Hermann Meyer, Chief Executive ERTICO

Tomorrow’s road vehicles will be fitted with a whole range of technologies that communicate with other vehicles and with the road itself. ERTICO, a public-private organization promoting Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), is at the heart of this revolution for our traveling experience.

For many people, a car or a bus is simply a vehicle to get them from A to B. But for the people at ERTICO, a public-private partnership supporting intelligent transport systems (ITS), it is much, much more. They can conceive of vehicles that warn motorists about accidents before they happen, that can direct drivers to empty parking spaces, warn you from breaking the speed limit, or  call for help in case of emergency.

This is not science fiction, but rather something that is ready now, according to Hermann Meyer, ERTICO’s chief executive. “ITS already plays an important role in everyday life,” he says. “ITS will offer seamless connectivity between vehicles, travelers, goods and infrastructure with the running of multiple real-time applications. Ultimately ITS makes mobility across Europe safer, more sustainable and more environmentally friendly.”

ERTICO is the network of more than 100 ITS stakeholders in Europe, including truck- and carmakers, electronics suppliers, map makers, telecom operators, highway operators, users and European public authorities. It has played a leading role in many developments, like setting an open framework for telematics services; next generations of preventive safety systems; next generation of digital maps and associated applications; the technical framework for interoperable tolling in Europe; and the global roll-out of ITS. ERTICO also fosters debate and exchanges through European and World ITS congresses it is involved in. But ERTICO itself does not develop any products. “We are a platform for cooperation of our partners. We support our Partners in achieving their goals in advancing Intelligent Transport Systems,” Meyer says.

Thanks to the sharp development of communication technologies in recent years ITS has evolved from theory to reality in a very short span. Now new "co-operative transport systems" allow vehicles to send and receive up-to-the-minute information about the road ahead and the vehicles around them. In one example, sensors in the wheels of a car can detect when it is beginning to skid or braking suddenly, allowing it to send a warning to surrounding motorists that an accident is imminent. Central traffic management centers can then redirect motorists along alternative routes to avoid jams.

Meyer says that although many ITS technologies are already available, take-up has been slow, because of lack of information on cost/benefits, quality and interoperability issues. “A lot of work needs to be done to raise awareness of the potential of ITS to strengthen political goals. At the moment, there is still too much focus on building new roads and extending infrastructure, and we want to create more awareness of how to use the existing infrastructure more efficiently,” Meyer says. Customer reluctance is another factor, and Meyer points out that Europeans are generally more skeptical than Asians about new gadgets. “In Asia, they want to have the latest technology immediately, and they don’t seem to worry so much if it is not perfect,” he says.

Meyer says that while ERTICO can bring public transport providers, vehicle manufacturers, and logistics companies together to develop technologies, this is only half the job, as ITS also needs political support at the European, national, regional and local level. “Technology and services are developed but we need to deploy it. The main challenge for market take-up lies in the fact that nobody wants to buy a system that might not be future proof,” Meyer says.

He points out that the main investors in ITS are public authorities, who have a clear interest in ensuring smooth traffic management. “The city deploying the technology want to be sure it will be operable in years to come, and that it will apply to vehicles sold in other countries,” Meyer says. “We don’t want a situation where trucks need different technologies for different countries as they very often operate cross-border. So the main challenge is to build trust in the market. So we need some kind of certification in Europe, so buyers know they are interoperable and future-proof. We have to build a bridge between the supply side and demand side.”

An example of the problems facing ITS is eCall, an on-board system which automatically calls the emergency services and provides vital information in the event of a crash. The Commission estimates that eCall could save up to 2,500 lives every year if it were fully deployed in the EU. Progress in setting it up as a single, pan-European system, has, however, been hesitant as member states, who are facing high costs to develop the infrastructure needed to make eCall work, prefer alternative national systems. The Commission has postponed eCall's target launch date from 2010 to 2015.

As Meyer says, getting businesses and public authorities to cooperate is only part of the task. “With ITS, development and deployment involves a broad range of stakeholders with a broad range of interests,” he says. “What we are focusing on is a coordinated deployment of ITS services in Europe. We want these services to function seamlessly. And to have a business case, for both consumer affordability and supply chain profitability.”

Meyer is still looking ahead, and says future technologies will involve the Internet more and more. “In the future, information will go via internet protocol, where you have IPV6. We will be part of machine-to-machine communications, the Internet of things,” he says. It sounds intriguing, but – as with so much in Europe – it may take time before it becomes a reality.

