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ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY FOR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT AND URBAN MOBILITY

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Daunted Anxious Elated

How it feels to sell your company Also…

15-minute cities versus the tinfoil hat brigade RoadPeace illustrates human cost of collisions Ukraine: ITS sector copes with invasion For the latest on ITS America Conference & Expo 2023 go to: itsinternational.com/daily-news/its-america-2023

North AmericaEdition

How can we transform the road traffic system For smarter traffic management, AI must be our co-driver. VITRONIC offers video-based traffic enforcement solutions that, in combination with AI, ensure future-proof traffic management.

CONTENTS

Contents

March/April 2023

05 COMMENT

30 UKRAINE

Following invasion by Russia, work on ITS projects has stopped in Ukraine – but the state road agency and private contractors have pivoted to providing essential services instead

06 NEWS DIGEST 08 CONTRACTS & DEALS 11 NEWS ANALYSIS

34 FINANCE: ANATOMY

The 15-minute city concept has run into a sudden storm of street protest and violent social media criticism: but why?

OF A DEAL How do you go about selling your business? What do you look for in a suitor? Are there any pitfalls to look out for? Two companies reveal all...

14 OPINION Tinfoil hat wearers are doing their best to render a sensible idea into something utterly toxic: it’s wonderful that they’re doomed to fail

40 TOLLING Europe sees more and more tolling schemes based on GNSS technology and an ‘open marketplace’ model - so is this the future?

17 INTERVIEW ”In reality, this is totally insane, it’s a manipulation... Unfortunately, it’s creating fake news, fear and misinformation,” says Professor Carlos Moreno

45 URBAN TRAFFIC CONTROL Outsmarting the suburban rat runners: Emily Bobis of Compass IoT explains how vehicle-generated data can be the missing link

SAFETY

Photography exhibition When Lives Collide turns road crash statistics into heart-wrenching human stories: photographer Paul Wenham-Clarke explains his inspiration

49 PRODUCTS & INNOVATIONS

23 ITS EUROPEAN CONGRESS

2023

North AmericaEdition

The road to Lisbon is opening up: Congress organiser Ertico - ITS Europe discusses the opportunities that will arise from a connected conversation in Portugal’s capital

North America area only

NA 03 Open-source architecture is

24 WEIGH IN MOTION Company profiling – the process of identifying repeat corporate offenders when it comes to things like truck overloading – is one of many uses of WiM International

March/April 2023 | www.itsinternational.com

FOR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

AND URBAN MOBILITY &

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Cash flow

Image: © Flowertiare | Dreamstime.com

Daunted Anxious Elatedto sell How it feels your company Also…

tinfoil hat brigade 15-minute cities versus the cost of collisions RoadPeace illustrates human with invasion Ukraine: ITS sector copes

RI N T TP

Cover story

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ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

vital to help accelerate the deployment of new ITS and C/AV solutions, says David Spinney of Econolite Systems. Just so long as we avoid the mistakes of the past…

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NA 08 The Las Vegas Loop Tesla

e-taxi service has carried its millionth passenger and is targeting expansion. But what’s it like to use? In a word: trippy

to: Conference & Expo 2023 go For the latest on ITS America ica-2023 itsinternational.com/daily-news/its-amer

Latest ITS America Conference & Expo 2023 coverage: itsinternational.com/daily-news/its-america-2023

Modern tolling collection

art: donaldecompany.com

OPTICAL AXLE COUNTER FREE FLOW TOLLING

COMMENT

“YOU WON’T THINK ABOUT ROAD SAFETY THE SAME WAY AGAIN”

Editor Adam Hill Email: ahill@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612062

Sales Director Dan Emmerson Email: demmerson@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612068

Editorial Director Geoff Hadwick Email: ghadwick@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612013

Sales Team Graeme McQueen Email: gmcqueen@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612069

Contributing Editors Colin Sowman Email: csowman@ropl.com

Production Manager Nick Bond Email: nbond@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612066

David Crawford Email: dcrawford@ropl.com Andrew Bardin Williams Email: andrew@ abwcopywriting.com

Design Team Simon Ward, Andy Taylder Circulation & Database Manager Charmaine Douglas Office Manager Kelly Thompson Email: kthompson@ropl.com

“

here’s a lot going on in this issue of ITS International. Mergers and acquisitions are on the rise in our industry and, if you’ve ever wondered exactly how it feels to put your company on the market, you’re about to find out. We talk with the owners of two ITS firms who’ve been through the process about how it works, from start to finish. It’s an eye-opening account of surprises and compromises, trepidation and joy – and seemingly endless dinners. We also look at the madness and misinformation around 15-minute cities (oh, don’t get us started), including an interview with the creator of the concept, Professor Carlos Moreno. He’s amazed at the sometimes adverse reaction to his eminently sensible exercise in urban planning. He’s also calm in the face of death threats. It goes without saying that he shouldn’t have to be. There are enough fatalities on the world’s roads without wishing more of it on people who are simply suggesting we

There is no danger of the human beings involved being seen as numbers

can do things a different way. When Lives Collide is a photography exhibition from RoadPeace, the UK national charity for road crash victims, which aims to show the faces and lives behind collision statistics. It does this brilliantly in what is at times a shattering experience. There is no danger of the human beings involved being seen as numbers. You won’t think about road safety – and the role of ITS in improving it – the same way again. Last but far from least: ITS America 2023 Conference & Expo takes place 24-27 April in Grapevine, TX and ITS International is proud to be official publisher for the event. The team will be on-site, producing three editions of the Daily News. We are packed and ready to go. As you know, we always have your

Internet, IT & Data Services Director James Howard Email: jhoward@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612070 Web Manager Sarah Biswell Email: sbiswell@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612078 Social Media Manager Tatyana Mechkarova Email: tmechkarova@ropl.com Publisher/ Managing Director Andrew Barriball Email: abarriball@ropl.com Tel: +44 1322 612057 CEO Roger Adshead Email: radshead@ropl.com

wellbeing in mind: if you’re coming to the event (we hope you are) and even if you’re not (we feel your pain) it’s good to relax. To that end, search Spotify for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies and you’ll find a Texas-themed playlist that manages to include Willie Nelson, Queen Latifah and the theme from Dallas. No, honestly, you’re welcome. Hope to see you there. ITS

Adam Hill EDITOR @ITSeditorAdam @adamhillwriter @itseditor_adamhill @ITSInt #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies

Have your say Email me at ahill@ropl.com

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NEWS DIGEST

Via seeks route forward with Citymapper

Via has acquired journey planning app Citymapper and will integrate it into the TransitTech platform. Via’s software enables cities and transit agencies to plan and operate public transit networks, and the company says more than 50 million users in over 100 cities have used Citymapper, founded in 2012, to plan their journeys - using a combination of public transit, walking, cycling, scooters, taxis, and other locally available options. Users can plan a trip based on criteria such as transit mode, arrival time, trip duration and cost.

Archer & United announce Chicago's À UVW HOHFWULF DLU WD[L URXWH Vertiport Chicago - which the companies say is North America’s largest such facility - in the city centre from 2025. The trip is expected to take 10 minutes in Archer’s Midnight aircraft, versus an hour or so by car LQ UXVK KRXU WUDI½ F

$350m New Orleans BRT scheme gets green light from city

A plan for the East-West Bank Corridor bus rapid transit route has been approved in New Orleans - currently one of seven of the 50 largest US cities without rapid transit. New Orleans Regional Transit Authority says BRT aims to improve equity in transportation, provide relief IURP WUDI½ F FRQJHVWLRQ DQG parking, enhance and grow neighbourhoods, and grow the local economy. It will apply for federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for 50% of the estimated $250-$350 million cost of the project.

Five cities in US, Europe and South America to model cycle safety

An international project to map cycling safety is setting up pilots LQ ½ YH FLWLHV 7KH FRRSHUDWLRQ between the International Road Assessment Programme, the QRQ SUR½ W LQVWLWXWLRQ )XQGDFLyQ 0$3)5( DQG WKH 8QLRQ &\FOLVW Internationale is designed to test the new risk-assessment model CycleRAP. The Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, Bogota in Colombia, Sao Paulo LQ %UD]LO DQG )D\HWWHYLOOH LQ the US have been chosen for the pilots, working with local partners to assess safety for cycling and other forms of micromobility.

Johns Hopkins takes on transport & climate research for USDoT

Johns Hopkins University has been selected by the US Department of Transportation to lead the Center for ClimateSmart Transportation. The centre will research ways in which the effects of transport currently the largest contributor to climate change in the US - can be mitigated, with an emphasis on equity and environmental justice. Johns Hopkins will use a USDoT grant RI PLOOLRQ RYHU ½ YH \HDUV WR collaborate with a consortium which includes experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. © Dhvstockphoto | Dreamstime.com

Chicago is to be the site of the next air taxi route for United Airlines and Archer as the companies continue their urban air mobility network roll-out. Archer’s electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft will offer trips from O’Hare International Airport to

Transurban lights up tunnel to help drivers pace themselves

Transurban has introduced 'pacemaker' lighting - a green band of moving light - for drivers in Melbourne's Burnley Tunnel WR KHOS LPSURYH WUDI½ F ¾ RZ across the Australian city's road network. The lights are designed to help maintain a consistent speed, acting as a visual cue in drivers' peripheral vision particularly as they travel uphill towards the exit. While most drivers enter at the 80km/h speed limit, they tend to exit at 60km/h as they climb the 65m slope on the way out, creating congestion.

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NEWS DIGEST

TRL supports Bangladesh road safety data initiative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µV EXVLQHVV SURFHVV

Michigan Mobility Wallet aims to simplify transit ridership & payments )HRQL[ °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

Parisians have voted to ban IUHH ¾ RDWLQJ UHQWDO HOHFWULF VFRRWHUV LQWURGXFHG LQ LQ )UDQFH V FDSLWDO 2Q DQ WXUQRXW WKHUH ZDV DQ RYHUZKHOPLQJ LQ IDYRXU RI WKH EDQ /LPH 'RWW DQG 7LHU FXUUHQWO\ RSHUDWH DURXQG WURWWLQHWWHV HQ OLEUH VHUYLFH LQ WKH &LW\ RI /LJKW ,Q D VWDWHPHQW 7LHU VDLG LW ZDV YHU\ GLVDSSRLQWHG ZLWK WKH YRWH ZKLFK JRHV DJDLQVW WKH JOREDO WUHQG ZKLFK VHHV FRXQWULHV DQG FLWLHV DURXQG WKH ZRUOG HPEUDFLQJ ORZ FDUERQ PLFURPRELOLW\

Parisians vote an overwhelming 'non' to e-scooters

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Five micromobility operators + 10 recommendations = regulated cities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

Optibus expands in Japan with X-Hub Tokyo 2SWLEXV KDV EHHQ VHOHFWHG WR SDUWLFLSDWH LQ WKH ; +XE 7RN\R ,QERXQG 0RELOLW\ 3URJUDP UXQ E\ WKH 7RN\R 0HWURSROLWDQ *RYHUQPHQW DQG RSHUDWHG E\ 'HORLWWH -DSDQ 7KH FRPSDQ\ VD\V WKH ; +XE DFFHOHUDWLRQ LQLWLDWLYH ZLOO KHOS LW JURZ EXVLQHVV RSSRUWXQLWLHV LQ WKH -DSDQHVH FDSLWDO 2SWLEXV KDV EHHQ H[SDQGLQJ LWV IRRWSULQW LQ -DSDQ V SXEOLF WUDQVSRUW PDUNHW XVLQJ LWV URXWLQJ DQG VFKHGXOLQJ VRIWZDUH WR DGG VWRSV DQG WLPHSRLQWV RQ WKH PDS DQG WR FUHDWH WLPHWDEOHV RIIHULQJ PRUH HTXLWDEOH DFFHVVLEOH URXWHV³ VD\V 2SWLEXV FRXQWU\ PDQDJHU +LURVKL 2VKLPD

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CONTRACT & DEALS

Yunex takes on £200m, 10-year London signal deal

Iteris sends out right signals in Chicagoland

Illinois Department of Transportation (IDoT) has selected Iteris for projects GHDOLQJ ZLWK WUDI½ F VLJQDO SODQ preparation and vulnerable road users. The multi-year, $1.2 million contract sees Iteris providing design and review of accessible pedestrian systems on 'numerous' stateRZQHG WUDI½ F VLJQDOV LQ ,'R7 District One, which serves the Chicagoland area. Located in northeastern Illinois, it includes 28,060 miles of roads (2,775 of which are state-maintained), serves over 650 million passengers, and comprises six counties: Cook, Lake, McHenry, Kane, DuPage and Will.

Ireland tolls in the cloud with Indra

Indra has completed the implementation and commissioning of a thirdgeneration toll interoperability management platform for Transport Infrastructure

Transport for London (TfL) has awarded <XQH[ 7UDI½ F D P FRQWUDFW WR LQVWDOO DQG PDLQWDLQ WUDI½ F VLJQDO DVVHWV DFURVV WKH 8. capital. From 1 August, the deal covers 21 of London's 32 boroughs plus the City of London business district. Yunex will be responsible IRU WKH PDLQWHQDQFH RI PRUH WKDQ WUDI½ F signal sites, 91 variable message signs and 30 over-height vehicle detector sites. The 10-year contract also includes the design, supply and installation of new infrastructure.

Ireland. The new cloud platform VLPSOL½ HV HOHFWURQLF WROO collection on all motorways in the country by making it easier for toll collectors/toll service providers to exchange transaction and payment data, allowing domestic and European drivers with a toll service account to use all WROO URDGV LQ ,UHODQG 8VLQJ Microsoft's Azure cloud, the SODWIRUP YHUL½ HV FRQVROLGDWHV and distributes transaction data from toll collectors and toll tag providers.

Western Systems backs up Oregon WUDIÀ F DW WKH extremes

They will be put into a mix of standalone SE48-1616 cabinets and piggyback enclosures which are attached to the H[LVWLQJ WUDI½ F VLJQDO FDELQHW Each system will include the Alpha FXM HP 1100 inverter.

Bon voyage from Flowbird as Clermont-Ferrand opens up

Clermont-Ferrand has become the latest French city to move to open payments on public transport. Flowbird, in partnership with the Syndicat Mixte des Transports en Commun de l'Agglomération Clermontoise, has deployed a tap-to-pay system on buses DQG WUDPV ZKLFK WKH ½ UP says, has now passed 100,000 transactions. The university city in south-central France, has a population of just 141,000. Speeding up boarding and journey times supports its drive to get more people using public transport instead of private cars.

Emovis wins tunnel tolling contract Emovis has won a new contract to upgrade tolling systems in the Sozina tunnel, which links Montenegro's capital Podgorica with the port town of Bar. Public company Monteput chose Emovis for the project which includes the renewal of the existing 11 lanes with Emovis' video tolling solution, to be delivered in nine months. Automated video tolling, or pay by plate, provides road users with a better travel experience while optimising operating costs, says Emovis.

