Issue 04/11 - Siemens Mobility

www.siemens.com/traffic
IMPRINT
ITS magazine · The Magazine for Siemens
Intelligent Traffic Systems
Publisher: Siemens AG · Infrastructure & Cities
Sector · Mobility and Logistics Division · Complete
Transportation and e-Vehicle Infrastructure ·
Hofmannstrasse 51 · D-81359 Munich
Editors: Dr. Michael Ostertag (responsible for
contents), Karin Kaindl: Siemens IC MOL CTE ST&BD
Coordination:
Roland Michali: Siemens IC MOL CC, Erlangen
Copywriting: Peter Rosenberger, Philip Wessa:
www.bfw-tailormade.de · Eberhard Buhl
(“In the side-view mirror”)
Photographs:
Corbis Cover, pp. 4/5, 6, 7, 8, 10/11, 14, 15, 16, 18,
19 · Getty Images p. 4 · European Union p. 9 ·
iStockphoto pp. 12/13, 22 · Roland Michali pp. 20, 21
left · Photocase.com p. 23 · FC Schalke 04 Arena
Management GmbH p. 24
All other photographs: Siemens AG
English translation: Dr. Barbara Gutermann
Sprachendienste GmbH, Biberach
Concept & Layout: Agentur Feedback,
Munich · www.agentur-feedback.de
Printing: Mediahaus Biering, Munich
Copyright: © Siemens AG 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or used without express prior
permission. Subject to technical modifications.
Printed in Germany.
The next issue of the ITS magazine will be
published on April 15, 2012
www.siemens.com/traffic
ISSN 2190-0302
Order No. A19100-V355-B106-X-7600
Dispo No. 22300 · K No. 7604
313702 IF 12115.5

ITS magazine
The Magazine for Intelligent Traffic Systems I 4/2011
www.siemens.com/mobility
Ambitious
goals
S
About the new intelligence of
European transport systems

Editorial & Content
Content
Focus
4 “ Business as usual is no longer
sustainable”
Siim Kallas, current EU Commissioner
for Transport and Vice President
of the European Commission, speaks
about the EU Member States’ joint
mobility strategy aimed at mastering
new global challenges as well as the
difficult legacy of the past decade
10 Long strides in EU politics
About the role that the current master
plan of the European Union assigns
to Intelligent Traffic Systems
in the deployment of a single European
transport area
2 its magazine 4/2011
Editorial
4
“ Business as
usual is no
longer sustainable”
12 Info box: The EU Action Plan’s six
priority action areas at a glance
14 Group portrait with lady
“The wide-gazing lady” – a quite promising
name coined by the ancient Greeks
for “Europe.” Australian transport
scientist Professor Dr. Jeffrey Kenworthy
wanted to know how far-reaching a
vision is reflected in the transport
systems in the 27 EU states today. For
this he compared them with those in
other parts of the world
Dear Readers,
You could almost believe that the biblical
Job has now been promoted to the role of
Chief Ambassador for the European Union.
These days, any positive news coming out
of the continent between the Arctic Ocean
and the Aegean Sea rarely makes it into
prime-time news. That doesn‘t mean, however,
that there is nothing positive happening.
It’s just that, until further notice, such
information seems to be largely reserved
for a specialist audience – for example our
traffic experts.
Even though here in Europe the specters
of rampant congestion and high pollution
levels haunt our mobile society, all in
17 Info box: Mobility-relevant indicators
for the EU and four other regions
19 Tickets without borders
Until now, the majority of motorists
having offended against the traffic
regulations abroad were able to avoid
any financial penalty. The European
Union now wants to change all that.
From 2013 there will be a new directive
to facilitate the cross-border
prosecution of offenders

all the continent is moving forward at a
relatively good pace – whether in terms of
efficiency or safety or with regard to protecting
the environment. And by the way,
that is a claim made by impartial observers
such as the renowned Australian traffic expert
Professor Dr. Jeffrey Kenworthy, who
in his essay for ITS magazine compares
European transport systems with those
in other parts of the world.
But there is no way that those in charge
plan to rest on their laurels, as current EU
Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas
makes crystal clear. In an interview on the
following pages, he outlines how the
vision of a unified European intermodal
Trends & Events
20 Event news
Compact news on current events in
Dubai, Orlando and Munich
Partners & Projects
21 Shortcuts
Recent traffic engineering projects
in Germany, Serbia and China
transport zone will become reality as soon
as possible. One aspect can be revealed
before you turn the page: Intelligent traffic
systems will play a major role. I hope you
will enjoy the read.
Kind regards
Hauke Jürgensen
Head of Intelligent Traffic Systems
10
Long strides in EU politics
Know-how & Research
22 The virtue of being miserly
Alternative drive systems may be the most
widely discussed options for reducing
transport-related emissions, but certainly
not the only ones: Experts are also promising
significant effects from intelligent
transport systems, which have the potential
to become reality much sooner
Mobility & Living Space
24 There and back
Whenever an audience of umpteen thousand
fans is heading to the stadium, the
neighboring streets have to cope with exceptional
conditions. The city of Gelsenkirchen
has developed a good handle on
this motorized swarm – thanks to a customized
traffic management system
Rubrics
23 In the side-view mirror
Reflections and lateral thoughts
about mobility in Europe: “The
journey is the destination”
26 Profile
Thilo Jourdan, head of Worldwide
Sales at Siemens ITS, talks about
current trends in international
traffic engineering markets
and his team’s consulting-led
approach to the development of
customized infrastructure facilities
in the different cities and
regions: “Europe has got it”
28 Imprint
24
There and back
4/2011 its magazine 3