Automotive Manufacturing today is more competitive than ever, but there are ways for European manufacturers to work together on research ideas. EUCAR, which gathers 14 car and truck-makers, aims to nurture R&D on areas that could help drive the European industry to become stronger, smarter and more sustainable.

In the competitive world of automotive manufacturers, it might seem unusual that Europe’s top manufacturers share ideas between themselves for new, potentially market-winning technologies. But that is what is happening with EUCAR, an association of 14 vehicle manufacturers – Volvo Cars, the most recent member, joined at the start of the year – whose mission is to boost their competitiveness through strategic collaborative R&D.

EUCAR director Simon Godwin is reluctant to claim credit for any particular eye-catching technologies and innovations, saying that participants take elements of their EUCAR joint efforts and build on them. “You could spend three years researching an engine technology, and at the end you have your results,” he says. “Those results can then be implemented in various ways, by collaborating further or by each company taking the results and using them for their own purposes.”

However, he does cite various projects that are, at least, linked to EUCAR common research interests. One of them is lane departure warning systems, whereby a video camera monitoring lines on a road can detect when the vehicle is moving across, a technology that is particularly useful for long-haul truck drivers who might be feeling tired.

Current projects that may well come to market in a few years include:

• research into how internal combustion engines can further reduce fuel consumption and improve performance;
• engine technologies involving biofuels, in particular those made from non-food crops, where it will be important to ensure their compatibility with the engines.
• safety research investigating from a system point of view. This includes advanced electronics enabling predictive safety systems and enhanced human-vehicle-interaction techniques, with some research also investigating semi-automated vehicles.
• research into materials for vehicle construction looking at increasing strength and performances whilst reducing weight.
• new manufacturing techniques concepts such as the digital factory and enhanced use of virtual engineering, to improve quality and retain competitiveness and affordability.
• research into mobility systems investigating how different parts of the system can interact effectively and efficiently to enhance safety and reduce energy use. This includes looking at intermodal systems, which enable passengers or goods to select the most efficient journey, allowing transfers between different modes.

Set up in 1994, EUCAR, or the European Council for Automotive R&D represents an industry that employs more than 12 million people directly or indirectly. By comparison, EUCAR itself is tiny, with only four people working in its Brussels secretariat. “We’re a very lean organization,” says Godwin, pointing out that EUCAR’s R&D work is done by its members through its working groups. He notes that carmakers are the largest private investors in European R&D: they invest over €26 billion in research every year, or 5% of turnover, a figure that rises to 30% as a proportion of overall EU industrial R&D. So it makes sense to see if some of their research efforts can be combined rather than duplicated. In any case, most of the projects are co-funded by the EU’s Framework Programmes for R&D.

But how do the manufacturers reconcile their own R&D efforts with their involvement in EUCAR? Godwin points out that they work together in the pre-competitive domain, building on their common R&D needs. “By identifying common research needs and participating in research projects based on those needs, they pool their knowledge, benefit from each others’ expertise and thereby create added value over and above their individual activities,” he says. “On the knowledge platform created in this pre-competitive domain, they are then free to apply that knowledge in their competitive developments. Nobody has to share. They will share their common research needs where they see an added value. And not all 14 of our members will share in each project. Common research needs can be just between two or three members.”

EUCAR, however, is more than just a platform for research programmes. It also helps identify, formulate and prioritize common R&D needs, by interacting with the European Commission, policymakers, industry and other key stakeholders. EUCAR has, for example, made a number of recommendations on electrification of the transport system, an issue that is likely to depend on the coordinated cooperation of all the key stakeholders and contributors involved. The industry’s own prediction is that between 2020-2025, between 3%-10% of new vehicles sold in Europe will be electrically chargeable, a definition that includes plug-in hybrids, fully electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.

“Our members are working on issues like improved performance, cost and safety of battery systems, post lithium-ion battery technologies, and energy suppliers and distributors for deploying the needed infrastructure,” says Godwin. “Our expectation is that this research will continue for a number of years and the results will then be available for implementation. But we also need to ensure cars remain affordable, and the automotive industry remains competitive.” This ties in with EUCAR’s work on the Commission’s European Green Car Initiative, which aims to sustain progress towards a breakthrough in vehicle efficiency and the use of renewable and non-polluting sources of energy for road vehicles.

Godwin says the technologies under investigation in research projects starting today have the potential to start penetrating the market within ten years. “This means for example we could see an increasing proportion of vehicles equipped for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication to enhance safety and efficiency,” he says. “We’re always looking at the ten-year horizon.”