7UDI½ F PDQDJHPHQW VSHFLDOLVW Western Systems is to supply battery back-up systems for key intersections in an Oregon city to guard against power outages caused by extreme weather. It will install 26 Alpha battery back-up systems in the City of Medford in spring 2023.

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NEWS ANALYSIS: 15-MINUTE CITIES

Path to dystopia or storm in a side street? Urban planners and transportation professionals will need to address wild accusations about the motives behind 15-minute cities - and relevant criticisms too - if the concept is to scale to its potential, finds Andrew Stone

here’s a plot by an unseen cabal to usher in digital prisons that will stop us all from travelling more than a few hundred metres from our homes. It’s called the 15-minute city and it’s coming to a neighbourhood near you. That, at least, is the message you may take away if you inhabit certain parts of social media, or if you had visited Oxford, UK, to witness protestors conducting a mass leaflet drop against a new traffic scheme in early 2023. The famous English university city has been seeking solutions to congestion into and around its narrow historic streets for decades now. Its latest plan is a trial of six traffic filters enforced by bollards and numberplate recognition systems - all designed to reduce traffic, make bus journeys faster and make walking and cycling safer in some of

the most congested city areas. Some private vehicle journeys will be limited but will be permitted up to 100 days a year for local residents and with a long list of exceptions. Objections to the scheme are not just a storm in a social-media teacup, however. Residents have taken matters into their own hands, systematically removing bollards and pouring cement into holes to sabotage repair. Clearly the scheme has specific problems for residents that need to be addressed. This all matters to the city’s longer-term plans to be a fully-functioning 15-minute city by 2040 - and to those cities with similar aspirations. The violence of the reaction to what amounts to a fairly modest scheme from a range of commentators - including a politician from the UK’s ruling Conservative party and various minor celebrities - surprised Oxfordshire County Council, which introduced the trial, and Oxford City Council, which supported it. The councils were alarmed by the outcry and by threats made against officials. Similar proposals – for example, in Edmonton, Canada - have also come under attack and the idea of 15-minute cities has been

challenged by a range of influencers around the world. The concept then is, to put it mildly, suffering a bit of a PR problem right now. How did we get here and what do planners, municipalities and mayors need to do about it? Before we get to that, a short history lesson may be in order. Back to a less congested future Popularised by Carlos Moreno, a professor of urban planning at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, the 15-minute city concept emphasises proximity, walkability, bikeability and public transport in creating liveable and sustainable cities where people can access all the basic necessities of daily life within a 15-minute radius of their home. But it has deeper roots that can be traced further back – for example, to American-Canadian journalist, author and urban activist Jane Jacobs, one of the first to argue in the 1960s that cities should be designed at the street

Protests in Oxford, UK, in February 2023: so do 15-minute cities have a PR problem?

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NEWS ANALYSIS: 15-MINUTE CITIES

Space for nuance Other, more reflective, critiques may be worth pondering before considering how, and where, to make the case anew. The misgivings of local residents about specific elements of low-traffic neighbourhoods are perhaps a more potent factor. “I don’t condone it,” said one elderly female resident interviewed by local news channel ITV Meridian regarding vandalism of the Oxford scheme. “But they are not listening. There is no democracy in Oxford. That’s where the anger is coming in – that, and people being stuck in traffic.” They are not without academic supporters. Sociologist Richard Sennett argued in his book, Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City that the 15-minute city concept can fail to capture the complex and multifaceted nature of city life and argues for a nuanced approach to create liveable and sustainable cities. The model may work well in dense, walkable cities like Paris, but may fail in suburbia or Los Angeles-style sprawl. Restricting travel into vibrant city hubs, meanwhile, is not even necessarily desirable. Australian sustainability professor Peter Newman warns against planners placing too much focus on the physical form of cities, at the expense of the social and political factors that shape urban life. Has the rise of home working, for example, created its own momentum towards 15-minute cities as

The violence of the reaction surprised the councils

“

'Build-back-better’, ‘Great Reset’ and ‘Net Zero’ have become indicators of a coming era of repression in some parts of social media

“

and neighbourhood level around the needs and desires of people, rather than being driven solely by the needs of automobiles. Dutch urban planner Hans Monderman, who developed the concept of shared space, which involved designing streets that were shared by pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles, also contributed to the notion of what makes liveable neighbourhoods. So how did such a fractal notion of what makes a place liveable - which arose from close observations of how humans flourish in cities - come to be identified as a top-down imposition on our liberties and a goose-step away from a full-blown, China-style social credit scheme? Recent history is undoubtedly part of the answer. Draconian pandemic-driven lockdowns, and their unprecedented restrictions on movement, unsettled many. Fear over the imposition of top-down agendas has also contributed. ‘Build-back-better’, ‘Great Reset’ and ‘Net Zero’ have become totemic phrases; indicators of a coming era of repression in some parts of social media. Politics has its part to play too. The libertarian end of the spectrum accuses planners of imposing ‘socialism’ by salami slicing our freedoms, one traffic interchange at a time. This may seem absurd but the schemes inevitably bring restrictions and trade-offs and it’s not just extreme claims that are challenging the progress of 15-minute cities.

tele-commuters stay put? Others point out that 15-minute cities may perpetuate existing inequalities, in assuming that all residents have equal access to local resources and opportunities. Access to cars may be a necessity to some disadvantaged citizens with little labour choice, doing jobs far from home. The gentrification resulting from 15-minute cities may drive up real-estate values and with it economic inequality. With such objections all in mind, how do proponents of 15-minute cities advance their case today? It’s possible, of course, to argue that they make their own case. An obvious example is the success Paris has had with its interpretation of the ville du quart d’heure and the political capital that its mayor Anne Hidalgo, who made it the centrepiece of her successful 2020 re-election campaign, has garnered as a result. Positive outcomes While the evidence supporting 15-minute cities is still developing, early research suggests that this model of urban development can have a range of positive economic, social, environmental and health outcomes. This may best be communicated in terms of the freedoms and possibilities they open up, including: Economic: The concentration of amenities and services in compact neighbourhoods leads to more vibrant and diverse local economies that are more resilient to economic downturns.

Social: We are a social species and the chance for locals to rub shoulders, connect with neighbours and engage in local activities is a clear benefit. Walkable neighbourhoods can also be more inclusive and accessible for people of all ages and abilities, including those without cars. Environmental: The freedom to move on foot by bike or public transport, cleaner air and more habitable streetscapes are obvious advantages. Health: The movement a 15-minute cityscape encourages is ‘nutritious’, reducing sedentary behaviour, and cutting the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity and heart disease. The specific lessons of Urban Vehicle Access Regulations (Uvar) schemes may also be worth studying, as ITS International recently explored (Following the A-Z of Uvar, ITS International November/December 2022). Successful implementations by Uvar planners will often carry across to schemes related to 15-minute cities, including the need for careful messaging to secure local support. Fair, user-friendly and non-discriminatory enforcement is another key to effective implementation. Clear communication and a close understanding of genuine local concerns is also a must. Perhaps part of the PR approach here may be to lay out clearly that 15-minute cities are not a suitable spatial fix in every city - or even in every part of the cities where they do work. In short, they must be seen as part of wider urban improvements designed to benefit all and dependent to a large extent on the consent of residents. Such approaches may not quell the wilder conspiracy theorists, but they may help win the hearts and minds of those who matter most. ITS Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

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Tinfoil hat brigade will get bored and move on

OPINION: 15-MINUTE CITIES

Tinfoil hat wearers – conspiracy theorists who delight in joining non-existent dots – are doing their best to make the 15-minute city concept toxic. It’s wonderful that they’re doomed to fail, says Adam Hill

Bus shelter graffiti: very silly but at least it’s more or less spelt correctly

“

This farrago is in danger of rendering a sensible idea into something utterly toxic

In our News Analysis on the subject (p11), we’ve laid out the facts as they stand, including as much scepticism about 15-minute cities as the concept reasonably warrants. Professor Carlos Moreno, who came up with the idea, talks about his thought process in our Interview (p17). He also talks about the death threats he’s received. If you want to see a global conspiracy round every corner, then it is easy to join dots. The fact that these are dots which should only be joined in a fever dream is not

the point: opinion trumps fact in a posttruth world. But this farrago is in danger of rendering a sensible idea into something utterly toxic. No Marxist conspiracy The 15-minute city isn’t an attack on car use or car users; it isn’t a Marxist attempt to restrict people’s freedom of movement or freedom of choice; and it isn’t an example of Big Brother overreach. Rather, it’s one type of ideal: promoting active travel and, crucially, giving people the choice not to have to use their cars. Perhaps messaging from local authorities needs to be improved. People in general don’t like things imposed on them from above if they haven’t been – or feel they haven’t been - consulted. You can still take your SUV to the out-of-town retail park; you can still drive half a mile to drop off your kids at school if you really want to; you are free to sit in traffic jams to your heart’s content. Today, the focus of the tinfoil hat brigade is 15-minute cities. Tomorrow, who knows? Something else will have caught the magpie eye of the credulous. Another issue will be du jour for the cheerleaders with their own agendas. They can twist and debase another idea. There’s always something else. ITS

Conflating ideas Truth hasn’t stopped these ideas – and many more, some of them even more bonkers - seeping into demonstrations in the UK and Canada, with shock, panic,

shouting in the streets, and rent-a-quotes on tap. A number of things seem to have been conflated in these protests – in no particular order: deliberate misunderstanding and misinformation; genuine ignorance; legitimate concerns about the roll-out of lowtraffic neighbourhoods and urban vehicle restrictions; the spectre of Covid lockdowns; a brutal cost of living crisis; climate change denial; and Big Brother overreach. This is not an exhaustive list.

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hether you call them ciudades de los 15 minutos, la ville du quart d’heure or plain old 15-minute cities, the idea is the same: all amenities that urban dwellers need should be in a 15-minute walk or bike ride from where they live. It’s an urban planning concept designed to make cities more liveable, create new economic opportunities, make people happier and healthier, and reduce our carbon footprint. People – not cars – will be at the centre of city living. Cities will adapt to humans, rather than the other way round. What the 15-minute cities concept emphatically does not say is that those same cities will be divided into fenced zones from which citizens will be unable to leave without flashing their biometric details. Nor is it a blueprint for socialist dystopia. Moreover – this barely seems to need pointing out, but you never know – it is not the precursor to a World Government installing 5G chips into Earth residents, the better to exercise mind control.

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INTERVIEW

“I’VE HAD A LOT OF DEATH THREATS” Carlos Moreno, inventor of the 15-minute city concept, talks to Adam Hill about misinformation, conspiracy theories and the attraction of ‘human smart cities’

‘Socialist conspiracy’ All of this seems hard to argue with. Cities can be difficult to get around. We can surely do things better – the desire for smoother urban mobility is at the heart of the ITS industry, after all. Moreover, urbanist academics such as Moreno are paid to think exactly about how cities can be better organised: safer, cleaner, more efficient, able to create more economic opportunity, easier to live in, and so on. Transport emissions are a proven health issue and mainstream scientific opinion is that we need, as a

species, to restrict our use of fossil fuels to stave off climate disaster. This is not particularly controversial. Some surprise, then, when the 15-minute city concept found itself at the centre of a storm which involved protests on the streets: it was called a socialist conspiracy; it was argued that proponents want to restrict people’s freedom; it is an insidious attempt at government mind control; you won’t be allowed out of your 15-minute ‘zone’ without a biometric passport; it would be like The Hunger Games, and so on, and so on.

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The conspiracy mongers are totally convinced that climate change doesn’t exist

“

f you’re an urban dweller, Carlos Moreno gives you plenty to ponder. The professor at the PanthéonSorbonne in Paris came up with the 15-minute city concept, which suggests that everything you need for daily life – work, school, shops, healthcare, entertainment and so on - should ideally be within a quarter of an hour’s walk or cycle ride from where you live. This means that, instead of lengthy commutes and traffic jams, cities should be rethought around four principles: ecology (green and sustainable), proximity (as described above), solidarity (creating links between people) and participation (actively involving citizens in the transformation of their neighbourhood). Urban areas should adapt to humans – not the other way round. Maybe ‘human smart cities’ would be a good way of thinking about them. “Those of us who live in cities, big and small, have accepted the unacceptable: that our sense of time is warped because we have to waste so much of it,” Moreno argued in a Ted talk a couple of years ago. “First we need to start asking questions that we have forgotten. We need to look harder at how we use our square metres: what is that space for? Who is using it and how? We need to understand what resources we have and how they are used. Then we need to ask what services are available in the vicinity – not only in the city centre, in every vicinity: health providers, shops, artists, markets, sport, cultural life, schools, parks. We also have to ask ourselves how do we work? Why is the place I live here and work is far away?”

Speaking on the phone to ITS International, Moreno reveals he was amazed at this response to his urban planning concept. “I was totally surprised,” he laughs in disbelief. “I never really imagined that it was possible to relate the 15-minute city – as a humanistic, urbanistic concept proposed for developing more social interactions, new economic models, more sustainability, more capability for using public space differently – to this idea.” Conspiracy theorists did not see it that way. “The conspiracy mongers are totally convinced that climate change doesn’t exist,” Moreno continues. “They are, by definition, climate deniers. They also consider that digital identity is a kind of control and, after Covid-19, that there is a new way of implanting 5G chips to control each one of us, our individuality.” There is also a perceived attack on automobile ownership. “For the conspiracy mongers, the 15-minute city is related to the reduction of freedom – particularly restrictions on using individual cars,” Moreno says. “The storytelling of these conspiracy mongers is to relate the 15-minute city to the Covid

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INTERVIEW

Greater proximity Also, cities need to optimise the use of existing infrastructure, particularly buildings, Moreno says, so that they have more than one purpose. “At the same time, we need to have a multi-connected city: we need to use the new technologies for developing more proximities,” he adds. “Proximity in cities is not only [about] the shortest distances. That is a big difference with the last century: there are lots of n e k ew inds nd of pr ox ximity. m y. new kinds proximity.

“

We need to start asking questions that we have forgotten

“

What we see is that when people get electric cars, they drive even more

Dark times And it’s also no joke. Moreno has received “a lot” of death threats. “I think this is a sign of the dark times for scientists because in reality I am not the only scientist to receive death threats.” It has happened to many colleagues involved in work on climate change, he explains. “Some people, in reality, don’t have limits.” Even when not malign, the misrepresentation of 15-minute cities goes against what Moreno has explicitly put on record. In his Ted talk, he insisted: “Don’t get me wrong: I’m not angling for cities to become rural hamlets. The urban life is vibrant and creative; cities are places of economic dynamism and innovation. But we need to make urban life more pleasant, agile, healthy and flexible. To do so we need to make sure everyone – and I mean everyone – those living downtown and those living at the fringes – have access to all key services within proximity.” This is an important point, he tells ITS International. “A lot of people have said that this is a return to the village of the 19th century - but I have said that the 15-minute city is not a collection of rural hamlets.” Communications – particularly the internet – means there is no comparison in the 21st century. “With the 15-minute city we wanted to reconcile our capabilities for reducing our CO2 footprint – and for that we need to reduce the long commute in the individual car.”

