SPONSORED BY
Debates’ organised across 40 cities in Europe, US, Canada and Singapore, as well as the views from research activities and workshops carried out in the frame of the EC funded projects CARTRE and ARCADE. While the findings outline the views of the relevant cities in which the debates were held, the methodologies embodied a lot of common sense that government and other agencies could apply in any setting. Gareth Robins, EROAD Director of Analytics, presented on new opportunities being opened by GNSS-based telematics data. “There are two emerging advantages I wanted to illustrate when I presented,” Gareth noted. “One is that, with connected vehicles on the network, we are able to measure both behavior and near misses and provide a faster feedback loop for road controlling authorities to test the efficacy of safety interventions. The other
is that it becomes possible to see where ‘black spots’ might next emerge because of the way real people interact on a daily basis with a section of infrastructure. Both advantages enable a less costly and more efficient approach to reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads.” Gareth’s work in this domain is gaining traction internationally. The Transport Research Board in the United States has appointed Gareth to the Trucking Industry Research Committee. It reviews a wide range of research topics such as business economics, truck operations, supply chain logistics, shipper/carrier/consignee issues, labour market and human resource issues. He is also a member of the Freight Transportation Data Committee. This identifies and publicises data on commodity movements, international trade, freight transportation activity, and the economics and organisation
of establishments engaged in freight transportation. These levels of insight reflect the mass of data ITS systems gather. Data privacy is a paramount concern. As EROAD’s Director of Regulatory Market Development, I also had the opportunity to present on this topic. With the amount of data out there, and the ability to combine it to reveal unexpected insights, almost all of it needs to be treated as personal data. The drive for open data has merit, but it tends to forget that the data is about people and is not a free good. Privacy and enforcement frameworks offer some protections. But there is a pressing question around data ownership that governments will need to grapple with, sooner rather than later. Australia’s role in this area has been acknowledged, and Brisbane will be hosting the 17th Asia Pacific ITS Forum in May 2020.
p r i m em over m a g . c o m . a u
21
