficiency are strong focuses for both the EU and China, and many activities and R&D projects are ongoing.

Exchanging information and cooperating in projects will benefit both regions in terms of accelerating deployment of new services and technologies in order to improve mobility, reduce consumption of energy and protect the environment. As far as

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standardisation is concerned, its importance and benefits were acknowledged.

International coordination and cooperation in standardisation thus have to be actively pursued.

Agenda and presentations from the workshop are available here The EU and Japan continued their successful cooperation in Tokyo on 14-15 May. The visit of European Commission, European government and industry representatives which was organised in the framework of the MoC signed last year between the EC and MLIT Japan included a technical visit of the Tokyo Expressway Control Centre and a demonstration of the SPOT system – the first deployment of cooperative systems in the world – A visit of the Tokyo Expressway Control Centre and a on 14 May, and a workshop on ITS demonstration of the SPOT system were organised. cooperation on 15 May. The workshop attracted over 50 participants and focussed on standardisation, energy efficiency and probe data. The EU and Japan are finalising an Action Plan which will guide the cooperative actions in the coming years.

Agenda and presentations from the workshop are available here.

First eCall Interoperability Testing Event From 21 to 24 May, innovITS Advance hosted three days of eCall interoperability testing at their facilities in Nuneaton. Several companies vendors of In-Vehicle Systems (IVS) and/or Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) systems - participated in the event co-organised by ERTICO - ITS Europe and ETSI - Center for Testing and Interoperability. The event was ERTICO - ITS Europe and ETSI’s Centre for Testing and (CTI) organised the first eCall Interoperability supported by the European Interoperability event from 22 to 24 May 2012, in Nuneaton, UK. Commission and the EU co-funded projectHeERO. The objective of these three days was to provide a realistic environment for the vendors to test their implementations with each other: IVS vendors were able to test the interoperability of their product with the different PSAP implementations, and vice-versa. Following several tests covering realistic scenarios, participants monitored the behaviour of their products in the different phases of the

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transmission of an eCall, and assessed whether it worked properly or not. The tests were performed over the innovITS ADVANCE GSM/3G private network, allowing IVS units to make 112 based eCall to the PSAP. Read the full live report online.

FREILOT Final Event Announced at “The Cooperative Services: Today, Tomorrow and Forever?” workshop, held in Helmond, 19 June 2012, the talks between the Municipality of Helmond and Imtech/Peek, both partners in FREILOT, show that the benefits derived from the FREILOT service – energy efficiency, increased safety, increased delivery reliability – are real and significant.

The city of Helmond, the Netherlands, has therefore decided to continue the cooperative mobility services piloted in the successful European Union co-funded project, FREILOT. Based on the positive results of the pilot, the partners involved (the Helmond Fire Brigade, the Municipality, Van den Broek Logistics and Imtech/Peek) are in talks to work out the details of a commercial agreement. These talks mark the end phase of FREILOT, and a beginning for the commercial operation of cooperative mobility services in Europe, where cooperative services are used in daily life by key stakeholders, such as city authorities, the fire brigade and fleet operators.

“The Cooperative Services: Today, Tomorrow and Forever?” workshop was jointly organised by FREILOT and eCoMove, an EU co-funded research project, based on the same technology, taking eco-mobility services to the next level. The workshop was clearly orientated to the practical aspects of deployment, with a demonstration tour through Helmond with FREILOT-equipped vehicles, organised by Imtech/Peek, and a visit to visit the DITCM Control Room organised by TNO.

A fire-brigade real-life demonstration with FREILOT-equipped vehicles was organised in Helmond on the occasion of the FREILOT Final Event.

UAMK Road Safety Day Michael Schumacher was the star attraction for UAMK‟s Road Safety Day in Prague on 28 June 2012. Over 15,000 people gathered in Prague‟s Wenceslas Square to listen to the seven-time F1 champion who was joined by eSafetyAware and FIA President, Jean Todt, to highlight the life-saving potential of the latest road safety technologies. Also present were representatives of the Czech Government and the President of the Czech Automobile Club UAMK, Oldřich Vaníček.

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The huge event, the first of its kind to be staged in the historic heart of the Czech capital, saw large crowds involved in a host of road safety activities. These included the promotion of the latest vehicle safety technologies in a specialised eSafety truck, a motorised sled that encourages seat-belt use by simulating the feeling of being involved in a road traffic accident, a rollover crash simulator, and a showcase of roadside accident assistance services. iCar Support and HeERO were present to publicise eCall, in an effort to increase road safety awareness among the public.