For example, I could be in my home and have a nicer, greater proximity with friends who live in São Paulo or in Bogotá or New York. This is not a physical proximity but we have completely digital opportunities for creating activities or exploring convergences.” The 15-minute city is also an opportunity for looking at hybrid forms of working. At one level this means interacting with public spaces, commerce and jobs in your area – and at the other, using digital technology to create new economic and other opportunities which require you to travel less. That said, it won’t be possible (or even desirable) for everyone to switch to a job which enables a digital – rather than physical – presence. But Moreno cites a Boston Consulting Group survey which found that 68% of workers who could not work remotely “considered that a long daily commute is one of the most relevant factors in the degradation of the quality of life”. A proportion of people will always need to commute, says Moreno: “In that case, we could offer better quality of services for people using public transportation.” Paris is perhaps one example of somewhere on its way to being a 15-minute city – not least due to the political will of the city’s mayor Anne Hidalgo – but Moreno is confident that there are others, particularly within the C40 cities group, an international network of city mayors who emphasise sustainability. In Italy, he sees Milan, Rome and Bologna as “totally committed” to the concept, along with Barcelona (with its ‘superblocks’) and Valencia in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal, Seoul in South Korea, Chengdu in China, Buenos Aires in Argentina and Bogotá in Moreno’s birth country of Colombia – not to mention Seattle and Colombus in the US, and Montreal in Canada. Moreno also namechecks the Scottish government’s support for a ‘20-minute neighbourhoods’ policy to alleviate climate change. Covid-19 has proved, worldwide, that it’s possible for many of us to change our work-style – and Moreno says people have found “new useful time” as a result. “A lot of people have discovered the benefits of the reduction of a long daily commute,” he suggests, “finding one or two more useful hours for increasing the personal, individual or social or fami am ly y quality quali al ty off life”. liife fe . ITS family

“

lockdowns and the idea that we wanted to prepare people for a ‘climate lockdown’. In reality, this is totally insane, it’s a manipulation, without a concrete link to the concept of the 15-minute city. Unfortunately, it’s creating fake news, fear and misinformation.”

Paris: a genuine 15-minute city already?

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Closing the standards gap ITS DATA EXCHANGE

Open-source architecture is vital to help accelerate the deployment of new ITS and C/AV solutions, says David Spinney of Econolite Systems. Just so long as we avoid the mistakes of the past…

Overview of the ITS project The Innovate Mound project, located in Macomb County, Michigan, US, involves the reconstruction of a nine-mile stretch of Mound Road between Interstate 696 and Highway 59. The goal is to transform the roadway into a smart corridor that includes the deployment of emerging mobility technologies that will enhance safety, optimise efficiencies and help future-proof the multimodal corridor. Another objective is to make it a showcase for the implementation of diverse data-driven traffic management strategies, C/AV technologies, advanced software, automation and scientific techniques. Key to this is featuring public and private partnerships to deliver a system concept that can be extended on a large scale, including neighbouring states. Ultimately, the design and implementation of an open-source framework seeks to overcome systemic technology and data-management standards challenges within the US Department of Transportation’s National ITS Architecture and to provide an innovative solution that is extensible and capable of being deployed on a national scale.

new era in traffic control enabled by emergent technologies is upon us. The datasets available by these technologies can help revolutionise traffic management methods only if infrastructure owner operators (IOOs) are able to leverage the data, applying the actionable information within an intelligent transportation system. However, the advancement of new roadway technologies has outpaced the industry’s ability to standardise the data exchange and management, creating a standards gap. An unfortunate consequence of this growing gap is an increased proliferation of proprietary data and control systems. Collaborative efforts are underway to establish a referential open-source platform as a proposed addition to our National ITS Architecture.1 Implementing an open-source ITS architecture for a connected and automated vehicle (C/AV) environment can provide a more agile framework that helps overcome systemic challenges within the National ITS Architecture. It can also help accelerate the deployment and extensibility of new ITS and C/AV solutions.

Innovate Mound public partners include Macomb County, Macomb County Department of Roads (MCDR), the City of Sterling Heights, the City of Warren, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Michigan Department of Transportation (MDoT), and the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG). These partners provide overall administration, coordination, project assistance, and act as a technical oversight committee (TOC). The risk of proprietary solutions Generally, ITS procurements for software systems can place operational requirements at levels of increasing solution specificity described as follows: 1.Functional: Requirements placed on software end functionality, without constraint upon the software design. 2.Modular: Requirements placed on modularity and interconnectedness of software components via industry-standardised interfaces - e.g. National Transportation Communications for ITS Protocol (NTCIP) - of the end system but do not offer much to constrain the internal design of each module 3.Architectural: Requirements placed on software architecture, source code and toolchains for the greatest specificity of solution.

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Early ITS software procurements focused primarily on end-user functionality. As a result, during the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and 1990s, the ITS industry evolved toward deployment of proprietary solutions that did not offer extensibility or cross-vendor integration. While those deployments provided an immediate ITS capability, they were later found to be constrained with proprietary data interfaces that did not allow for interoperability with technologies and systems installed later. Fortunately, in the late 1990s, work through the NTCIP standardisation released the National ITS Architecture from this proprietary binding. Current state of play Public agencies, private industry, and transportation research communities have been collaborating for more than 30 years toward a common goal of the design and deployment of a standardised National ITS Architecture using NTCIP as the means of ensuring cross-vendor modularity of subsystems. The guiding objectives of this design were focused on device interoperability via standardisation of data interfaces between roadway users, management centres, vehicles and infrastructure field devices. Recent deployments of C/AV-based systems have revealed a significant gap between National ITS Architecture version 5 © ITS INTERNATIONAL MARCH/APRIL 2023

NA 03

ITS DATA EXCHANGE North AmericaEdition

Innovate Mound project Following an open-source platform approach for the Innovate Mound project, an ITS solution was developed. It verifies intent and refines the requirements as required to build upon an open framework and open-source architecture that is composed of several USDoT and FHWA projects. This will see the output of the Innovate Mound program uniquely contributing to the emergent FHWA-led GitHub repositories that are currently expanding to replace the prior ‘modular’ National ITS Architecture. The core solution will be open-sourced, offering these advanced solutions on a national scale. Moreover, Macomb County and MDoT will be able to leverage services from other ITS data exchanges being developed within these open-source programs (e.g. Carma

NA 04

Travellers

Centres

Remote traveller support

Traffic management

Personal information access

Information service provider

Emergency management

Emissions management

Emergency vehicle Commercial vehicle Transit vehicle Maintenance & construction vehicle

Commercial vehicle administration

Fleet and freight management

Maintenance & construction management

Archived data management

Fixed-point to fixed-point communications

Wide-area wireless (mobile) communications

Vehicle

Toll administration

Transit management

Dedicated shot-range communications

Open-source architecture: mitigating the risk The transportation industry must remember the lessons learned in the 1990s. The emergence of new data-driven ITS capabilities are not necessarily developed with the underlying standards and policies needed to apply these technologies consistent to the National ITS Architecture. Open-source cloud-based architecture is an answer. An open-source architecture offers the same collaborative openness as standards, but can move faster, and be more responsive to change. Currently, there is not a mandated open-source cloud architecture within the National ITS architecture. However, a reference architecture is currently being fostered by the USDoT’s Joint Program Office (JPO) through several open-source programs. A community of practice has been established to develop and study a new reference architecture based upon developing a set of open-source, containerised microservices platforms.

Figure 1: National ITS Architecture Version 5 provides a common structure for ITS design

Vehicle to Vehicle communications

and the forthcoming generation of new field devices, crowd-sourced datasets, cloudhosted analytics, and other technologies (see Figure 1, right). Newer technologies promise to improve roadway safety and mobility, but only if these technologies can be given access to existing ITS systems and vice versa. Newer deployments of ITS/C/AV solutions have been encumbered by these NTCIP interfaces and cannot implement many of the capabilities of newer ITS technologies to improve safety and mobility, largely due to data exchange incompatibilities because of data management and communications constraints of legacy standards. Unfortunately, change for these standards cannot keep pace with emergent technologies, leaving a significant ITS standards gap. What can be done to stave off another era of proprietary systems?

Vehicles

Roadway Security monitoring Toll collection Parking management

Field

Commercial vehicle check

Table 1: ITS data exchange: applications I2VNC: Traveller Information and Notification Centre

The traveller information and notification centre (I2VNC) that provides data on inclement weather, speed restrictions, incidents, road closures and pavement conditions.

WWD: Wrong Way Driving

Wrong Way Vehicle Detection and Warning (WWD) system is being implemented as a light-weight software application that uses data from ITS detectors, CCTV video surveillance, vehicle on-board equipment, and C/AV roadside equipment to detect wrong-way drivers and immediately warn drivers, nearby C/AV-equipped vehicles, traffic operators and incident management personnel.

WRS: Atmospheric Sensor Data Integration

Weather Response Service (WRS) C/AV application is being developed as a software algorithm designed to evaluate and respond to inclement weather data to determine optimised travel speeds for the Speed Harmonisation (SPHM) C/AV app, supporting the Queue Detection Warning (QDW) app, and determining weather-based safety hazards requiring I2V notifications based on current road weather conditions.

PQD: Pavement Quality Detection

The Pavement Quality Detection (PQD) C/AV application is a software algorithm designed to leverage connected vehicle sources, including OBU, RSU, and other C/AV applications to evaluate, respond and alert on pavement conditions having an impact on traffic safety and mobility.

QDW: Queue Detection and Warning

The Queue Detection and Warning (QDW) C/AV application utilises a software algorithm designed to leverage connected vehicle sources, including OBU, RSU and other C/AV applications to evaluate queue status at designated locations and alert on conditions having an impact on traffic safety and mobility to generate appropriate queue response strategies.

SPHM: Speed Harmonisation

Speed Harmonisation (SPHM) system is designed to fuse data from ITS field devices, atmospheric sensors, RSU and OBU C/ AV data, and other relevant traffic data to recommend travel speeds for successive upstream roadway segments in small increments to achieve common speeds based on the prevailing conditions detected.

SPaT: Signal Phase and Timing

Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT) system serves as an interface to broadcast Traffic Signal System (TSS) Controller data to OBU-equipped vehicles. Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

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ITS DATA EXCHANGE North AmericaEdition Streets) and continue to expand the breadth, capabilities, and inclusiveness of this system.2 This ITS solution seeks to support C/AV applications that vehicle OEMs can easily apply within their vehicles’ operating systems. These data elements encompass very complicated datasets that cannot be simply characterised by a brief description or reference to existing standards. There are underlying standards, data transformations, data integrity methods, infrastructural requirements, accuracy expectations and many other factors that must be considered before utilising this data in any in-vehicle safety system. The intent is to develop a set of opensource microservices that provide absolute clarity of these data transformation methods, as well as establish an extensible solution that the transportation industry can update as new edge devices, data transformation methods, and other technologies arise.

Figure 2: An example of the device-to-cloud ITS Data Exchange Framework

Proprietary GUIs

Proprietary microservices ATMS

Open-source application GUIs

P-ODE open-source SDW

Application-specific

Application-specific - Data lake

Open-source containerised microservice-based ITS architecture Taking into consideration the applications and data exchange requirements, the architecture being implemented follows the FHWA architecture guidance offered through the FHWA open-source GitHub repositories. To develop and deploy a software framework based upon the USDOT opensource data management for the project, the ITS data exchange architecture seen in Figure 2 (above, right) was designed and implemented.

TOC cloud access

JPO-ODE with extended services to fulfill project requirements

V2X hub RSU application

Containered applications (CV Apps, Mongo DB, Kafka, etc.)

V2X HUB

Edge CRI

JPO - ODE Interface

Edge compute platform ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Danlaw RSU Traffic controller

ITS data exchange overview The software framework, as well as several C/AV applications that demonstrate the capabilities of this collective system, has been designed to support the following ITS data exchange and software application elements for the Innovate Mound project. The software architecture was designed to provide the data exchange between each of the applications noted in Table 1, as well as any edge computing and cloud processing. A high-level working design documentation has been drafted as part of the project to provide Macomb County with an opportunity to review and influence the intended design, as well as form the framework for existing and new project partners in the design, development, integration, deployment, training and testing of this ITS software system.

Cloudbased analytics

Non-standardised roadside sensors

J2735 OBU applications

This containerised microservice-based framework offers edge (V2X Hub.3), cloud computing platforms (JPO-ODE.4), and situational data warehouses (SDW) where the C/AV applications can reside. This architecture also enables a mixing of platforms, where some applications may have elements best hosted at the edge level and other elements best hosted in the cloud. Summary The open-source containerised microservice-based architecture developed for the Innovate Mound project was designed to provide a framework that overcomes the current systemic challenges of the National ITS Architecture to help accelerate the deployment and extensibility of new ITS and C/AV solutions while avoiding the historical pitfalls of proprietary-based solutions of the previous ITS eras. It was also designed to leverage standardised interfaces wherever possible. The system architecture is highly modular, leveraging the current NTCIP and SAE interfaces supported within the National ITS Architecture. It separates functional elements via Center-to-Center (C2C) and NTCIP 1211 dialogues. This provides built-in expandability and ITS data exchange agility to help

ensure interoperability with any vendor’s traffic controllers, advanced transportation management system (ATMS) and transit management system. With the underlying goal to mitigate the risks of proprietary system binding, the open-source architecture and framework is also designed to easily integrate and interface with future traffic control capabilities, including the anticipated datasets that will be produced from situational awareness and cooperative perception solutions, incorporating trajectory-aware and tracking-based sensing. The architecture’s ITS data exchange framework also applies NTCIP and SAE standard dialogues, including extensions developed to support emergent C/ AV and Smart City applications and environments. ITS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Spinney is vice president for Econolite Systems.