Focus
“ Business as
usual is
no longer
sustainable”
Interview n Siim Kallas, current EU
Commissioner for Transport and Vice
President of the European Commission,
speaks about the EU Member States’
joint mobility strategy aimed at
mastering new global challenges
and about the difficult legacy of
the past decade.
4 its magazine 4/2011

4/2011 its magazine 5

Focus
Bicycle super-highway in London: “We need
a new culture of mobility”
Motorway congestion in the Netherlands: “We
need to tackle the persistent dependence on oil“
6 its magazine 4/2011
Mr. Kallas, over the past months the
need for more intensive coordination
among the EU Member States in
the area of economic and financial
policy was widely discussed. Do you
see a similarly strong need for concerted
action in transport policy?
EU transport policy covers 500 million
citizens, and most of the European
continent. In the recent White Paper
on the future of transport, we adopted
a long-term vision, which should equip
us to deal with the unresolved problems
of the past, and face the arising
challenges. In transport – just as in
the areas of economics and finance –
there is a strong need for increased
co-operation between Member States.
It is our goal to create a single European
transport area: Let me give you two
practical examples. The first is infrastructure
planning and construction,
where the renewed trans-European
transport network (TEN-T) policy focuses
on cross-border sections, which have
often been delayed or never constructed
at all because co-ordination between
Member States on both sides of
the border was insufficient. The key
to success for our policy is improved
co-operation. The second example is
aviation, where we have developed
the concept of so-called functional airspace
blocks: This is about increased
regional cooperation in the area of air
traffic management, as an intermediate
step on the route to a Single European
Sky. In this area too, additional
joint efforts are needed from EU Member
States to meet the agreed deadline
of December 2012.
“ In the future more and more issues need to be
addressed at European level”
In your eyes, where should the borderlines
be drawn in the future, i.e.
which areas of transport policy should
remain within the responsibility of
the individual member states, and
which decisions should rather be
taken at EU level?
In the future, considering our objective
to create a common transport area,
and in view of the environmental challenges
all Member States will face, more
and more issues need to be addressed
at European level. This also applies to
the strategy for the deployment of intelligent
transport systems (ITS), espe-
cially in order to ensure their interoperability.
But also for certain areas that
will remain firmly local, such as urban
transport, where ITS can lead to major
improvements, we need to learn from
each other if we want to bring about
the changes necessary to reconcile
mobility and sustainability.
One of the fundamental statements
in the EU White Paper on Transport
is that “Old challenges remain but
new have come.” What considerations
and experiences is this assertion
based on?
Transport is a sector where deep changes
are to be expected world-wide. Business
as usual is no longer sustainable.
Previous transport White Papers – in
1992 and in 2001 – aimed at addressing
challenges such as growing congestion,
the need for transport market
opening and insufficient multimodality.
Significant progress has been achieved,
but a lot still needs to be done: Some
transport segments such as rail and
port services are not yet fully open to
competition, and residual barriers between
modes and national systems
still exist. At the same time, the last
decade left us a challenging legacy:
The high volatility of oil prices, the
global commitments on climate change
and the consequences of the economic
crisis call for ambitious actions on the
EU agenda. We need to tackle the persistent
dependence on oil, we need to
significantly reduce congestion by promoting
a balanced use of transport
modes, and we need to reinforce our
commitment to increasing resource-
efficiency and reducing emissions in
the transport sector.
Among its ten priority goals “for a
competitive and resource efficient
transport system,” the White Paper
lists “establishing a framework for
a European multimodal transport
information, management and payment
system.” What does the performance
specification for this development
project include?
One fundamental barrier affecting the
transport of both passengers and freight
is the limited or very inefficient exchange
of operational, traffic and travel data
among the various stakeholders – even
more so across the different modes of
transport. A Single European Transport
Area presupposes the existence of effective
and interoperable Europe-wide
systems for multimodal mobility. For
both freight and passenger transport,

