The Ministry of the Flemish community, responsible for urban, interurban and public transport management, set up a study & demonstration project for identifying the opportunities and threads linked to an (large scale) implementation of in-car telematics. Expected outcome should cover the organisational and functional impact on the Flemish integrated traffic management, issues related to driver behaviour and road safety and possibly recommendations for facilitating private initiatives. Priority was given to a so called integrated or "third generation (3G)" telematics architecture, which should guarantee an ergonomic, safe and cost-effective environment. The single in-car platform (processor unit plus man-machine interface) should allow multiple services provided by separate service providers or application developers and different communication modes. In combination with an integrated back office, allowing a remote management shared by suppliers and clients, time to market should be decreased and private initiatives or even public-private partnerships could be stimulated. The first phase of the project dealt with possible applications and the point of view of different partners involved in traffic management in order to identify the organisational and functional hurdles to be tackled. In a second phase, the integration of the required control & command chain in the local system architecture was studied, and a basic solution was initiated, preparing the small-scale demonstration phase. The latter (5 vehicles, limited number of applications, two way communication) is about to start and should allow the proof-of-concept and produce practical conclusions and recommendations for further (larger scale) implementation. The main results of the co-operation with SmartMove are reported hereafter.
Abstract