References 1. The National ITS Reference Architecture, also known as the Architecture Reference for Cooperative and Intelligent Transportation - or simply ARC-IT - provides a common framework for planning, defining and integrating intelligent transportation systems. 2. The CARMASM Program, developed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), uses a multimodal approach to encourage collaborative research on the technology, open-source tools, and frameworks poised to improve transportation system mobility, safety and efficiency. https://highways.dot.gov/research/operations/CARMA 3. The V2X Hub: a communication, computation, and processing platform for V2X applications: https://github.com/usdot-fhwa-OPS/V2X-Hub 4. JPO-ODE: a real-time virtual data router that ingests and processes operational data from various connected devices - including vehicles, infrastructure, and traffic management centres - and distributes it to other devices and subscribing transportation management applications: https://github.com/usdot-jpo-ode/jpo-ode

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URBAN MOBILITY North AmericaEdition

In the loop The Las Vegas Loop Tesla e-taxi service has carried its millionth passenger and is targeting expansion. But what’s it actually like? Liam McLoughlin, editor of EV Charging & Infrastructure, is taken for a ride

NA 08

normally required of show attendees. The current LVCC loop capacity is designed for 4,400 passengers per hour, while the planned full Vegas Loop is aiming for 57,000 per hour on its 50-plus stations. The network uses Tesla Model 3 and X vehicles and vehicle speeds are 30-40mph. A few minutes of queuing was sometimes required while waiting for a Tesla that was going to the right hall. You also have to tell the yellow hi-viz-wearing assistants where you want to go, so it’s far from a seamless and automated experience, although the occasional queuing could be an indication of the system’s popularity. Rides on the LVCC site are free but there will be fares on the extended network. In October 2021, Clark County officials gave approval for the network to be extended around the city, including stops at casino hotels on the Las Vegas

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Strip, the Allegiant Stadium where the Las Vegas Raiders football team plays, the University of Nevada (UNLV), and eventually the Harry Reid International Airport. The Boring Company says that the nearly five-mile trip from the airport to the LVCC will take five minutes with a cost of around $10. The Westgate is the second extension from the LVCC after the link to Resorts World that opened in 2022. To extend the system beyond LVCC, the Boring Company is having to obtain permits from the city’s building department and, apart from the recent start on the Westgate extension, not a lot of digging is currently going on. The company is also planning underground EV systems in other US cities. Early last year it submitted plans for a 6.2-mile loop in Miami and – whatever his detractors think - Musk has said such initiatives can solve the traffic issues that afflict major global cities. ITS

It’s quite a colourful and indeed ‘trippy’ experience

“

he Vegas Loop underground taxi service that uses Tesla electric vehicles recently carried its one millionth passenger. Operated since July 2022, it provides transportation for attendees at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), connecting the new West Hall with the existing North, Central and South Halls. A cross-campus walk can take up to 45 minutes, but the Vegas Loop reduces this to two minutes. Originally conceived as an autonomous taxi service – an idea that was abandoned as being too dangerous – the service uses around 100 chauffeur-driven Teslas travelling along two one-way 0.8 mile tunnels. Crews from the Elon Musk-owned Boring Company have now started work on extending the service beyond the LVCC to its planned 55 stations along a 29-mile network. The first part of this is the digging of a tunnel between the convention centre and the Westgate hotel, with the Westgate station expected to open in summer 2023. The system has proved controversial with a video appearing not long after it opened showing an underground traffic jam on a network that was supposed to ease traffic problems. A trip on the system proves to live up to its name, being quite a colourful and indeed ‘trippy’ experience. The constantly changing colours and an accompaniment of dancey electronic music as you head through the tunnels make it feel like you’re in a computer game - quite relaxing and a welcome change from the lengthy walks from hall to hall that are

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Technology Convergence 2023 Setting the wheels in motion – reimagining the future of heavy vehicles, roads and freight

6–10 November Brisbane, Australia www.techconverge23.org The International Society for Weigh-In-Motion (ISWIM) and the Heavy Vehicle Transport & Technology (HVTT) Forum have come together to host a joint international conference.

www.is-wim.net

www.hvttforum.org

SAFETY

RoadPeace exhibition highlights human cost of collisions

Pollyanna Hope (left) was two years old in April 2005 when a bus mounted a pavement and hit her. The impact killed her grandmother, seriously injured her mother, and left Pollyanna with injuries which led to her leg being amputated. After multiple operations, she is now in the English National Ballet Youth Company, danced last year with the National Youth Ballet and performed at Sadler’s Wells with a special en pointe ballet leg.

When Lives Collide is the starkest possible illustration of the importance of road safety. Adam Hill talks to Paul Wenham-Clarke, professor of photography at the Arts University Bournemouth, about the inspiration for this heart-wrenching collection of images and memories 20

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SAFETY

The image Long Delay was created using actors and rescue workers and re-enacts a real road incident as described by those involved. The title refers to the way in which many of us are informed of such events on car radios or social media. A long delay can be inconvenient for us – but life or death to the people involved.

oad crash statistics are shocking: but there is a danger that lists of numbers become abstractions. When Lives Collide, a photography exhibition to mark the 30th anniversary of RoadPeace, the UK national charity for road crash victims, aims to show the human faces behind the numbers. There’s no escaping the grief and pain in what is at times a shattering experience. Shot by Paul Wenham-Clarke, professor of photography at the UK’s Arts University Bournemouth, the images were exhibited in London in January and there are plans to tour them in the UK and abroad. This is the second exhibition with the name – RoadPeace’s first When Lives Collide exhibition (also with pictures by Wenham-Clarke) took place two decades ago in 2002. Again, it features pictures of crash scenes as well as black and white portraits of people whose lives have been irrevocably affected by the deaths of loved ones. Designed to show that crashes affect everybody, it succeeds to an extraordinary degree. Each of the portraits comes with text explaining who people are and who they’ve lost: truly, these are the faces behind the statistics. Wenham-Clarke started out as an advertising and commercial photographer. “When you're doing that kind of work, Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

One For Sorrow

you get to think about how image and text work,” he tells ITS International. He began applying the same principles to his documentary work. “I started to think: ‘how could I use the text to make the pictures more effective?’” Wenham-Clarke explains. The portraits for When Lives Collide have a write-up, with headline and detail, giving viewers as much or as little information as they want for maximum engagement.

Pauline Fielding (above) started campaigning after her 18-year-old son Andrew was killed in a collision when travelling to a football match with friends in 1994. The driver of the car did not stop and was never found. Since his death, Pauline has been campaigning for changes at the junction and has successfully managed to get the speed limit on the road reduced from 60mph to 40mph.

SAFETY His other documentary work includes a project on the Westway, the highway which splits west London, and one on wildlife killed by cars. The linking theme running through these and When Lives Collide is “the negative consequences of being so car-focused in our way of thinking”. For him, one overriding message came through his latest work. “We want cars to be shiny and beautiful and show your status and all those kind of things,” Wenham-Clarke says. “We'd like to forget about all the pollution and global warming, people dying, animals dying - that's all ‘oh dear, it's just an accident’. And it's totally avoidable. In Britain, there's something like 1,500 people a year dying - but globally, it's a massive issue. Britain is one of the safest places to drive - so imagine how bad the bad places are. We basically get told about the statistics: so it's how many deaths a day or some figure about how many deaths are caused by certain types of driver. But what you don't get to is all the personal grief. And for every one person that dies there's a whole circle of people that are affected by it, and nobody thinks about it.” ITS

Crumpled Zone

“You can just read the headlines and move around from person to person to person,” he says. “Members of the public these days are very used to the language of advertising, so feed it to them in a way that they will take it in.” For the original When Lives Collide, Wenham-Clarke photographed people in their own homes. The timescale for this second exhibition was too tight to allow that, so RoadPeace organised one-day meetings with its local groups and Wenham-Clarke took his cameras and lighting equipment to the various locations. “It was like a touring studio basically,” he says. “I asked some very simple questions to get things going and then they would just tell me their story - I was silent through a lot of it. When someone's telling you something painful, whatever you say sounds trite. A lot of the time it's just body language, nodding and facial expressions that let the person know you are understanding what they're going through.” People opened up to Wenham-Clarke, and this is reflected in his powerful portraits. “With some, the emotions would literally gush out, you’d see them rollercoastering through agony moments and then choking back the tears and smiling because they remember their loved ones. It was really quite difficult to do as well: there were quite a few times when they'd get me in tears from what they were saying. And I felt if I can get some of that when you look at the picture - and then you go to the text and [the story] can be conveyed to somebody viewing that work then I’ll be happy with that.” The human element of the exhibition is overwhelming: in particular, When Lives Collide throws light on the trauma that’s left behind. “When you read the stories you get the sense of the massiveness of the effect on people: terrible, emotional – and also financial,” says Wenham-Clarke. “Sometimes people that are left behind, their life will fall apart because of all the financial implications of what's happening.”

When Lives Collide features black and white portraits (left) which “serve as a window into the soul of people who have experienced a nightmare”, says Paul Wenham-Clarke.

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ITS EUROPEAN CONGRESS 2023

ITS European Congress 2023: plenary sessions All sessions take place at the CCL Lisbon Congress Centre

“It’s about mobility” ITS European Congress 2023 in Lisbon will deliberately focus on a broad range of transport modes. Joost Vantomme and Lisa Boch-Andersen from organiser Ertico explain why

rtico – ITS Europe is unique, says CEO Joost Vantomme. Why? Because it does not, as an organisation steeped in mobility, have a favoured mode. For example, he insists: “Micromobility is one part of the puzzle. It's not the Holy Grail.” There’s also no question of being anticar, he continues, as Ertico welcomes and advocates a broad spectrum of solutions. “I mean, it's about mobility,” Vantomme says. “It's not about cars against something or bikes against something or cities against something – no; it’s to move people and to move goods and that's exactly what we do. ITS is very relevant to us – to put that technology innovation as the glue into the system. And that's why you will not see any transport mode that is a preferred mode for us. We are neutral.” This openness will be reflected in the programme of the ITS European Congress 2023 in Lisbon, Portugal, which Ertico is organising. “We are multimodal, multifaceted,” Vantomme says. Lisa Boch-Andersen, Ertico’s director of communications, congresses and events, points to a Lisbon plenary session that focuses precisely on multimodality: “We all think of matching the different modes, to

give the best opportunity for citizens - but sometimes it becomes a little complex and there are many different options. How do you make sure that you choose the most optimal - both for passengers and for freight? How do you ensure communication on these options and how do you make it seamless?" Another plenary is about managing urban mobility space. “Of course, it's not new that we focus on cities,” says Boch-Andersen. "But cities are super-important - and they're becoming increasingly important decision-makers. And this is why we need to understand what we can expect from cities in future.” Vantomme says that it’s important to look at the “delicate balancing act” between the priorities of different cities, even within the same country. Different regional constituencies need to be brought together. “I want to see the opportunities of a connected conversation,” concludes Boch-Andersen. “And this is what the Congress offers on all fronts: you can see and feel products in the exhibition and the demonstrations; you can go to the technical level in the technical programme; and you can hear the high level - at city level, at EU level, at regional level and at company level.” ITS

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Digitalisation – what can mobility users expect? Monday 22 May 15:15-16:15 This session will bring together stakeholders in the mobility data marketplaces to discuss what the real benefit of data sharing is and how best to tackle the challenges, perceived or real. Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility: How green can you go? Tuesday 23 May 09:00 – 10:00 This plenary will consider the question of whether and how CCAM can be a game changer for the Green Deal, supported by the latest research on CCAM’s environmental impacts. Integrating road, rail, air and waterborne – multimodality by any means? Tuesday 23 May 14:00 – 15:00 This session will explore the role ITS can play in balancing the societal wish for greener travel with the transport and mobility suppliers’ wish to maximise profits. What are the barriers for integration? Managing urban mobility space – what can we expect from cities in the future? Wednesday 24 May 15:30 – 16:30 This plenary will discuss the role of mobility network management, including the use of network simulation and AI for decision support, in the use of urban space. What do mobility suppliers expect from cities - and what do cities look for in return? • For more information go to itseuropeancongress.com

WEIGH IN MOTION: COMPANY PROFILING

Caltrans uses IRD’s Tire Anomaly Classification System at its weigh station in Cordelia, California

.HHSLQJ D KLJK SURÀ OH Company profiling – the process of identifying repeat corporate offenders when it comes to things like truck overloading – is one of many uses of WiM. And it may become more important, finds Adam Hill

Since it is targeted, relatively few enforcement personnel are needed too – and the effect of the enforcement efforts “is nationwide and not limited to the roads directly around the WiM systems”, ISWiM points out. Andy Lees, Q-Free WiM consultant who is also vice president of ISWiM and chair of the ISWIM Vendors and Consultants

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Illegal operation of heavy goods vehicles can shorten the life of infrastructure, degrade the quality of travel and increase costs of operation Andy Lees Q-Free and ISWiM

“

eigh in Motion (WiM) data can be used for a variety of different applications. Among these is company profiling – the process of identifying firms which persistently break the rules. In a standard weight enforcement process, every violating vehicle – driver and/or owner - is prosecuted individually. Company profiling seeks to do something slightly different. All data measured by a WiM network, including pictures of suspiciously overloaded vehicles, is stored in a database which enforcement agencies can use. “This action may vary from sending a warning letter, to a visit of the company for an inspection or further legal action,” explains the International Society for WiM (ISWiM) in its Guide for Users of Weigh in Motion. “The advantages of this way of enforcement are that the enforcement activities are directly aimed at compliance with loading regulations, i.e. preventive or incentive activities instead of writing the tickets.”