we want to enable the users to buy multimodal
transport services through integrated
ticketing. Passengers on a given
journey, for example, should have access
to all possible real-time information
(e.g. on train and metro, parking,
car sharing, bicycle sharing) to allow
them to select en-route the best possible
travel option. In addition, many
information and communication technology
(ICT) applications already exist
within each mode, such as the Single
European Sky ATM Research Program
(SESAR) for air transport, the European
Railway Traffic Management System
(ERTMS) for rail transport, and River
Information Services (RIS) for inland
navigation.
For road transport, we have focused
on the ITS action plan and the related
ITS directive. We believe we need to
work in future on integrating the modal
systems in a common framework,
push for integrated intermodal travel
information and other services to citizens
and companies, as well as stimulate
investment in new navigation,
traffic monitoring and communication
services.
In your foreword to the ITS action
plan you speak of “significant barri-
“ Back in 2008 there was only a patchwork of
national, regional and local solutions”
ers to the effective deployment of
Intelligent Transport Systems across
Europe.” What kind of experiences
prompted you to choose this wording?
Let’s take the example of ITS for road
transport and consider what the situation
was in 2008: Despite 20 years of
research, with a considerable budget,
and voluntary agreements, and despite
road being the first mode to explore the
potential of applying ICT (information
and communication technologies) to
transport, the progress and achievements
made in other modes had been
clearly more tangible than in the road
sector. Rapid technical deployment had
led to a high number of mature ITS road
applications and emerging services,
but the overall uptake across Europe remained
slow and fragmented, with striking
differences between countries and
regions, and hardly any use of combined
transport and co-modality in both passenger
and freight transport.
Champs Elysées in Paris: “The global commitments on climate change call for ambitious actions on the EU agenda“
In short, back in 2008 there was only
a patchwork of national, regional
and local solutions, reflecting a lack of
standardization, lack of interoperability
and a clear lack of effective co-operation
and cross-border continuity of
services in the enlarged EU. As a result,
neither passengers planning their personal
travel nor businesses shipping
their cargo across Europe were supported
in their efforts of effectively using
combinations of different modes. The
costs associated with multimodal travel
as opposed to using one single mode,
for example road, were considered too
high. Moreover, there were growing –
and I must say quite legitimate – concerns
about liability and privacy protection.
That is why the ITS action plan
and the ITS directive put in place a solid
legislative framework for a coordinated
and harmonized deployment of
ITS for road transport and for developing
interfaces with all the other modes. »
4/2011 its magazine 7

Focus
Street setting in Italy: “Urban transport will
remain firmly local”
In the action plan, you are pointing to
the “potential of Intelligent Transport
Systems (ITS) to help realize broader
transport policy goals.” Where exactly
do you see this potential?
The paramount goal of our EU transport
policy is to offer high-quality
mobility services while using fewer
resources. In practice, we have to use
less and cleaner energy, and create
and better exploit a modern transport
network. A modern network means
also a safer network. We have estimated
that, if fully deployed in the European
Union, ITS can reduce the number
of fatalities resulting from road
accidents by ten to 15 percent. In addition,
we believe the deployment of ITS,
in line with the strategy defined in the
White Paper, can help reduce both congestion
and CO2 emissions – at a relatively
low cost compared to the cost
of building new “hard” infrastructure.
This is why we are now focusing on
speeding up deployment of solutions
such as dynamic traffic and freight
management, real-time traffic information
services, lane keeping support,
electronic tolling, interoperable and
8 its magazine 4/2011
Navigating in Madrid: “Improving travel information is part of our activities within the framework
of the action plan on urban mobility”
“ The transport sector is the largest industrial
R&D investor in the EU”
multimodal scheduling, online reservation
systems and smart ticketing. These are
just a few examples of ITS applications
which have a good potential to make travel
easier and more environmentally friendly
for EU citizens and which can make
European business more competitive.
The common denominator of all your
efforts is sustainability in transport
across Europe. Safety, ecology and
competitiveness – which of these three
main aspects would you give priority
to in case of mutual conflict?
I believe that existing synergies among
these three dimensions should be exploited
in such a way as to make them
mutually reinforcing. The deployment
of clean vehicles, for example, would
represent an opportunity for the European
manufacturing industry to increase
its competitiveness on a global level,
but it would also significantly contribute
to technological progress, emissions
reduction and job creation. Transport
infrastructure is another area where efficiency
gains would result in less energy
consumption, less congestion and
accidents, and reduction of competitiveness
gaps. A key tool in our strategy
is the deployment of ITS which will
enable us to achieve a greener, safer and
more competitive transport system.
In an interview with ITS magazine,
Reinhold Messner, former Member
of the European Parliament, said
that he places greater faith in technology
than politics when it comes
to finding environmentally friendly
ways of solving transport problems.
Would you completely object to this
statement, or do you see a certain
amount of truth in it?