Source: FIA

euroFOT Final Event

The euroFOT Final Event presented the results of the first large-scale European Field Operational Test on driver assistance systems

euroFOT, the first large-scale European Field Operational Test on driver assistance systems, brought together a comprehensive array of organisations to test intelligent vehicle systems across Europe: car manufacturers, suppliers, universities, research institutes and others stakeholders – in all 28 organisations are involved. The aim: to make road transport safer, more efficient and more pleasant!

Partners carried out one year of field testing 8 distinct functions assisting 1200 everyday drivers on European roads across France, Germany, Italy and Sweden in detecting hazards, preventing accidents and making driving more efficient using a multitude of sensors and devices monitoring every aspect of individual driver behaviour in real-world traffic conditions.

On 26-27 June, the euroFOT consortium presented its results to 250 participants on the occasion of its Final Event, which was held in Autoworld Museum, Brussels (Belgium). On this occasion, iCar Support invited stakeholders to learn more about its activities. Discover the euroFOT results.

DG INFSO becomes DG CONNECT As of 1st July 2012, the Digital Agenda of the EU will be managed by the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology and will become DG CONNECT. The new name name represents the range of topics where the DG is active, and its structure aligns the work of the DG with key EU policies for the coming decade: ensuring that digital technologies can help deliver the growth which the EU needs. DG CONNECT work for the Vice

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President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes.

Paul Timmers, Director of CONNECT.H: Sustainable and Secure Society

The ICT-for-Transport portfolio will be part of directorate CONNECT.H under the leadership of Mr Paul Timmers, Director. Paul's area of responsibility has been named "Sustainable & Secure Society". Under this umbrella, the unit ICT for Transport will be merged with unit ICT for Sustainable Growth and become Smart Cities & Sustainability (CONNECT.H.5). Other units in Paul's realm will be dealing with Health and Wellbeing, Digital Social Platforms, Public Services and, last but not least, Trust and Security. Former DG INFSOâ€&#x;s ICT-for-Transport portfolio will be transferred to the new unit and they will continue to work on our current topics and develop new ones.

19th ITS World Congress & Exhibition On 22-26 October 2012 ERTICO - ITS EUROPE will organise, in close cooperation with its counterpart regional organisations and the Host organisation, the 19th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services (ITS) in Vienna, Austria.

Within the theme smarter on the way, the Vienna ITS World Congress is going to deal with innovative systems for the improvement of mobility For more information, visit the 19th ITS World Congress website.

iCar Support at the ITS World Congress Meet iCar Support at this event and visit our stand: from 22 to 26 October 2012, iCar Support will organise on its stand 45 minute sessions on different topics of the iMobility Forum Working Groups.

The audience will have the possibility to listen to presentations and learn about the results and achievements of the iMobility Forum Working Group activities. What's more, the stand's networking areas will allow you to learn more about European iMobility projects, meet your peers and share ideas with them. We look forward to seeing you there!

More info on www.icarsupport.eu

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iMobility Awards 2012 The iMobility Awards provide an invaluable opportunity to highlight the successes of the most outstanding, ambitious and innovative iMobility deployments and to reward those people and organisations most worthy of recognition and praise. The second edition of the iMobility Awards Ceremony will be held in October 2012, on the occasion of the 19th ITS World Congress in Vienna (Austria). Now is the opportunity for you to contribute to rewarding excellence in ITS implementation and deployment in Europe, by voting for the iMobility Awards 2012 nominees for each of the below categories. Click here to vote.

EU/US announce plans for a Joint Showcase at the Vienna ITS World Congress The United States Department of Transportation ITS Joint Program Office and the European Commission Information Society and Media Information, Communication, and Technology Unit have been working together on mutual ITS challenges and opportunities related to connected vehicles. They have made good progress in their bilateral endeavor and will create a showcase to share their joint work with the global ITS community at the ITS World Congress in Vienna, 22-26 October 2012.

They will highlight their joint accomplishments and future plans in the areas of connected vehicle safety, standards harmonisation, sustainability, driver distraction, and research tools at a special joint exhibit hall booth and present interactive events, executive and technical Congress sessions, papers, and posters. The US and EU have been joined in several working areas by the Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation, and Tourism Road Bureau (MLIT). Learn more here.

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