College, explains: “Company profiling is usually employed by the enforcement authorities using high-speed WiM enforcement or pre-selection sites. Typical examples would be companies identified with the use of WiM enforcement sites, which contain inroad sensors and arrays along with ANPR/ ALPR cameras. The WiM system enables the authorities to identify individual vehicles and their associated companies.” Persistent infringement It is not unknown for a company to persistently infringe weights and through this identification process they can be readily identified. “Usually, this process works with infringement penalties being issued initially but if this becomes commonplace with an individual haulier then prohibition notices can be issued,” Lees reasons. “This effectively stops the haulier operating.” So company profiling is a useful tool: while many companies comply very well with existing laws and regulations, a few might systematically violate maximum truck weight restrictions to gain a competitive Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

WEIGH IN MOTION: COMPANY PROFILING

“

advantage, points out Christoph Klauser, Kistler business development, traffic solutions. “As the freight forwarding market is very competitive, freight forwarders can be under huge price pressure and might tend to violate existing weight limits to be able to offer lower prices,” he says. “This is unfair competition and might force compliant freight forwarders to also exceed weight limits. The invoice of this vicious circle of overloaded vehicles is finally paid by the road infrastructure, which deteriorates much faster than expected under the illegally increased traffic load.” Protecting the integrity of the road surface is among the key reasons for company profiling using WiM. “To break this vicious circle of overloading, it is important to not only identify single trucks and drivers, but also to have a broader look at the companies behind the single violations,” Klauser continues. “Once such companies which do systematic overloading are identified,

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Christoph Klauser Kistler

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We expect to see even more automated enforcement… and possibly the application of special screening rules for repeat offenders Rish Malhotra IRD

further legal measures can be taken such as disgorgement for unlawfully generated profits. This shall finally motivate all freight forwarders to comply with given weight limits and therefore protect our road infrastructure.” Rish Malhotra, president & CEO of IRD, says enforcement agencies have been trying to improve safety and weigh station efficiency since IRD installed its first WiM bypass systems in the early 1980s. In the US, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) maintains records and provides easy access to carrier-related safety data, which means a third party can search the Safer database using the carrier’s name, USDoT or motor carrier details. “Enforcement authorities can correlate WiM data with Safer information - and sometimes other government databases - to select and directly warn the

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By far the most vulnerable roads are local roads, which were not designed for high traffic loads and are almost completely unmonitored

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The invoice of this vicious circle of overloaded vehicles is finally paid by the road infrastructure

Matija MavriТ Cestel carriers/owners of non-compliant commercial vehicles,” Malhotra explains. Data correlation As a system integrator, IRD enables the data correlation and adds other criteria to screen in real time via a multi-input approach. “Enforcement agencies have been interested in screening for other safety concerns besides overweight trucks, including underinflated tyres, over-dimension vehicles, vehicles carrying hazardous materials, and vehicles with expired inspection status,” Malhotra says. “IRD has developed pre-screening subsystems, including our Tire Anomaly and Classification System (TACS), an AI-powered CVSA decal reader system, and Lidar and machine vision solutions to assist the agencies in meeting their goals.” Matija MavriТ, head of sales and marketing at Cestel, agrees that company profiling is an interesting concept for safeguarding continued on p28

Cestel’s SiWIM sensors installed on the underside of a bridge

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WEIGH IN MOTION

Defending the public interest CASE STUDY

Company profiling can help identify companies which persistently overload vehicles. Leonardo Guerson of Intercomp explains the way HS-WiM is used by Autostrade per l’Italia in Italy Considering that vehicle overloading can have a serious negative impact on road safety and on the longevity of road infrastructure, road owners have started to address this problem based on accurate information gathered using high-speed Weigh in Motion (HS-WiM) systems. HS-WiM can help a road owner understand where, when, and how vehicle overloading occurs more frequently and severely. Also, experience processing HS-WiM data has shown that vehicle overloads are often concentrated within a relatively small group of transport operators, which made the concept of company profiling attractive for vehicle overload control in road concessionaires like Autostrade per l’Italia. Autostrade per l’Italia, the leading European concessionaire for toll motorway construction and management based in Italy, decided to install multiple HS-WiM sites based on Intercomp strain gauge strip sensor technology. Locations in central and southern Italy were identified for installation of HS-WiM sites to detect overloaded vehicles as they were entering toll roads. These HS-WiM sites consisted of two strain gauge strip sensors, an ANPR camera, and networked electronics for remote monitoring of the sites for realtime identification and vehicle reporting. The HS-WiM sites are operated by Autostrade per l’Italia, but the real-time information is also made accessible HS-WIM layout with two strain gauge strip sensors staggered, immediately after installation

Molto bene: HS-WiM solution for vehicle overload control in Italy

to enforcement authorities. With their networked HS-WiM sites, officials can log into the system and use information provided to understand the overloading situation. The tolling concessionaire can contact operators who have recurrent and serious overload violations to negotiate and request immediate improvement. By focusing their attention on transport operators with the most frequent and severe overloading records, concessionaire and enforcement officials tend to become more effective in their control strategies. Autostrade uses the HS-WiM sites to monitor vehicle traffic and identify overload conditions for further action. The

concessionaire also uses the databases created for analysing traffic trends. Deploying high-end HS-WiM technology allows them to understand the regions where the overloading problem is more significant. Also, they may assess the months of a year, the days of a week, and the hours of the day that overloading occurs more frequently and severely. Finally, the information provided by HS-WiM systems helps them understand what transport companies and what kind of overloads make up the problem. Overload control strategies, such as fixed and mobile enforcement, can be better allocated based on accurate data about the overloading conditions. The cost for collecting highly accurate HS-WiM data at highway speeds becomes marginal if compared to the costs of not knowing overloads. Vehicle overloading is a serious issue that involves the public interest, so it should be addressed based on high-quality information. In any case, good solutions start with knowledge about the problem. It starts with understanding the traffic and the respective loads that are being carried over it. Today, road owners like Autostrade per l’Italia are dealing with more vehicles to control and technology plays an important role in this context because it can make the control actions more efficient and provide data to support a strategy for applying the existing tools. ITS

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WEIGH IN MOTION: COMPANY PROFILING continued from p25

infrastructure which can fit very well into a country's overall road protection strategy. However, Cestel produces portable bridge WiM systems so has a slightly different take on the subject. “Our experience in Slovenia and other countries shows that motorways, which are usually the focal point of WiM installations, are not the most problematic roads when it comes to overloading,” suggests MavriТ. “This is due to the fact that a large portion of heavy goods vehicles driving on motorways are either in transit or are travelling from other countries, and these vehicles usually abide by the regulations. By far the most vulnerable roads are local roads, which were not designed for high traffic loads and are almost completely unmonitored since local authorities do not have the financial means that would allow them to install WiM systems, and state authorities do not place such a high priority on local infrastructure.” And this local environment is where company profiling comes into play, says MavriТ. If you can identify local sources of overloaded vehicles (e.g. from quarries, construction sites, garbage dumps or lumber mills) it can have a tremendous impact on a local community and the quality of infrastructure: whether this is done through a road damage calculation mechanism - where the offending party pays

South Dakota DoT has multiple ports of entry with IRD systems for identifying vehicles

for the damage caused by its HGVs, this is calculated from WiM data - or through a public list of companies that are consistently violating loading regulations, it is up to the infrastructure owners. Practical limitations “This 'soft approach' is a great alternative to direct enforcement, which is, in principle, the gold standard for WiM, but it does have practical limitations,” continues MavriТ. “Direct enforcement WiM systems are

expensive; it is expensive to maintain them, and there are many legal aspects that need to be resolved, so infrastructure owners usually install them in limited numbers on motorways or other important road sections.” Therefore the best approach, he thinks, is to install permanent direct enforcement WiM stations on important road sections and monitor the rest of the network with portable WiM systems. In 2021, VanJee delivered a

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WEIGH IN MOTION: COMPANY PROFILING account, have a satisfactory ISS/2 safety score - and not exceed the registered gross vehicle weight (GVW) by more than 5%. SDDoT POEs also incorporate screening technologies such as TACS, over-dimension detection, and infrared brake inspection. “These preclearance systems are highly automated and can direct non-compliant vehicles to report for inspection, manage their movement through the weigh station, and generate referrals for citations,” Malhotra concludes. “In the future, we expect to see even more automated enforcement, back-office systems to create citations, and possibly the application of special screening rules for repeat offenders.” Degrading infrastructure In Slovenia, the state uses a concept, similar to company profiling, called ‘road damage compensation’. This is used when dealing with exceptional transports and local sources of overloaded traffic, and is based on methodology devised by the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (Zag Ljubljana). “They calculated a monetary value of 1 ESAL [equivalent single-axle load] of overloading, which gives the state a mechanism to demand payment from the companies whose HGVs caused damage,” explains Matija MavriТ at Cestel. “In the newest version of the Slovenian Roads

Act, which just came out, there will also be a possibility of demanding payment from overloaded HGVs in regular traffic.” It is left to Andy Lees of Q-Free and ISWiM to sum up the case for company profiling. “Illegal operation of heavy goods vehicles can, in summary, shorten the life of infrastructure, degrade the quality of travel and increase costs of operation and maintenance,” he begins. “Protecting the road assets is fundamental to economic stability, growth and the social well-being of a region. Overloaded trucks pose serious threats to road transport operations, with increased risks for road users, deterioration of road safety, severe impacts on the durability of infrastructure (pavements and bridges) and are considered an environmental hazard.” Economic issues are also a factor, with overloading leading to large distortions in freight transport competition between transport modes (e.g. rail, waterborne and road) and between road transport companies and operators. “For example, in one European country, it was estimated that a 5-axle articulated truck, operating at 20% overload all year round, generated an additional €25,000 benefit per year,” Lees adds. “Company profiling can identify operators who persistently attempt this type of operation.” ITS

comprehensive WiM direct enforcement municipal system in Changde, Hunan China, connecting 72 direct enforcement WiM sites and 10 local weighing stations as well as 20 companies’ weighing stations into the central WiM management platform. “Therefore, the platform provides necessary and sufficient overloaded enforcement evidence for local authorities including vehicles' picture, weights, plate number, time and location,” says VanJee WiM chief scientist Wang Ping: “The local authority would get overloaded company profiling by searching specific truck plate numbers and violation records to improve WiM enforcement efficiency.” IRD has recently incorporated highlyaccurate WiM and advanced screening sub-systems in projects in California and South Dakota. “Caltrans uses TACS, the CVSA decal reader system, and an automated weigh station system at the Cordelia weigh station,” says Rish Malhotra of IRD. “South Dakota DoT has multiple ports of entry (POEs) with IRD systems for identifying vehicles using AVI and LPR and looking up the carrier’s information in SAFER and other databases.” To bypass a POE, the vehicle or carrier must not be subject to an out-of-service order or revocation, have a valid registration, not have a suspended IRP or IFTA

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UKRAINE

Ukraine’s ITS in a time of war

Kyiv’s camera-based speed enforcement system was one of the last ITS projects to be completed before the Russian invasion

Following invasion by Russia, work on ITS projects has stopped in Ukraine – but the state road agency and private contractors have pivoted to providing essential services instead, reports Adam Howell

efore Russia’s invasion more than a year ago, Ukraine’s transportation sector was evolving. A desire to forge closer ties with Europe helped Ukraine implement more technology into its transportation systems and embrace ambitious development projects. Today, much of that work has been lost, and government agencies are fighting to simply keep the system operational. However, despite all that has occurred since February 2022, Ukrainian infrastructure has proven itself to be resilient. Even before the war, there were major problems. In 2019, the World Economic Forum Transportation Quality Index ranked the nation at 119 out of 141 countries. Ukravtodor, the Ukrainian State Agency of Automobile Roads, calculated that in 2016-2017, poor road infrastructure resulted in estimated Ukrainian economic losses of 100-120 billion Ukrainian Hryvnias ($2.7 - 3.3bn). In 2016, Mykola Berezovsky, then head of Ukravtodor, stated that out of the 170,000 km road network, about 97%

of the roads were in a terrible state. Ukrainians have never been naive to the state of their transportation system, and the past few decades have seen government authorities make various attempts at reform. One of the most notable efforts to improve infrastructure came in 2012 when Ukraine and Poland were selected to host the Uefa European Football Championship. The soccer tournament was meant to help showcase a new, more modern Ukraine that was beginning to take its place on the world stage. Ukraine invested heavily in improving its airport capacity, urban infrastructure and even developed modern public transportation systems in the form of new electric trains. Overall, infrastructure spending on Euro 2012 totalled 107 billion Hryvnias ($2.9bn). (Spain beat Italy 4-0 in Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium, in a very different time). Momentum continued when president Volodymyr Zelensky was elected in 2019: infrastructure development and modernisation efforts accelerated. A new initiative, dubbed The Large Construction

Program, developed almost 14,000 km of roads and rebuilt 600 bridges in two years. In addition to physical infrastructure improvements, technological upgrades were implemented, including the capital Kyiv installing a new camera-based traffic speed enforcement system. Russia’s 2022 invasion Many look forward to implementing new modernisation programmes and integrating more technology into Ukraine’s transportation infrastructure. To support these efforts, the Ukrainian government is undertaking an assessment of their future needs and laying the groundwork for incentivising outside investment by engaging in anticorruption initiatives. Before the war, Ukraine had already begun making technology modernisation efforts. In 2020, the Zelensky government created the Ministry of Digital Transformation for the purpose of making Ukraine “a world champion in digital,” and prior to that, Ukraine had already Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

UKRAINE

Supporting the nation In February 2022, during the first attempt by Russia to invade and when bombardment laid waste to much of Ukraine’s transportation infrastructure, the state and regional road agencies pivoted to a wartime footing by providing equipment and supplies to the military in support of the nation’s defence. In the early days of the invasion, road agencies even removed highway signs and changed road

“

We are in danger every second because we are working in strategically important locations that Russia targets

“

implemented a digital government procurement system called ProZorro. But for now, instead of mourning what has been lost, the men and women working in Ukrainian transportation are focused on defending their country. Today, they hope every road they patch and bridge they repair will bring them closer to victory. Andriy Ivko, first deputy head of Ukravtodor, the state road agency of Ukraine, describes the scale of the task. “We are confident that all the infrastructure will be restored, but it is important to say that the main resource [of Ukraine] is our people,” he says. “For instance, following the liberation of the northern part of our country, we focused on establishing humanitarian aid and rebuilding the necessary infrastructure for those living in those areas.” Technology still plays a key role in infrastructure management for Ukraine, but the focus and function of these systems have drastically changed. Head of operational maintenance for the Kharkiv Region, Bogatyr Mykhailo Ivanovich, says that today, his agency lists communications technology for road crews as one of their most critical needs now that they are working in a wartime situation. “Starlinks are basically the only thing in Ukraine that works [for communications], and when there are explosions, you must immediately contact teams. Now, because there are blackouts that interrupt cellular and internet service, we must rely on Starlinks for reliable communications with our workers in the field.”

Alexander Kuruschak Autostrada

markings to confuse and stall the Russian invasion force. Ironically, poor road conditions may have helped delay the progress of Russia's initial invasion and saved Kyiv from capture. Early reports showed that Russian units stalled along two-lane highways north of the capital. The Ukrainian road system was not capable of supporting armoured military units, and poor Russian logistics created numerous blockages and bottlenecks. When tanks sat exposed and idle on the roads, Ukrainian defence forces could launch counterattacks, target supply lines, and devastate entire units with little response. Private sector companies have also

The road to recovery It is impressive that so many can think about the future when the task right now is daunting. According to an estimate by the Kyiv School of Economics, the total damage done to Ukraine’s infrastructure due to Russia’s invasion was estimated at nearly $138 billion – a number that will certainly climb in the coming months. In autumn 2022, after mounting military failures and a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia changed tactics and began targeting civilian infrastructure nationwide. While experts agree that much of what has been targeted has little to no military value, the objective is obvious – to break the will of the Ukrainian people by disrupting the fundamental necessities of everyday life. The past winter has been difficult but resolve has certainly been reinforced by the heroic work of Ukraine’s infrastructure workers, who have been critical to keeping life functional in Ukraine this winter as they

A bridge destroyed in the Kharkiv Region of Ukraine by the Ukrainian military to slow Russian assaults

played an important role in supporting the nation during this difficult time. Companies once engaged in modernisation before the war are now focused on repair and critical maintenance. Despite all that has occurred, many are still looking toward the day when the war ends so they can build a better system on top of the destroyed remains of what was lost. Shumakher Yuriy, co-owner of Ukrainian infrastructure company RDS, says president Zelensky emphasised that Ukrainian roads should be ‘modern European’ ones. “Naturally, over the years, we have invested quite a lot in new equipment and modern technologies,” he explains. “Before the war, we developed our company to be more than a road company by paying a lot of attention to concrete technologies and developing our bridge division. All these pre-war developments came in handy after the invasion when many bridges were destroyed. Today, our investments and experience allow us to carry out any type of construction work necessary to support the nation, from road building to the construction of temporary accommodations for displaced people.” He is confident that the building of roads and bridges will continue when the war is over “with renewed vigour”.