Technological progress is crucial for
the development of environmentally
friendly solutions, but policy instruments
such as emissions targets, restrictions
on the use of polluting vehicles,
harmonized EU-wide standards
are important drivers of research and
innovation. The transport sector is
the largest industrial research and
development investor in the EU. I believe
that politics should be fully committed
to supporting this high research
effort and to creating the conditions
to best combine research, innovation
and deployment of new technologies.
Until recently the car enjoyed a
privileged position in the road
users’ choice of transport means.
Today, however, young city dwellers
in particular are already much
more flexible in their mobility decisions.
Would you put this success
down in part to your policies?
Yes, our societies are changing fast.
The current EU transport White Paper
looks at the transition from primarily
car-based personal mobility in cities
to a mobility based on walking, cycling,
high-quality public transport and cleaner
vehicles. Most cities have been
working on parts of this transition for
a long time. Developing multi-modality
in urban passenger transport and
information and communication technologies
to provide the consumer
with real-time travel information will
also help to facilitate this transition.
Improving travel information is part
of our activities within the framework
of the ITS action plan and the action
plan on urban mobility. The EU’s 2007
Green Paper on urban mobility stressed
that a profound transformation of the
European transport system would not
be brought about through incremental
improvements alone but would require
a new mobility culture, a true
paradigm shift. Education, information
and awareness-raising campaigns are
pivotal to establishing this new culture
for urban mobility. Focused activities
in this area are supported by
the Commission, in particular the
European Mobility Week.
As EU Commissioner for Transport and
Vice-President of the European Commission
you are bound to be travelling
a lot. What tools do you use today to
plan your trips – and how would you
like to go about it tomorrow?
I like the advice you get in traditional
travel agencies, but I also use a lot of
online tools to plan my trips: just so
handy and fast. But, despite the fact
that Europe boasts more than 100
journey planners, at local, regional or
national level, it is still difficult to plan,
book – let alone pay for – a journey
combining different modes of transport.
Yet, given the challenges that lie ahead
of us – climate change, growing road
congestion, oil dependence and its soaring
price – we should focus on alternative
options of travel that could alleviate
these problems. I believe that a modal
switch, and multimodal travel in general,
is at least part of the answer.
“ A profound trans-
formation of the
transport system
requires a true
paradigm shift“
In order to raise the awareness of
the stakeholders and the general public,
I launched the first “Smart Mobility
Challenge” on multimodal journey
planners in June 2011. Everyone was
invited to submit innovative and operational
ideas, the most promising of
which have been pre-selected by an
expert jury and are now being presented
to the citizens, who can vote on
their favorite solutions until January
2012. We hope that this challenge
will stimulate the development of a
truly integrated journey planner, and
inspire people to use the existing and
possible combinations of different
transport modes when planning their
travel and making their bookings
online. The idea is to be able to book
your travel and buy your ticket for
the entire trip across Europe, fully
online and with a few simple clicks –
just the same way we can do it today
for air travel. This will not yet be reality
tomorrow, but if we do not push for
this today we will not get it the day
after tomorrow either.
So, please let the ITS magazine readers
know about the winner of our online
vote and keep on challenging established
transport providers to open up to
intermodal integrated trip planning –
and one day, ticketing.
Mr. Kallas, thank you very much for
this interview. «
Siim Kallas in London: “I think multimodality is
part of the answer“
Personal background
Siim Kallas, 63, was nominated European
Commissioner for Transport in
February 2010 and Vice President of
the European Commission in October
2004. In this function he was initially
responsible for Administrative Affairs,
Audit and Anti-Fraud. Before becoming
the first Estonian Member of the EU
Commission in May 2004, he served
his country as Prime Minister, Minister
of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs
and President of the Bank of Estonia,
actively supporting the restoration of
Estonia’s statehood. For the first ten
years following the foundation of the
Estonian Reform Party in 1994, Kallas
was its leader and is still its honorary
chairman. In 1972, he completed his
studies of Budget and Finance with the
mention “cum laude” at the University
of Tartu, where he currently holds the
position of visiting professor.
4/2011 its magazine 9

Focus
Europe’s ITS master plan n How to merge 27 national transport networks
and their up-to-now rather sporadically coordinated interfaces
into a homogeneous European transport region – and that as quickly
as possible? As a booster for the implementation of the community’s
ambitious efficiency, safety and ecology goals, the EU has set up
the required legal framework as well as an action plan for the fast
deployment of intelligent transport systems.
10 its magazine 4/2011

Long strides
in EU politics
Brief and clear – that’s a way of communicating
that many politicians seem
to cultivate mainly during election
campaigns. At other times their verbal
style is often dominated by those expansive
run-on sentences that barely manage
to fit their first and last word on the
same page. Concise statements are a
rare commodity, especially those constituting
an entire paragraph all by themselves:
Hence the sentence, “Curbing mobility
is not an option” in the current EU Transport
White Paper reads as if written in
stone and – though rather discreetly
placed in paragraph 18 on page 6 – these
six words essentially embody the spirit
of the entire compendium.
As the reader of the so-called “Roadmap
to a Single European Transport Area” soon
realizes, the EU’s answer to rampant traffic
congestion across Europe, the threat of
dramatic climate change, continuing globalization
and imminent fossil fuel shortages
does not consist in keeping its citizens
on a short leash. On the contrary,
the European Commission’s multi-faceted
vision of a sustainable and competitive
transport system includes also the double
goal of “growing transport and supporting
mobility.” At the same time, as
the White Paper published in spring
2011 confirms in unmistakable terms,
the EU retains its ambitious targets in
terms of clean and safe transport. For
instance, the White Paper calls for a
60% reduction in green-house gas emissions
from transport by 2050. And the
number of deaths in traffic accidents is
to be halved by 2020.
Modern technologies
play an important
role in building an
integrated system
On the way, the EU plans to make
grow together what belongs together:
“The transport systems of the eastern
and western parts of Europe must be
united to fully reflect the transport
needs of almost the whole continent
and our 500 million citizens.” In implementing
this goal set down in the
White Paper, the mobility authorities
can rely on another EU document with
the title “Action Plan and Legal Framework
for the Deployment of Intelligent
Transport Systems (ITS) in Europe.“ In
his foreword, European Commissioner
for Mobility and Transport Siim Kallas
(see also the interview from page 4)
expresses his conviction that such
modern technologies “have a big part
to play in building a truly integrated
and user-friendly transport system,
while making road transport – along
with the other modes – cleaner, more
environmentally friendly, more efficient,
safer and more secure.”
The two parts of the paper provide
the necessary political and strategic
framework for that:
• The ITS Directive represents the
first EU-wide legislative basis for
the coordinated cross-border deployment
of such systems for road
traffic. Within the coming years,
the European Commission will
define binding specifications to
ensure the compatibility, interoperability
and continuity of the
solutions to be developed.
• The ITS Action Plan is mapping the
road to the future. It contains a
wide range of measures intended »
4/2011 its magazine 11

