CONDUITS Objectives
The main objectives of CONDUITS are to:
- establish a coherent set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to indicate ITS good practice. The KPIs will:
- help understanding in which areas the transport network of a city is performing well
- address all areas in which ITS applications can improve performance, i.e. safety, efficiency of individual modes, sustainable transport and environmental issues
- identify potential improvements in providing transport for disadvantaged population groups (disadvantaged by location, disabilities or poverty)
- assess whether recent investments in the transportation network have brought improvements in these areas
- assist transport planners and engineers to make business cases for future ITS investments
- understand European cities future ITS plans and to compare this to ITS worldwide. This comparison will:
- help transport policy formation in European cities to understand where they stand in comparison to other cities worldwide and to set intermediate goals
- assist politicians, as well as transport engineers to build the case for investment in appropriate urban ITS systems
- provide an insight into how far the investment plans of European cities reflect the key theme of integrated mobility
- clarify the market for specific ITS applications and to understand the barriers to implementation. This will:
- enable the further identification of possible markets for ITS applications (e.g. showing that the recent investments in new traffic management and control systems in Tel Aviv or Berlin have led to significant improvements could stimulate interest in several other cities)
- facilitate investigating the potential for implementing recent technological advances through targeted case studies that are of interest to the city partners (based on findings from a 2007 city comparison project funded by Transport for London (TfL), possible topics for case studies of interest to all city partners would include the potential for designing a decision support system, data Framework and ITS architecture and effective presentation of travel conditions to the public
- establish a basis to understand the interest of cities in innovative ITS research ideas (e.g. a framework for an informed discussion with several cities regarding future priorities for innovations in traffic signal control having understood the particular context these cities are operating under)
- facilitate technical exchange on ITS solutions applied in major European cities through a series of workshops and the possible establishment of a city club, specifically promoting best practice. These shall:
- provide a more in-depth level of exchange of technical knowledge beyond existing initiatives, conferences and workshops
- make it possible for engineers of major metropolitan cities to keep up with the increasing speed of investments in advanced (and expensive) ITS architecture and in particular integrated traffic control centres through a better exchange of experiences between the operators of such schemes