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UKRAINE fan out after every attack to immediately assess the damage and begin repairs. Before the war, Alexander Kuruschak, a builder with Ukrainian construction company Autostrada worked many jobs, drilling wells and building infrastructure in countries across central and eastern Europe. There are stark differences between his job now versus what his work was like before Russia invaded. “Before the full-scale invasion, there was a lot of bridge and road construction, and things were developing very quickly,” Kuruschak says. “After the invasion, most bridges were destroyed. The main goal right now is to recover what was destroyed. We have had some very bad encounters [since the start of the war]. Three of our workers died in Kharkiv because of mines. Of course, before we go and build something, everything is being explored but sometimes mines still explode. We are in danger every second because we are working in strategically important locations that Russia targets.” Despite Ukraine’s resiliency and determination, the nation will need help to restore what it lost. In terms of international monetary support, many equate the challenge of rebuilding Ukraine to the Marshall Plan which followed the Second World War. Today, there are too many questions unanswered to know when a

Ukraine's transportation: a brief history The history of Ukraine’s transit and infrastructure system is closely tied to the past priorities of the Soviet Union. Throughout the Soviet years, investments in Ukrainian transportation reflected the nation’s role as a major producer of agricultural commodities and its position on the Black Sea, where important port and trade cities like Odessa and Sevastopol took centre stage. Ukraine was also a vital transport corridor for delivering Russian raw materials to Eastern Europe. Authorities seldom prioritised investments in Ukrainian roads or civilian infrastructure when they weren’t deemed important to the Russian state. The focus on moving bulk commodities within the Russian sphere of influence also meant that economically important modernisations like the creation of advanced warehousing technologies or better border and customs processes were not developed. By the turn of the century, Ukrainian transportation infrastructure was crumbling, and the road system had a dubious reputation as being one of the most dangerous in Europe. Ukraine’s rail network also faced its own challenges. Beyond a need for more investment and maintenance, Ukrainian lines inherited the Russian rail gauge standard of 1.520mm, which is incompatible with the European Standard of 1.435mm. This difference in rail gauges alone meant transit inefficiencies, increased transport times, and greater expenses for freight transport. The Ukrainian government presented an ambitious strategy for modernising the nation’s freight and transportation infrastructure systems in 2017 – and many key projects were pursued the decade before Russia’s invasion in 2022. Among those completed was the Beskydy Tunnel between Ukraine and the European Union through the Carpathian Mountains which features a new two-lane railway.

full recovery can start in Ukraine. Russian missiles still descend daily, and much of the east remains occupied. For the workers on

the ground, no matter what happens, they will be ready to pick up the pieces and keep their nation moving. ITS

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FINANCE: ANATOMY OF A DEAL

“The people and their values are the distinguishing factor” Carmanah Technologies was well versed in the finance world before turning to private equity providers. But even though it was not the firm’s first rodeo, there were obstacles to overcome. CEO Geoff Wilcox explains to Adam Hill how the process works – and what to look out for

ounded in the mid-1990s, Carmanah Technologies Corporation was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2001. When Geoff Wilcox joined in 2013, new CEO John Simmons was on a mission to restructure the organisation to propel commercial success. Simmons' view at the time was that Carmanah was ‘a mile wide, but an inch deep’: “Our goal was to get narrower and deeper into the key areas that we excelled at,” says Wilcox. “And so that's what we set off to do over close to nine years altogether.” The company did a number of M&A transactions, acquiring some complementary companies and divesting others which were no longer aligned with the new core strategy. In 2019, Carmanah sold just over half its assets to SPX Corporation for $77m and de-listed. Simmons stepped back from what was now a private company again, taking on the board chairman role, and Wilcox was elevated from MD to his current position of Carmanah president & CEO. “We had our sights set on making this a pure traffic ITS company,” Wilcox says. “We had been part of the industry for 20 years, but had never been focused on that single space.” What made you look for new investment? Private equity (PE) was not on Carmanah’s horizon when the company came back into private ownership. Nonetheless, the ownership team could see that a change

was coming in North America. “We felt that consolidation was not only likely but probably necessary as well,” Wilcox says. “It had become a mature industry that was somewhat fragmented.” Looking ahead five years and beyond, he saw possibilities: “Carmanah could do more and go further and be more helpful to our customers if we became part of a larger organisation with greater resources, greater reach and synergies from a product development perspective that we would never have been able to achieve - or at least would have taken us a long time to achieve - as a smaller, independent company. And that was what began the journey of looking for a partner.” How much did you know about the PE process? Its financial history meant that Carmanah – unlike many smaller companies - was not coming to the idea of private equity cold: it had listed and de-listed, going from private to public and back again, conducting its own M&A activity along the way. The world of big money was a familiar enough place – so did that give Carmanah a confidence in grasping the possibilities of outside investment that other companies might not have in similar situations? “I think that's a fair comment,” nods Wilcox. “There is quite a broad landscape of companies and experiences and management teams out there, for sure. We had a different set of expectations, a different set of background experiences. It may be an advantage in some situations: a lot of

companies that eventually think about the PE world are family-owned, entrepreneurstarted and often would not have had experience in M&A.” How did you decide what sort of company you would deal with? Wilcox explains the board’s thinking: “Is there an organisation out there - whether it be a financial sponsor, such as private equity, or a strategic buyer - who is going to understand our culture, and have one that is complementary to ours, one that views the vision of how we've been positioning Carmanah? Do they see the value of our employees and the work they've put into that future opportunity?” If the answer was ‘no’ to these questions, Wilcox suggests that a deal would not have been done. Carmanah partnered with an experienced investment banking firm – “Getting key partners around you is absolutely, foundationally important to these types of things,” Wilcox insists – and put together the story of Carmanah before heading out into the market and seeing what – and who – might be interested in reading it. Why are investment bankers useful in this process? The response was positive and meetings were set up by the investment bankers with PE firms and other private and public companies in the US. “A key piece of advice to businesses looking to sell, who might not have the breadth of experience in M&A that we had Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

FINANCE: ANATOMY OF A DEAL

“

You look for people who see this as not the acquisition of an entity, but the partnering and merging of a valued partner

“

Geoff Wilcox

- we still believed the value of bringing in an investment banker as the honest broker,” emphasises Wilcox. The process started in the midst of Covid, so most presentations were not in person. CEO ‘fireside chats’ were on Teams – as were the management presentations. Well, all except one: Vance Street Capital insisted on meeting in person at Carmanah’s offices, despite the strictures of having to follow Covid protocols. Wilcox is not convinced that Vance Street’s willingness to put itself out influenced his board’s decision. “But I will say it really showed their dedication and interest in wanting to pursue Carmanah,” he says. “They were very clear that they would do this over Teams if that was our desire. But, if possible, they would like to come and meet the entire leadership and management team, and have an opportunity to get to know us - and have us get to know them.” How do you whittle down the offers you receive? After the meetings, potential investors or buyers put in an indicative offer, usually covered with a letter that describes who they are, what they're looking to do – and how much they’re prepared to pay. Carmanah had generated enough interest to allow the board to be selective over who would go through into the next round. “That allowed us to say: ‘Okay, which of these partners are well aligned with our values? Which of them do we think are going to be strong cultural fits? Which one of them is going to see the value of

not just the products here at Carmanah but the people and what our people have achieved?’” Wilcox says. “You look for people who see this as not the acquisition of an entity, but the partnering and merging of a valued partner. And the half-a-dozen people we selected to go on pretty much all shared, at varying degrees, that view.” Numbers are important – how important are personalities? If your offers come from private equity firms, then financially they are likely to be very similar – so that means the personalities of the people you decide to deal with are important. “I think it's the number one thing,” says Wilcox. “And that means the people, and their values, and how they present themselves, are the distinguishing factor. At least, that's been my experience more often than not, both in this transaction and others, whether we've been on the buyer side or the seller side.” How did your own employees react? Carmanah was clear with employees from the beginning about the process of looking for a buyer. “I explained to them exactly why we were doing this, what we were looking for and all of our expectations, so there was no uncertainty on the staff side,” Wilcox says. “We told all of the suitors that the staff all know what we're doing and that it's very important to us that they always be in that situation. I think sometimes that brings some nervousness to potential buyers - but that's one of the things that helps you understand how people value things.”

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What happens when the transaction closes? On the day the transaction closed, two Vance Street people came to Carmanah and were introduced to staff at a town hall meeting, Wilcox recalls. “The staff had questions about what are your plans going forward? And what is this all going to look like? And to Vance Street’s credit - and this is probably the number one reason that we decided to partner with them - they said: ‘Our plans are to listen to you guys, because we've seen your product development roadmap, we've seen what your aspirational goals are over the coming years, your strategic plan, and we think it's fabulous. And we're here to enhance it, not change it, and we are prepared to put in the growth resources and the investment to not only support that, but hopefully propel it in a way that you may not have been able to do as an independent.’ Nearly a year on, and that message has been “incredibly consistent”, Wilcox says. Any words of wisdom for ITS firms thinking about doing all this? In summary, he concludes, do your homework, give it a lot of thoughtful consideration, find a partner you believe has the right values, and you will give yourself a good chance of success: “It played out for us exactly how we anticipated it would, because Vance Street had been so forthright through their transaction about who they were and what their plans were.” ITS © ITS INTERNATIONAL MARCH/APRIL 2023

FINANCE: ANATOMY OF A DEAL

“We're not used to working with people in suits, essentially” Polara Enterprises made the decision to sell up after decades as a family-owned concern. But with no experience of high finance, how did that work out? Adam Hill talks to co-owners Brandon McGaffey and Erik Pietersma about choosing a suitor and trying not to freak your employees out

olara Enterprises was a family-owned business for 50 years. Brandon McGaffey, now co-owner and chief operations officer of the company, explains how the decision was made to put it on the market. The founder - his father, John - wanted to retire having put his heart and soul into it, and thought it might be a good time to look for a buyer. Polara was increasingly concentrating on pedestrian traffic safety products. “Based on the trajectory of the traffic market, it was the right time to bring in an outsider,” McGaffey explains. “Because you get to a point where there's a lot of consolidation, a lot of M&A going on with your competitors; and in order to stay on top of that mountain, you’ve got to have more influence, more capital, more ability to chase that new market.” Erik Pietersma, co-owner and chief financial officer of Polara (and John’s sonin-law), confesses to feeling a little shocked at the discussions initially: he and Brandon knew they wanted to take over the firm when John retired. Outsiders had not really figured in their plans. “But the discussions we had were that our industry is going to see some massive

growth over the next several years, and we want to make sure we maintain our leadership position,” says Pietersma. “It might be worth finding a good partner to help both of us really succeed in the next 10-15 years with Polara.” Having made that decision, what was your first step? Connections with the Bank of America led to a team in its wealth management arm, which “put us in contact with some of the best investment banking teams for our industry and our size”. Over two months, Polara interviewed these and, allied with a lot of reference checking, narrowed this down to two. “I think it came down to personality fit because I think either team would have done well,” says Pietersma. “So we went with the team that we wanted to work with most over the next 12 months.” Once the bankers were on board, what's next in the process? “Investment bankers are good about not giving you too much information to scare you away, but they gave you a high-level overview of what the process will look like,” he says. The first step was to gather all of

the due diligence items, such as financial documentation, that an outsider would want to see when looking at a business. That took around three months and then a confidential information memo was put out to interested parties – which turned out to be 237 interested parties to be precise. The team put together a “deep, detailed” management presentation and narrowed it down to “10 parties that we want to sit in a room with, and for four hours explain our business and have them ask us questions”, says Pietersma. Then began two gruelling weeks of back-to-back meetings during the day and dinners at night. At this point, were you feeling excitement, trepidation, worry? “All of the above,” laughs McGaffey. Pietersma says: “There was definitely worry because this is our first experience working with private equity firms or big strategic companies that are interested in your opinion, your company. So we're expecting to work with very high-level intelligent people. We're a small family-run business and we're not used to working with people in suits, essentially. So, we were nervous because we wanted to put on a good show and make

“

I was very nervous going into it - and it really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be

“

Erik Pietersma

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FINANCE: ANATOMY OF A DEAL sure they got a good understanding of our business and our industry.” The other side of that coin is that you are also interviewing them, points out McGaffey. That element of personality is perhaps underplayed - yet it's very important? First impressions count. “You could definitely get a feel for ‘Is this the kind of company that's going to come in and bring their own C-suite and we'll be out of the door? Or is this a company that's going to invest in Erik and I and our company to grow it?’” McGaffey recalls. “But we also wanted somebody that is not going to change our culture,” says Pietersma. “We want to make sure that we don't have someone come in and then every employee is just a number. That was important to us.” And after all those meetings, what then? Six out of the 10 suitors – the other four baled over the price range - submitted an official letter of interest, kicking off an intense due diligence process and more meetings over the next six weeks, in which the bankers were involved and a deadline for final offers given. Complex discussions about corporate structures, management roles, equity incentives for staff and a lot of time-consuming legal business ensued, with concessions on both sides. “Once you start having those conversations, that begins to narrow it down even more,” says McGaffey. Exactly how are you feeling by that point in this gruelling process? “I felt like the process depleted me 100% because we were trying to run a business and not let our employees know what we were doing because we didn't want to freak them out,” recalls Pietersma. “So we were trying to run the day-to-day and then do all of this on top of it. So I felt like I have no energy left at this point: let's just get to the end.”