Focus
to mobilize industry, the EU Member
States as well as infrastructure- and
service-providers and other stakeholders.
The related measures are
grouped into six priority action areas
(see overview below), with 2014 as
target date for their completion.
The two dozen measures described in
the Action Plan include for instance the
optimized collection and provision of
road, traffic and travel data for use in traffic
management systems, among others.
In this area alone, a number of problems
have to be solved. Between EU countries,
the rules on the collection of such data
still differ considerably and in some countries
they are even completely lacking.
There is also a lack of standards regarding
the attributes to be used for recording
traffic regulations and traffic circulation
plans. Consequently, the European Commission’s
plan calls for a study of the
status quo before initiating the definition
of the minimum requirements for rules,
procedures and specifications.
Another measure addresses the possible
ways of encouraging the development
of traffic information services such
as already provided on a regional basis
by Bavaria’s traffic information agency
1. Optimum use of road, traffic and
travel data
Many ITS applications rely on an accurate
knowledge of the road network and the applicable
traffic regulations. While in the
past the bulk of this knowledge was provided
by the authorities, today commercial
sources are becoming increasingly important.
Relevant information should be validated
and made available to all players on a
fair and equitable basis in order to support
the safe and orderly management of traffic.
This notably concerns both digital mapping
and the provision of real-time traffic
and travel information services. The optimum
use of data will also facilitate multimodal
journey planning.
12 its magazine 4/2011
A number of problems
remain to be solved
in connection with collecting
and providing
traffic-relevant data
VIB. For some time now, VIB users have
been able to access on the Internet, with
a single click of the mouse, travel time
prognoses covering all motorized and
non-motorized transport modes. The
proposed pan-European version of such a
multimodal door-to-door journey planner
will collect the data of such national and
The EU Action Plan’s six priority
2. Continuity of ITS services for traffic
and freight management on European
transport corridors and in conurbations
The need to accommodate rising traffic
volumes, notably on the major European
transport corridors and in conurbations,
while promoting environmental sustainability
and energy efficiency, calls for
innovative transport and traffic management
solutions. Seamless and dynamic
transport and traffic management enables
optimum use of existing capacity,
fosters co-modality and is beneficial for
both long-distance and urban freight transport.
ITS technologies also offer new possibilities
for infrastructure access/use
charging schemes and are playing an
essential role in ‘eFreight’ systems.
3. Road safety and security
ITS-based road safety and security applications
have proven their effectiveness, but
the overall benefit for society depends on
their wider deployment. At the same time,
some safety-related issues require additional
attention: safe design and use of humanmachine
interfaces; integrating ‘nomadic’
devices; ensuring the safety of especially
vulnerable road users such as the elderly;
and providing services for safe and secure
truck parking. Another challenge is to
achieve the full-scale roll-out of so-called
‘eCall’ in-vehicle emergency call systems.
Meanwhile the security of transport systems
must be taken into account without
jeopardizing efficient and effective transport
operations.

action areas at a glance
4. Integration of the vehicle into the
transport infrastructure
The streamlining and integration of ITS applications
within a coherent, open system
design could improve efficiency and userfriendliness,
reduce costs and enable the
‘plug&play’ integration of new or upgraded
applications. This open system architecture
would be embodied – initially in commercial
vehicles – in an open in-vehicle platform,
guaranteeing interoperability and interconnection
with infrastructure systems
and facilities. Furthermore, cooperative
systems – based on exchange of information
and communication between vehicles
and with the road infrastructure – are also
developing rapidly and should be further
promoted.
Visual of the European road
network: On the way to an
integrated European transport
area, the EU want to
make grow together what
belongs together – the
transport systems of the
individual member states
as well as the different
transport modes
5. Data security and protection, and
liability issues
The handling of data – notably of a personal
and financial kind – in ITS applications
raises a number of issues as citizens’ dataprotection
rights are at stake. Data integrity
and confidentiality must be ensured for all
parties involved, especially for the citizens.
The provision and use of ITS applications also
create additional requirements in terms
of liability. These issues could be a major
barrier to the wider market penetration of
some ITS services if citizens’ rights are not
shown to be fully protected.
regional tools, add the relevant aviation
information and closely network the different
systems in line with the functional,
technical, organizational and serviceprovision
specifications defined in the
ITS Directive. For this purpose, a survey
“ Why can’t I yet book
my multi-modal
journeys through
Europe in one go?”“
has already been commissioned and a
website has been set up giving an overview
of and links to existing multimodal
journey planners. The start of the cross-
European travel guide will certainly be
greeted with particular enthusiasm by
European Commissioner for Mobility
and Transport Siim Kallas, who during
last year’s ITS Conference saw reason to
complain: “Why can’t I yet plan or book
my journey through Europe – switching
between several modes – in one go and
online?” «
6. European ITS cooperation and
coordination
Coordinated deployment of Intelligent
Transport Systems in the EU calls for intensive
cooperation on the European level between
all parties involved as well as for an
adequate governance structure and legal
framework. To make EU-wide deployment
a reality, agreements on common assessment
methods and uniform tools for decision
support are crucial, and EU Member
States should aim to establish a common
ITS agenda and methods for concerted
implementation. Coordinated deployment
also requires greater involvement of cities
and regional authorities. The required
guidance and technical support should
be provided to facilitate consensus-building
and effective decision-making.
4/2011 its magazine 13

