Oct 27, 2021
At this year's ITS Austria conference on the 20th of September 2021, the stage has been set for eleven speakers to present the success stories they have written with their ITS activities.
The following projects, including success stories and challenges, gave an excellent insight into how ITS can work and which opportunities it has to offer:
Digibus® Austria: In mobility solutions with automated shuttles, the digital infrastructure in particular has to be taken into account. "Our greatest success in the project relates to the cooperative handling of research questions on the driving environment and digital infrastructure, safe driving behavior and external interaction, passenger engagement, and the integration into a regional mobility system," explained Karl Rehrl.
Connecting Austria: Wolfgang Schildorfer reported on the challenges of truck platooning: "A project result that is outstanding throughout Europe, the development of a so-called "dynamic risk-rated map" shows which routes of the Austrian highway network can potentially be used in a platoon. By applying dynamic traffic management - made possible by C-ITS - the potential for sustainable logistics through truck platooning will be optimised on that basis." But he also faced barriers in the project, "One of the biggest challenges was the dynamic CCAM environment and the therefore required adaptation of the project implementation steps."
ALP.Lab: ALP.Lab is a test region for automated and connected driving. Martin Aichholzer highlighted the current developments in this field: "We are proud to be able to test the ADAS/AD functions of the 2022 vehicle models already today. Generally, in addition to the satisfaction of our customers, the 1st place at the Austrian Mobility Award 2019 and the Tech.AD Europe Award 2021 are among our greatest successes."
ÖBB „Vernetzte Eisenbahnkreuzung“ (Next Level Crossing): The innovation project contributes to make the crossing of a railroad intersection safer, more economical and informative with the help of an innovative crossing. René Trausmuth credits success to overcoming the biggest challenge: "Bringing together the highly available integration of different systems for the safe use of a rail crossing."
auto.Bus-Seestadt: Georg Brenner addressed ITS applications in public transport in Vienna. "Our biggest challenge is to combine new technologies with existing solutions and weigh their pros and cons to find the best way for a sustainable city," Brenner said about the challenges. The obstacles are not only technical aspects such as intersections, illegal parking or construction sites, but also legal framework conditions such as data protection requirements.
Verkehrsauskunft Österreich (VAO): Stefan Mayr introduced VAO's products and current activities. He was particularly pleased about the continuous improvement of the access figures. This year the company reached the one billion mark in terms of queries. However, VAO also faces challenges and Mayr says: "The biggest challenge to build new services from existing data, is to guarantee a consistent and high data quality for the applications and services."
Graphenintegrationsplattform Österreich (GIP): Irmgard Mandl-Mair took advantage of her five minutes to present why the GIP is relevant for Austria: "With the GIP, we provide a top-quality base to meet the requirements for high-value and intelligent traffic services, administrative processes and traffic information. As Open Government Data, the GIP makes the data available free of charge to anyone who wants to work with the GIP data. This ensures that information in the form of services can be built on the basis of current data without discrimination and independently of commercial data."
EVIS.AT: This project is about real-time traffic information as a high-quality end-customer service. Tobias Schleser: "Our greatest success in this project is the harmonisation of traffic data between 17 partners as well as the area-wide mapping of real-time traffic data for Austria."
LinkingAlps: The EU project focuses on providing cross-border travel information services with a standardised interface and without relinquishing the data sovereignty of the respective data owners. Daniela Gamper presented the achieved goals of the project: "To successfully implement the Linking of Services approach as the first project and to operationalise a transnational travel planning service in the Alpine region is our biggest success."
DOMINO: ASFINAG also deals with ITS in numerous projects. In accordance with the contents of the Mobility Master Plan 2030, the DOMINO project also aims to focus on "Avoid, Relocate, Improve". "Our greatest accomplishment is yet to come. But, when the Austrians can experience the DOMINO pilots live in Linz, Salzburg and Vienna, this is a very successful step for us," emphasises Martin Nemec.
ULTIMOB: At the presentation on ULTIMOB, the spotlight was on "MaaS in the region". Roland Hackl explains: "Our major successes, in addition to the very effective work in the four pilot regions, are the implementation of the MaaS learning platform maas-ready.at and the well-grounded elaboration and operational implementation of the topic of barriers to innovation in the area of tension between technology, user behavior and governance."