Why didn't you want your staff to know that discussions were underway? Just a small handful of senior managers knew about the sale negotiations, because Polara was not even sure it would sell. “We started this as a discovery activity: what is the company worth,” explains Pietersma. “Then when we started getting numbers back – okay, these are higher than we thought, this does look like a good time to sell and we have some good teams to work with. So we ended up letting them know late in the process, probably in the third quarter of the game.” Employees understood the reasons for secrecy, but were still nervous, says Pietersma. “You hear about private equity firms and when new ownership comes in, there's just a bad energy around it: what's going to happen?” How did you make the final decision on a buyer? Polara thoroughly checked the references of all the suitors, talking to “five or six” companies with which they had previously been involved. “There was not one bad thing I could take away from any of those calls and they were not short,” says Pietersma. “Vance Street had five-star reviews across the board.” The private equity firm has a history of investing in family-owned companies. “Ultimately the fact that we all stayed on and nothing changed in the leadership positions made all the difference in terms of the employees’ comfort,” says McGaffey. And how does the relationship work now? There are weekly meetings and monthly calls to go through performance and operational objectives, as well as a quarterly board meeting. “There are new reporting requirements,” says Pietersma. “They provide good feedback and it's their way of keeping their finger on the pulse to see how things are going so that nothing really gets away from them and they're not surprised by

anything.” The new owners are responsive, says McGaffey. “Lately, we've been doing a lot of hiring because we're growing pretty quickly. For higher-level salaried people, you’ve got to request advance notice from the board, and typically they're responding within an hour. They're very growth-minded and they like to move fast. We like to move fast. So having that compatibility is very important.” What has that investment enabled you to do that you weren't able to do before? As a private company, Polara never made an acquisition. “It wasn't even on our radar,” says McGaffey. “We weren't looking to make acquisitions. And frankly, we probably should have been. So we have made a number of successful acquisitions in the first year, which was very aggressive, but I think it's playing out very well for us.” Vance Street has also invested in Polara’s engineering teams. “In order to remain relevant in this industry, we need to continue to build innovative products, and they know that and they were very supportive of us increasing our engineering staff and focus,” explains Pietersma. “I can tell you we wouldn't have made some of these decisions pre-Vance, just because of the amount of the money.” So with your experience, is there anything you would do differently? “I was very nervous going into it,” admits Pietersma. “And it really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The people we dealt with treated you with respect. I thought it was a good experience overall.” McGaffey suggests that, if there's something that makes you uncomfortable, ensure you figure out what the problem is. “Don’t do anything that you're not sure of: take the time to really understand the process,” he concludes. “Don't take everybody's word for it. Ultimately, make sure that you make a decision that you can live with and that you're happy with - not only for yourself, but also your employees.” ITS

“

Don’t do anything that you're not sure of: take the time to really understand the process Brandon McGaffey

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TOLLING SYSTEMS

It’s time to open up Europe sees more and more tolling schemes being implemented based on GNSS technology and an ‘open marketplace’ model. What are the drivers behind this trend and do those schemes show how toll systems will look in the future? Peter Ummenhofer of Go Consulting goes out on the road

en years ago, on 1 July 2013, HU-GO, the national truck tolling system in Hungary, went live. It was a completely new concept compared to all other truck tolling schemes in operation at that time. Instead of a single toll authority operating the system on its own, issuing dedicated toll on-board units and collecting money directly from road users, Hungary decided to establish an ‘open marketplace’ model. It invited fleet telematics service providers to partner, allowing the authority to leverage existing GNSS equipment for toll collection. Rather than installing a dedicated toll box, trucking companies could simply reuse their existing fleet tracking devices to pay. At the time, the European toll industry was suspicious about whether or not this would result in a high rate of ‘toll leakage’, given several stakeholders have to work hand-in-hand. But everybody immediately saw the benefits for all parties: trucking companies could reuse existing tracking devices, telematics service providers could offer a value-added service and the national authority could lower costs by leveraging

in-vehicle equipment and by having fleet telematics partners taking care of user management. Now, 10 years later, GNSS toll systems seem to have become the standard for trucks in Europe. Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland have also implemented national schemes based on the same model, and lately Switzerland and the Netherlands announced plans to collect truck tolls using third-party service providers. Bring your own device Hungary’s HU-GO was designed to be a flexible system, implemented in the shortest possible time and with the lowest possible cost. The designers chose GNSS as the base technology, drastically reducing the need for field equipment while at the same time ensuring the tolled road network could be easily extended as new roads were built. In addition, investment could be further decreased by partnering with fleet telematic companies, leveraging the data generated by fleet tracking devices for toll collection. So instead of purchasing and installing hundreds of thousands of dedicated GNSS toll on-board units, the Hungarian

authorities followed a ‘Bring your own device’ approach, allowing road users to pay tolls via their existing service providers and in-vehicle equipment. Bence Marczin from NTPS (Hungarian National Toll Authority) explains: “The experiences and devices of fleet-tracking companies made the HU-GO system extremely quick and cost-effective to implement. And thanks to the outsourced tasks performed and services provided by our partners, we are able to keep our company’s costs low. Such services include, for example, the operation of call centres or the development, installation and servicing of on-board units.” For the Polish government, flexibility and system costs have been the main drivers for choosing a similar system for its secondgeneration truck tolling scheme - e-Toll - which went live at the end of 2021. Poland had been operating a truck tolling system based on DSRC technology for 10 years. According to the Polish government the set-up costs for the new system have only been 10-15% compared to the previous one as there is much less need for roadside infrastructure (for enforcement Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

TOLLING SYSTEMS

“

Toll service providers emerge as a new target group which can be served with on-board equipment, apps and back-office platforms

“

purposes only) and existing fleet tracking onboard units as well as a smartphone app are being used instead of dedicated toll on-board units financed by the toll authority. EETS pushes toll agencies Besides the cost benefits listed above, the trend towards open tolling schemes is further being fuelled by EETS (European

Electronic Toll Service). The relevant EU Directive requires toll system operators in all EU member states to accept third-party toll service providers in their domain. While some toll agencies have been reluctant in opening up their systems for those EETS providers in the past, most countries with truck tolling schemes in Europe nowadays have ‘EETS-enabled’ their systems. As a result, road users have various options for paying tolls in those countries. In Poland, truckers and fleet operators can either use an existing telematics device from a registered local fleet telematics service provider or they can sign up with an EETS provider. And users who want to use their smartphone instead of a dedicated device can download the e-Toll app. Being future ready Another driver behind open tolling schemes in Europe is the increasing number of connected and automated vehicles (C/AVs). Switzerland is currently tendering its nextgeneration nationwide truck tolling system. For Bruno Hofstetter from the Swiss BAZG (Bundesamt für Zoll und Grenzsicherheit), Switzerland is best prepared for the future with a GNSS-based solution in combination with an open model leveraging service providers. “Switzerland has been one of the pioneers in truck tolling in Europe,” he explains. “We launched our first system in 2001 which will now be replaced by a next-generation system. As the new system is also supposed to be in use for 20-plus years, one of the main requirements we have is future-readiness. With connected vehicles and upcoming automated driving it is obvious that vehicles will produce very accurate trip data and that such

data could be used for toll calculation in the future. When we started to plan our next-generation truck tolling system we felt it would be rather anachronistic if we would still foresee dedicated aftermarket toll devices as being the tool to detect where a vehicle had driven - rather than to leverage the data modern vehicles generate with their in-vehicle telematics equipment, which is often way more accurate.” Switzerland’s new system will be solely GNSS-based, with the driven distance of vehicles derived from their tracking data using a central distance (mileage) calculation software. “The data we need is provided to us centre-to-centre by the platforms of the service providers we work with,” Hofstetter says. “Once we know how much a truck has driven on our roads we can then calculate the amount of toll the vehicle has to pay, taking parameters like maximum vehicle weight - as well as the emission class of its engine - into account. We leave it to the service providers as to what technology they want to generate the trip data we need in order to calculate tolls. While some service providers will still use dedicated aftermarket devices, others may start to collaborate with vehicle manufacturers to get direct access to this type of data from native in-vehicle telematics systems like telematics control units, smart tachographs and the like.” He expects to partner with EETS and fleet telematics service providers, fleet card issuers or even truck OEMs offering value-added vehicle and fleet services. “The new concept requires some rethinking on toll agencies' side,” Hofstetter adds. “For us, central distance calculation based on incoming vehicle tracks, toll calculation and enforcement are all critical tasks

Figure 1: High-level system architecture of open-marketplace tolling schemes National toll authority

National toll back office (with central mileage calculation Service providers

National toll service provider (optional)

3rd-party service provider 1 (eg. EETS provider)

3rd-party service provider 2 (eg. FMS provider)

3rd-party service provider 3 (eg. OEM)

National enforcement centre

End devices EETS

ECU

FMS TOLL

Local toll OBU

EETS OBU

Fleet tracking device

Smartphone

Smart tachograph (future)

In-vehicle telematics (future)

Toll-enforcement field equipment

SOURCE: https://etoll.gov.pl/en/heavy-vehicles/news/only-e-toll-as-of-october-1/ Latest ITS America Conference & Expo 2023 coverage: itsinternational.com/daily-news/its-america-2023

TOLLING SYSTEMS we want to have fully under control - while vehicle tracing and user management are things we believe can be easily outsourced to third parties. In order to be attractive for a broad spectrum of service providers we have tried to simplify the registration process for such partners as much as possible. We have defined clear and easy-to-use data interfaces and – probably most important – we offer a commercial framework with a compensation model ensuring an attractive business case for service providers.”

B2C users

Fleet service providers

Car rental & leasing companies

In-car commerce platforms

Car insurance companies

Toll service provider 1

Toll agency A

B2B users

Ride-hailing companies

Toll service provider 2

Toll agency B

Toll service provider 3

Toll agency C

to provide a universal toll payment function which works across all relevant toll domains. This means fleet and mobility services players can add toll payment to their portfolio quickly and with little effort and leave all the complexity (platform development, system certification, etc) to the toll services provider they are partnering with. Implications for the tolling industry The developments in Europe come with a lot of implications both for toll system vendors as well as operators. While in the past there was a single client - the toll agency - which was sourcing a complete end-to-end solution, including on-board units, roadside stations and a back-office system and which may have outsourced operations to the solution vendor, the new model works based on an ecosystem of companies working hand-in-hand. In the case of GNSS-based open toll systems, there is no longer a single client with a single monolithic system. Instead,

Poland had been operating a truck tolling system based on DSRC technology for 10 years

Car-as-a-service providers

Mobility payment Telcos / Mobile service providers network operators

New business opportunities The trend towards GNSS-based open tolling schemes opens the door for new business opportunities for fleet and mobility service providers: automotive companies, fleet card issuers, fleet management companies, rental car vendors, mobility payment service providers, touring clubs and insurance companies. Many of those players offer fleet and mobility services and have started to enlarge their service portfolio, thereby becoming a one-stop shop for their clients. For most of them toll payment is a very interesting value-added service allowing them to complement their portfolio and to ensure a seamless and comprehensive user experience. Audi US, for example, has started to embed toll payment functions into its vehicles and MAN Truck & Bus in Europe just announced that MAN SimplePay, a digital wallet for all payment transactions in everyday trucking, will be enhanced by an EU-wide toll payment function. Many European fleet card companies already provide toll payment services and first-fleet telematics companies have started to add them too. While a few players develop their own toll payment capability, most partner with toll service providers which take care of the interaction with toll agencies and are able

Figure 2: Future multi-layer tolling value chain

Toll agency D

Vehicle manufacturers Touring clubs

Toll service provider 4

Toll agency E

there are several building blocks operated by several players. Consequently, the delivery scope of a toll system vendor towards the toll agency is being drastically reduced to a central platform with mileage calculation and clearing functionality and to field equipment which is needed for enforcement purposes. On the other hand, toll service providers (e.g. EETS providers) emerge as a new target group which can be served with on-board equipment, apps and respective back-office platforms. Offering system operations may still be possible but is likely limited as road user management will be done by the third-party service providers. The Swiss authorities, for example, outsource the entire enforcement operation and will have a partner operating their own national toll service as an alternative for road users who don’t want to sign up with any of the commercial third-party service providers. Is this the future? Deploying tolling systems using GNSS technology and based on an open-market place model comes with a lot of advantages for toll agencies and service providers as well as road users. Therefore we can expect to see more and more of them in the future and, ultimately, they will become the standard way of collecting tolls in the long run. However, given that most toll agencies are conservative and risk-averse it may take decades until we are there. Besides the bespoke European truck tolling systems we can find several other examples where toll agencies collaborate with service providers so that, in fact, open-marketplace models are quite common already. Many European countries have multiple toll concessions and toll service providers, like Telepass in Italy, ViaVerde in Portugal, Bip&Drive and Pagatelia in Spain or APRR, Bip&Go, Easytrip or Ulys in France which offer road users a possibility to pay tolls electronically in all domains using a Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

single account. In the US, there are a variety of toll service providers like Bancpass, Bestpass and Verra Mobility providing B2B and B2C users a payment option which works in many toll domains across the country. And in other regions, banks often issue on-board units and collect toll payments in cooperation with local toll agencies. However, in all those cases the service providers use still dedicated toll on-board units and tags based on DSRC or RFID technology - rather than leveraging existing GNSS devices or smartphones, which limits the possibilities for service providers. Automotive companies are usually interested in embedding toll payment as a feature to new car models – until they realise they would have to integrate a proprietary toll technology into the car rather than using the existing GNSS data which each modern vehicle can provide today ‘out-of-the-box’. Given the massive investments toll agencies have undertaken into DSRC- and RFID-based toll systems and the sceptical position many agencies have regarding GNSS technology, it will be a slow process to move towards a more open - and more innovative - tolling world.