Focus
14 its magazine 4/2011

Group portrait
with lady
Essay n “The wide-gazing lady” – a quite promising name coined by the
ancient Greeks for “Europe”. The Australian transport scientist Professor
Dr. Jeffrey Kenworthy wanted to know just how far-reaching a vision is
reflected in the transport systems in place today in the 27 EU states. For
this he compared them with those in other parts of the world – in an
essay composed specially for the ITS magazine.
The European passenger transport systems
in an intercontinental comparison –
anyone who wants to cover this huge field
in the few pages of a scientific essay, necessarily
has to set certain limits. But with
the right choice of benchmarks we can
gain a number of very useful insights even
from such a restricted data basis. For the
purposes of this essay, I chose five countries
that enjoy relatively high levels of
wealth and quality of life and are also often
compared with Europe in other respects:
the United States, Canada, Australia
and – to provide a kind of counter-pole
to these huge territories – the city-state of
Singapore and the special administrative
zone of Hong Kong.
When considering the quantitative
aspects relevant to mobility systems, the
most obvious difference between these
places is their population density. At a gross
density of 115 persons per square kilometer,
the EU-27 eclipses by a very large margin
the density of the USA (33), Canada (4)
and Australia (3), while Singapore and
Hong Kong are at the other extreme, with
almost 6,200 persons per square kilometer.
This contrast between the regions in
the sample is very useful in highlighting
the impact that the physical spread has
on the transport systems and mobility
patterns in place.
On a qualitative level, the regions likewise
are rather heterogeneous. Australia
and Canada are both heavily urbanized
countries sharing a special population pattern:
The majority of their population lives
Airport in
Los Angeles:
In the air, the USA
are clearly
“dominant,” while
the EU ranks
far behind
in major cities separated by vast, almost
uninhabited spaces. The USA is also heavily
urbanized, though the urban populations
are spread out in a much greater number of
cities across the interior between the two
coasts. Just like Australian metropolises, US
cities, apart from a few exceptions like the
older parts of New York and other North
Eastern cities, are also sprawling places
with a low building density.
Compared to all these regions, the EU is
very densely settled, with countless urban
settlements ranging from very large cities
right through to medium, small and very
small cities, towns and villages. European
cities are also denser and less car-oriented
than their American and Canadian counterparts
and often retain various well-developed
public transport systems and gener-
ally offer better conditions for pedestrians
and cyclists. So at a national and at an
urban level, the EU is a more compact
place in which to travel. Of course, Singapore
and Hong Kong are even far more
condensed places, helping us recognize
just how different transport patterns can
be in wealthy environments where sprawling
land use is almost non-existent: Those
two cities show very low levels of dependence
on the car and extremely high use
of public transport, walking and cycling.
The above-described basic differences
allow us to begin to appreciate some fundamental
transport characteristics in the
regions considered. A first key variable determining
mobility within wealthy societies
is vehicle ownership. In the EU, with 464
cars per 1,000 persons, car ownership is »
4/2011 its magazine 15

