Roundabout 123 Dec 2009 - ipenz

Members Articles
Intelligent Transport Systems Summit 2009 in Melbourne – 18 to 20 November 2009
Article by Roger Dunn, University of Auckland and ITS NZ Board Member
This was held in the new Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) which is located on the
Southbank of the Yarra River, in the heart of the city. The centre is now the largest Exhibition Centre in
Australia. The focus of the Summit was to provide Australia with an ITS Strategy for the next 10 years.
The 2009 ITS Summit was co-hosted by the Victorian Government and ITS Australia. The Victorian Minister
for Roads and Ports, Tim Pallas, demonstrated his strong support for the Summit by his personal
involvement in several sessions. There were about 360 delegates including 10 international speakers (two
from NZ) and 42 from Australia. NZ had nine attendees as listed at the end.
The Summit commenced with a Reception on Wednesday evening in a viewing area on the 89 th floor of
Eureka, also on the Southbank, reputed to be the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Certainly, it is
very high!! Dr Norman Pidgeon, President of ITS Australia, who was also a speaker at the recent NZTA /
NZIHT Conference in Rotorua, welcomed delegates.
The conference was opened next day by Dr Norman Pidgeon and the Victorian Minister for Roads and Ports,
Hon. Tim Pallas. Each day commenced with a Plenary Session. This was followed by five concurrent
sessions each of which explored a different ITS theme, starting with at keynote speaker and working
throughout the day towards progressively greater detail through a panel discussion with additional
speakers/panellists and then a facilitated workshop involving delegates. The themes were:
Improving road and rail safety
Improving road network management
Providing better travel and Traveller information
Improving public transport operation
Providing better travel and traveller information
Facilitating a more efficient freight industry
Reducing environmental impacts
Improving security, safety and emergency planning
The outline programme and other details (as at 1 Dec 09) can be viewed on: http://www.itssummit.com.au/.
I have been advised the presentations will be available on this same web site soon, when permission is
obtained from the presenters.
Excluding meeting friends and colleagues from the ‗ITS world‘, the highlights of the Summit for me were, in
chronological order:
the Gala Dinner which was held in the Members Dining Room at the Melbourne Cricket Ground – the
empty but well lit stadium was most impressive with many seagulls flying around and on the grass
area,
the fact that electric vehicles are on their way - about 40 models expected within 3 years, while 10 of
these are expected to be available in Australia,
realising the neck name tag (or ‗dog-tag‘) comprised a 1Mb flash drive – there is an idea for
sponsorship!
The format of having five parallel sessions made session choice ‗most problematic‘. I guess - what I did not
see or hear, was not missed! (?) Surprisingly (to me!), the format of having workshop sessions where ideas
were formulated by small groups and then presented to all to determine priority order, proved to be very
useful and successful.
The final session of the Summit considered these as inputs to the ITS Australia Strategy which will form the
basis of national policy for the next 5 to 10 years. ITS Australia Vice President Dean Zabrieszach
(VicRoads) is leading the action plan team and has invited industry stakeholders to forward any further of
their ideas to ITS Australia.
NZ representatives at the ITS Summit were: Blair Monk (GHD, Auckland and ITS NZ Board member), Brent
Maguire (NZTA, Wellington), Leon Wee (NZTA, Auckland), Shaun Hardcastle (AURECON, Christchurch),
Cristian Gomez (Ministry of Economic Development, Wellington), Ahmed Hikmet (HMI Technologies,
Auckland), Brian Michie (EROAD, Auckland), Phil Allen (GeoSmart, Auckland) and myself.
16 Roundabout No.123 December 09