TOLLING SYSTEMS

One driver behind open tolling schemes is the increasing number of connected and automated vehicles

That said, the emerging toll payment apps in North America like EcoToll, GoToll, Paytollo or Uproad, which operate and offer their service in parallel to existing toll agencies, are promising. This ‘hybrid’ model may be the blueprint for all agencies which want to open their systems and better support the overall developments and trends in the broader ITS and

Toll agencies already collaborate with service providers in several European countries

European Electronic Toll Service The European Electronic Toll Service allows road users to pay tolls throughout Europe, signing a single contract with an EETS provider of their choice using a single universal onboard unit. Rather than paying tolls directly to the road authorities, the user gets a single invoice from the EETS provider which is clearing the money with all toll agencies through whose domains the road

user has driven through. Primary target users for EETS today are fleet operators with long-haul trucks doing cross-border tours across multiple European countries. In addition, EETS will also be used by providers of connected car services, fleet services as well as other mobility services which operate in multiple EU countries in the future. Those

providers are seeking a universal toll payment option covering all EU countries allowing them to reduce complexity in integrating and operating a toll payment function. As of today, there are 16 EETS providers registered in Europe. However, only a handful of them is currently offering a respective service with a broad geographical coverage.

mobility space: like smartphones becoming the natural go-to travel companion for many users, connected cars, automated driving, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), and Internet of Things and GNSS being core technologies of most mobility applications. It is worth pointing out that toll enforcement will become more important in order to minimise fraud in ‘open’ toll systems; but these systems - in which authorities partner with third-party service providers - will likely also be a possible model for future congestion charging/low-emission zone schemes, supporting the trend towards broader and integrated MaaS offerings in cities. The same goes for future road usage charging schemes: in US states such as Oregon, authorities partner with so-called commercial account managers in charge of user management, who capture mileage, collect mileage-based user fees/tax payments and possibly offer value-added services to road users. Whatever shape the future takes, by moving away from closed silo thinking towards an open and collaborative approach supporting modern user-centric mobility ecosystems, toll agencies can make an important contribution in further shaping the new mobility world where users are being seamlessly supported when moving from A to B. ITS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Peter Ummenhofer is managing director and founder of GO Consulting. During his career in ITS and mobility he has also worked for Kapsch TrafficCom and PTV Group www.go-consulting.info

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Outsmarting the rat runners Proactively solving transport problems with powerful empirical evidence is appealing: Emily Bobis of Compass IoT explains how vehicle-generated data can be the missing link

ehicle-generated data has emerged as a vital missing piece in transport and infrastructure projects. By 2027, it’s estimated that there will be over 300 million connected vehicles across the globe, with the capacity to provide passive insights into driver behaviour and allow for proactive approaches to transport projects. Connected vehicle data provides an enormous opportunity that hardware or mobile phone-based data collection cannot: unmatched scale, accuracy and granularity. One Australian council is putting it to the ultimate test: could connected vehicles be the key to finally outsmarting the rat runner? What is rat running? ‘Rat running’ is when drivers take shortcuts through smaller residential streets that are not designed for high volumes of traffic. Drivers often take these shortcuts because of perceived shorter travel times or fewer delays caused by congestion and stopping at signalised intersections. Vehicle-generated origin-destination data can help understand rat running by providing insight into travel times for various travel paths and speeds, and comparing the percentage of drivers that use different shortcuts to get from A to B. Ku-ring-gai Council, located in the northern suburbs of Sydney, Australia, wanted to apply Compass data to a real-world problem: could it confirm if rat running was happening? And could connected vehicles help them implement measures to stop or

reduce it? With access to over two million trips a day and over a billion data points, the council approached Compass IoT with four key questions: 1.What shortcuts are drivers using? 2.Which shortcut is the most popular? 3.What time of day or day of the week is the rat running the most prevalent? 4.What percentage of drivers are using any form of shortcut instead of using the main road? Compass conducted an origin-destination study to establish the total traffic volumes passing through an arterial road and any of the surrounding streets.

Next, the data was road-matched to establish the different paths that drivers took. This made it possible to identify what percentage of total traffic used shortcuts as opposed to main roads. Shockingly, the data revealed that more than half of all drivers meant to be using the main road were rat running. After the council had identified that a considerable number of drivers were using shortcuts, they took the data one step further by establishing which shortcut was the most popular as a percentage of rat runners. The council identified two residential streets as the most popular shortcuts: Moore Street and Park Avenue. Finally, the council wanted to understand

The study area selected by Ku-ring-gai Council

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URBAN TRAFFIC CONTROL how this percentage fluctuated during different times and days of the week. Compass separated the data by hour, focusing on the differences across AM peak, PM peak, weekdays and weekends to compare how rat-running behaviour changed. For non-peak hours, 87.5% of drivers were guilty of rat running. Park Avenue was the most popular rat run for non-peak drivers, with 57% of traffic using it to bypass the main road. During the morning and afternoon peaks on Monday through Friday, Compass data showed that less than 8% of drivers used the main roads. In the PM peak, 49.2% of drivers used Park Avenue while 53% of drivers used Moore Street. This data highlights there is also some overlap between the paths rat runners take, with some drivers using a combination of streets. The data gave a clear indication to the council of what type of traffic initiatives it can put in place to stop rat runs and where these schemes need to be implemented. Ku-ring-gai Council is now taking further actions in consultation with the community to understand what traffic measures could prevent rat running without inconveniencing residents living on these streets. This includes further origin-destination studies to understand how many trips that originate from within these streets are due to the residents that live there, versus the number of drivers merely passing through from outside the local government area. One of the initiatives the council is considering is installing ‘no right-hand turn’ signs on popular rat-running routes, preventing drivers from merging back onto the mainline. At this stage, it is unclear whether the banning of right-hand turns would solve the problem, or just move it elsewhere with drivers simply taking other shortcuts. Other considerations could be installing ‘no through traffic’ signage, preventing non-residents from using those routes during peak hours.

Connected vehicle data: the road forward For the first time, we are able to identify exactly where rat running is happening and what percentage of drivers are engaging in this behaviour. Furthermore, the application of connected vehicle data goes far beyond understanding local traffic demand and origin-destination insights. Compass g-force and speed data were used for curve advisory on the Cahill Expressway on-ramp. The on-ramp, which is a severe leftward bend that connects to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, has a speed limit of 60km/h and a curve advisory speed of 35km/h. Connected vehicle data showed evidence

ABOVE: Visualisation showing the percentage of drivers using Moore St rat-run path during PM Peak: 53.5% of rat runners used this route BELOW: Visualisation of connected vehicle data on the Cahill Expressway (yellow arrow) and surrounding roads

of high g-forces, even if drivers were travelling at the lower curve advisory speed. There was also evidence of occasional unsafe speeds. Drivers were travelling 10-20km above the posted sign limit and recording g-forces of up to 0.8, well above the recommended safe g-force threshold of 0.47. There was also evidence of harsh swerving. Compass Y acceleration data showed violent swerving to the left, with particularly violent g-force readings for vehicles travelling between 45-70km/h, a minimum of 10km/h above the curve advisory speed limit. In another case study, a Northern Sydney council used Compass data to understand the driver behavioural changes resultant from the conversion of a busy two-way street, called The Strand, into a one-way street. The project was part of the Shared Spaces Program: a multi-milliondollar initiative allowing councils to pilot temporary traffic interventions to build use cases for more permanent changes across New South Wales. Aside from understanding the beforeand-after effects of the one-way conversion, the council also wanted to determine the impacts on 15 surrounding streets and six nearby intersections. It was concerned that the one-way conversion would cause safety issues in other streets as a result of traffic re-direction. To determine whether the change should be permanent, the council collected vehicle speed data and g-force data: instances where drivers were losing friction due to hard braking or swerving, providing a leading indicator of road safety risk. If the one-way conversion led to higher speeds and g-forces in surrounding streets, the council could mitigate these risks by changing or removing the pilot scheme. The results of this scheme were overwhelmingly positive. Compass data Search for #ITSA2023: Lone Star Lullabies on

URBAN TRAFFIC CONTROL showed that both drivers’ speed and g-forces in the surrounding roads dropped after the one-way was implemented. On average, speed decreased by 7% across the 15 surrounding roads. For The Strand, the 85th percentile speed dropped by almost 7km/h while g-forces dropped 0.01g. There is an ever-expanding list of use cases where connected vehicle data can help deliver better outcomes for stakeholders and communities. This includes but is not limited to:

to account for disparities between urban and rural areas, the latter often having to drive longer distances with fewer public transport alternatives. In a similar vein, vehicle-generated data takes the guesswork out of EV infrastructure utilisation modelling, particularly if many governments want to achieve their ambitious targets of banning the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles within the next five to 10 years. The capability that vehicle-generated data provides for RUC, rat running and other infrastructure initiatives is flexibility: the ability to differentiate by location; by kilometres driven on public roads, private property and toll roads; to tax more equitably, and to proactively solve transport problems with powerful empirical evidence. ITS

• proactively monitoring road safety and profiling risk • impacts of level-crossing removals • supporting decarbonisation and electric vehicle utilisation modelling • monitoring before and after effects of traffic interventions • insights into weather impacts on road lifespans as measured by changes to road roughness

The locations and intersections being analysed, including The Strand, indicated in blue

A significant opportunity for connected vehicle data is in the seamless integration of road user charging (RUC) for congestion and electric vehicle use cases. In particular, as the rate of EV ownership continues to grow, governments are set to lose billions in fuel tax revenue that is used to fund infrastructure upgrades. In Australia, current RUC schemes

involve cumbersome and manual odometer reporting with annual audits. This form of RUC lacks nuance and equitability. There is no way to differentiate between kilometres driven on public and private roads, including whether a driver has already paid a toll for use of those roads. It also fails

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Emily Bobis is founder of Compass IoT, an Australia-based company which creates road intelligence software using connected car data

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DATA’S ON THE AGENDA WITH AGD AT TRAFFEX A stop-line solution with in-built AI from AGD Systems is set to spark conversations at this year’s Traffex event in Birmingham, UK, around the future of data use. The AGD650 will be one of a range on display at the AGD Systems stand at the show. The current iteration uses in-built AI to analyse information across dual zones, with a neural processing platform and sophisticated algorithms providing automated decision-making, resulting in ultra-reliable detection. And the team is already in conversation with authorities across the UK and beyond about the future capabilities of the 650, which represents an exciting opportunity to gather rich data streams that can be UHOLHG RQ WR UHDFW WR FKDQJLQJ WUDI½ F VFHQDULRV DV WKH\ KDSSHQ Visit the team on Stand D29 at Traffex from 6-8 June 2023, NEC Birmingham, UK • Content produced in association with AGD Systems

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Connectivity 'pivotal' for next-gen Snapdragon

Vitronic’s new video-based Tollchecker platform works with AI to deliver HI½ FLHQF\ IRU WROO RSHUDWRUV 7KH VROXWLRQµV LQWHUDFWLRQ EHWZHHQ LQGXVWULDO camera technology, edge computing and neural networks allows detection, FODVVL½ FDWLRQ DQG LGHQWL½ FDWLRQ WR EH LPDJH EDVHG ZKLFK KDV HQRUPRXV advantages. It enables the detection of up to 15 different vehicle classes, which in turn permits operators to charge tolls in a more differentiated manner. Unfavourable viewing conditions are manageable since the camera DQG ¾ DVK DUH SUHFLVHO\ FRRUGLQDWHG DQG LPDJHV DUH RSWLPDOO\ LOOXPLQDWHG 7KH HQWLUH FDSWXULQJ SURFHVV IURP GHWHFWLRQ WR LGHQWL½ FDWLRQ FDQ UXQ YLD a single sensor across several lanes at the same time. The result: less hardware is needed, which is also less expensive and requires less service and maintenance. Vehicle datasets are generated on site and only validated data is sent to a control centre, which saves resources. Plus, it's an absolute ZLQ IURP D GDWD SURWHFWLRQ SRLQW RI YLHZ 7KH IUHH ¾ RZ WHFKQRORJ\ FDQ EH XVHG ERWK PRELOH DQG VWDWLRQDU\ VR RIIHUV RSHUDWRUV PRUH ¾ H[LELOLW\ LQ LQVWDOOLQJ • Content produced in association with Vitronic

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NEW AI TECHNOLOGY FOR TOLL CONTROL FROM VITRONIC

Qualcomm Technologies says its next-generation Snapdragon automotive 5G platform provides 50% more processing power than the previous incarnation. Commercially available in late 2023, Snapdragon Auto 5G Modem-RF Gen 2 System DOVR RIIHUV SRZHU HI½ FLHQF\ JDLQV DQG ultra-low latency for safety applications, it says. The latest addition to Qualcomm's connected car technology portfolio offers "increased support for vehicle safety for mission critical and emergency services that require connectivity to the network such as next-generation eCall and support for satellite communications to ensure ubiquitous connectivity and communications in remote and rural areas". Connectivity continues to play a pivotal role in the automotive industry’s digital transformation as it lays the foundation IRU QH[W JHQHUDWLRQ VRIWZDUH GH½ QHG YHKLFOHV Qualcomm says.

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VIVACITY AI SIGNAL CONTROL TECH SET FOR MULTIPLE DETECTION ZONES SDWKV FODVVL½ HG FRXQWV RI D UDQJH RI transport types, including e-scooters, pedestrians, cyclists and buses, along with anonymous journey-time data and speed insights. Leeds City Council in the UK has over 180 AI for Detection sensors across 25 sites, which VivaCity says means more dynamic and responsive signal control and less VWRS VWDUW WUDI½ F 7KH VHQVRUV FDQ EH optimised for active travel by detecting cyclists approaching the crossing from up to 70m away and providing a green signal for their arrival..

VivaCity has launched its new AI signal control technology, AI for Detection. The solution integrates VivaCity’s multimodal road user data into existLQJ XUEDQ WUDI½ F FRQWURO V\VWHPV LW is compatible with Yunex, Swarco and 7HOHQW VLJQDO FRQWUROOHUV 7KH ½ UP VD\V this enables junctions to operate more HI½ FLHQWO\ E\ UHVSRQGLQJ WR UHDO WLPH demand and allows optimisation for active-travel road users and the setting of multiple detection ]RQHV ,W DOVR RIIHUV D UDQJH RI WUDI½ F monitoring datasets, including vehicle

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PRISM AI IS A MATTER OF PERCEPTION FOR TELEDYNE FLIR Teledyne Flir, part of Teledyne Technologies, has announced a QHZ 3ULVP $, UHOHDVH IHDWXULQJ D FRPSDFW $, PRGHO IRU VLPSOL½ HG GHSOR\PHQW RQ HPEHGGHG V\VWHPV 7KH ½ UP VD\V WKLV IXUWKHU enables perception engineers to quickly integrate thermal cameras for advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous vehicle systems, improving object-tracking performance by up to 24% FRPSDUHG WR WKH SUHYLRXV 3ULVP $, UHOHDVH 7RJHWKHU WKHVH features simplify the integration of automotive thermal sensors that provide superior pedestrian, animal, and vehicle detection especially at night and in poor visibility, the company explains.

Prism AI provides seven object-detection classes, visible-andthermal image fusion, advanced thermal-image processing capabilities, new shadow mode recording capabilities and batch data ingestion, and more.

Sernis tech to combat crosswalk distraction SR-CrossLED range – a new kind of road stud developed by Sernis - may be the most promising technology to reduce crosswalk accidents related to distractions by drivers and pedestrians. SR-CrossLED-L must be installed on both sides of the road between the sidewalk and the crosswalk, to alert distracted pedestrians when they are approaching the crosswalk, and on top of the white lines creating a homogeneous illumination of the crosswalk - the perfect device to alert distracted drivers when they

are approaching. The large lighted area of both devices has a great visual impact, making it almost impossible for oncoming pedestrians or drivers to overlook them. The SR-CrossLED-L increases the safety and visibility of crosswalks at night while also conserving the scenic character of the streets. This solution features a robust and long-lasting structure with high strength, as SURYHQ E\ FHUWL½ FDWLRQ WR (XURSHDQ 6WDQGDUG EN124, class D400. • Content produced in association with Sernis

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Meet the mighty toll industry at IBTTA’s largest global gathering! Connect with Toll Operators, State DOTs, ITS Technology Providers and Transportation Industry Decision Makers

IBTTA 91st Annual Meeting & Exhibition October 7-10, 2023 | Seattle Convention Center Program and exhibit information available

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