30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
Focus
5,000
0
Intuitive expectation
and actual numbers
often diverge in an
analysis
km
27,885
USA
17,202
Canada
16 its magazine 4/2011
19,580
Australia
12,668
EU 27 States
5,757
SIN/HK
Total annual passenger kilometers per inhabitant
by car, rail, bus and domestic air travel
some 41% lower than in the USA, and still
well below that of Australia (655) and
Canada (584). It is, however, over 6 times
higher than in Singapore and Hong Kong,
which have an average of only 73 cars per
1,000 people, despite their evident wealth.
Motorcycles, on the other hand, are a different
story, with the EU having some 61
motorcycles per 1,000 people, or about
2.5 to 3.5 times more than the other places
considered in this comparison, across
which motorcycle ownership is remarkably
consistent, averaging only 21 motorcycles
per 1,000 people.
The transport infrastructure variables
must be considered from two different angles
to highlight their significance for the
mobile society living in a certain area. The
EU has a low level of road length per person,
which is easy to understand in the
light of the compact physical nature of this
region. Inversely, the USA, Canada and
Australia have an average of 30.5 meters
of road per person and thus over 3 times
more than the EU’s 9.3 meters per person.
Pedestrian bridge to the Olympic Park in Munich: In European cities, 25 to
30% of daily trips are undertaken on foot or by bicycle
Emphasizing in a somewhat dramatic
fashion the difference in impact of compact
versus sprawling development, Singapore
and Hong Kong have a miniscule 0.5
meters of road per person. If however, we
calculate road length per square kilometer
of territory, we get quite a different story,
with the EU having an average of 1,071
meters of road within each square kilometer
of its territory, while the average value
for the USA, Canada and Australia is only
312. The impressive 2,887 meters per
square km in Singapore and Hong Kong
also reflect the fact that the more urbanized
and compact a territory is, the higher
will be the road density.
Another area revealing the high complexity
of infrastructure data is the rail network.
Intuitively we would expect that the
EU, which is well known for the ability to
travel by train, would lead the way on this
factor. But on a population basis, the EU
has the second lowest rail provision among
the regions analyzed, with only 0.4 meters
per person. The divergence between ex-
pectation and reality is even wider in Singapore
and Hong Kong, which count only
0.03 meters of rail line per person. The
USA, Canada and Australia average 1.6
meters or exactly 4 times the rate in the
EU. But when the same data are expressed
on a spatial basis, the numbers are more in
line with perceptions: Here Hong Kong and
Singapore with their massive 194 meters
per square kilometer are clearly ahead of
the EU (49), compared to an average of
only 14 meters in the USA, Canada and
Australia taken together. Of note in all this
is the comparatively healthy figure for the
US alone (28 m/km²), a reflection, among
others, of the extensive historical network
of rail development in the country, even if
much of the formerly existing system has
been torn up.
When analyzing the aviation infrastructure
data, two points in particular are
worth noting: Firstly, the US have clearly
the highest number of airports, on a percapita
as well as on a spatial basis, (nearly
5 airports for every 100,000 people and

1.65 airports per 1000 square kilometers).
Coming second, with 0.7 and 0.78, respectively,
the EU is relatively far behind on
both factors – which may seem rather unexpected
at first in view of the high importance
of aviation within the EU-27 on the
national as well as on the international
level. But these results are possibly a
reflection of the much greater availability
of rail and bus travel and the high viability
of such travel for the often shorter travel
distances in the EU region.
What is really interesting – and in some
ways what really counts in considering the
implications of transport systems – are the
patterns of mobility that occur as a result
of the interaction of land use and transport
infrastructure. It may come as no surprise
that the USA is the place with the highest
car use of all those examined, but the
actual extent of the differences may be
surprising to many. Average Americans
cover a whopping 24,000 passenger kilometers
by car each year, or 2.5 times more
than their EU counterparts. Australians and
Canadians drive more modest amounts
than Americans (15,400 and 14,600 passenger
kilometers), but still on average
In the EU, more people can function
without a car than in the USA or Australia
over 1.5 times more than people in Europe.
By radical contrast, Singapore and Hong
Kong residents travel a tiny 1,700 car passenger
kilometers each per year.
Of course, there are a number of reasons
one can posit for such clear differences
in this critical factor of any mobility
system. In the EU, many more people can
function without a car than in the USA,
Canada or Australia – due to the shorter
distances to be traveled and also to the
availability and convenience of other
modes of travel. Naturally, these factors
apply even more strongly to Singapore
and Hong Kong, where only about one in
ten residents own a car. Another significant
insight is that in the USA, despite
»
Data for the regions The data are mainly from the years 2007 to 2010 * Annual figures
Characteristic USA Canada Australia EU 27 S SIN/HK
Total population density per square km 33 4 3 115 6,196
Passenger cars per 1,000 persons 784 584 655 464 73
Motor cycles per 1,000 persons 25 18 25 61 17
Length of road per person (meters) 21.5 30.8 39.1 9.3 0.5
Length of rail lines per person (meters) 0.9 2.2 1.7 0.4 0.03
Length of road per square km (meters) 713.4 114.6 107.0 1,071.4 2,887.0
Length of rail per square km (meters) 28.3 7.9 5.0 49.1 193.6
Car passenger km per person * 23,685 14,596 15,361 9,460 1,736
Rail passenger km per person * 191 269 669 969 1,788
Bus passenger km per person * 920 911 897 1,088 2,233
Domestic air passenger km per person * 3,089 1,427 2,653 1,152 negligible
Total car, rail, bus and domestic air passenger
km per person * 27,885 17,202 19,580 12,668 5,757
Public transport passenger km as a percentage
of total motorised passenger km 4.0% 6.9% 8.0% 16.2% 69.9%
Domestic air passenger km per person as a
percentage of total motorised passenger km 11.1% 8.3% 13.5% 9.1% negligible
Car passenger km per car * 30,220 24,984 23,832 20,404 23,671
Car passenger km per km of road * 1,102,664 474,623 399,169 1,012,175 3,725,014
Car passenger km per square km * 786,648 54,401 42,709 1,084,432 10,754,189
Rail passenger km per km of route * 224,992 126,343 368,839 2,260,568 57,210,366
Rail passenger km per square km * 6,357 1,004 1,861 111,034 11,078,692
Bus passenger km per km of road * 42,166 29,613 23,298 116,374 4,792,550
Bus passenger km per square km * 30,082 3,394 2,493 124,682 13,836,187
Number of airports per 100,000 persons 4.9 4.1 2.1 0.7 0.1
Number of airports per 1,000 square km 1.65 0.15 0.06 0.78 5.53
Transport deaths per 100,000 persons * 12.9 9.7 8.3 8.6 3.8
4/2011 its magazine 17

Focus
Hong Kong subway map: With an average of 194 rail meters per square kilometer, this Chinese
special administrative zone and Singapore range far above Europe
having by far the highest car ownership
in this sample, the cars work harder too.
Each car in the US car fleet caters for
30,220 passenger kilometers per year on
average, whereas in Canada and Australia
the value is 24,984 and 23,832 respectively.
In Europe, by contrast, each car
provides 20,404 passenger kilometers
of personal mobility per year.
For PT share, too,
Hong Kong and
Singapore are
playing in a league
of their own
When looking at the use of public transport
systems on both the national and the
urban level, the clearest differences are in
rail: While the US may have a relatively extensive
rail infrastructure, the usage of the
system is very low (only 191 passenger
kms per person annually). Rail usage by
the average European reaches five times
this value (969), a rate that is only exceeded
by an astonishing 1,788 passenger km
per person in Hong Kong and Singapore. In
terms of annual bus passenger kilometers
per person, the USA (920), Canada (911)
Australia (897) and the EU (1,088) are all
18 its magazine 4/2011
relatively close to each other. But again,
Singapore and Hong Kong are on a quite
different scale in counting 2,233 passenger
km per person.
In the air, in contrast, the USA are ahead
of the rest, with 3,089 annual passenger
km per person. Australia (2,653) makes a
close second place, while the EU is far behind
with an annual 1,152 passenger km.
In general, passenger travel by marine
modes plays only a very minor role in all
regions considered. In the EU-27, marine
travel accounts for a mere 83 passenger
km per person annually. Even Hong Kong,
which boasts a significant ferry network,
reaches only a value of 54 on this factor.
The distances traveled by walking and
cycling deserve more detailed scrutiny,
even though data on the actual distances
traveled by these modes are hard to find.
What the available numbers do show,
however, is that European cities lead the
way in walking and cycling. Western and
Eastern European cities average around
25% to 30% of daily trips by walking and
cycling, while Singapore and Hong Kong
average around 20% and American, Canadian
and Australian cities reach only
about 11%.
The calculation of the share of public
transport in overall motorized mobility
provides two important insights: The rate
in the EU reaches a handsome 16%, about
twice the value of Australia and Canada
and four times more than in the USA. Of
course, with a rate of 70%, Hong Kong
Bridge across the Singapore River: The situation in the smallest of the Southeast Asian states and in
Hong Kong highlights the impact of confined space on the transport patterns in wealthy environments

and Singapore are playing in a league of
their own again. The other important
point to note is that in the USA, Canada
and Australia, the share of air travel in
overall motorized mobility is higher than
the share of public transport, whereas in
the EU it is a little over half as much as by
public transport.
An analysis of European transport systems
must of course include the aspect of
transport safety. Both from an emotional
and an economic viewpoint, the number
of transport deaths are in the focus of attention.
This sad statistics is clearly led by
the USA with 12.9 transport-related deaths
per 100,000 people per year, followed by
Canada and Australia (averaging 9.0) and
the EU (8.6). With their transport systems
being the most oriented to non-car modes,
Hong Kong and Singapore are the safest
of all (“only” 3.8 transport deaths per
100,000 people).
In conclusion, we can say that on the
whole, the European transport systems are
relatively diversified in regard to the use of
different transport modes, including a significant
proportion of intra-urban trips covered
by walking or cycling. For obvious
reasons, car-dependency in Europe is higher
than in Singapore or Hong Kong, but
also clearly below the rates for Northern
America or Australia. On this basis, the EU
seems better positioned to adapt to future
developments in connection with climate
change and the growing scarcity of fossil
energy sources. Thus transport policy in
“Europe” seems to live up to the visionary
quality embodied in the ancient Greek
meaning of the continent’s name – “the
wide-gazing lady.” «
Personal background
Professor Dr. Jeffrey Kenworthy is Professor
in Sustainable Cities at the Curtin
University Sustainability Policy Institute
(CUSP) of Curtin University in Perth,
Australia. At the moment he works as
guest professor at the Department of
Human Geography at Goethe University
in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. His research
currently focuses, among other
topics, on international comparisons of
transport infrastructures and land use
in cities, urban development patterns
and their economic, environmental
and social effects, traffic management
and traffic policy, public transport systems,
as well as urban planning and
energy conservation in transportation.
Tickets
without
borders
EU traffic legislation n Until now, the majority of
motorists having offended against the traffic regulations
abroad were able to avoid any financial
penalty. The European Union now wants to
change all that. From 2013 there will be a new
directive to facilitate the prosecution of offenders
across national borders.
Every year, just before the summer vacation,
the automobile clubs wag a finger
and issue warnings accompanied by
colorful tables full of numbers and heading
such as, “What it will cost if you break
the traffic regulations on holiday.” Underneath
there are a few daunting examples:
“Parking offence in Spain? Up to €200!
Using your mobile while driving in Italy?
A hefty €150! 20 kph over the speed limit
in Norway? From €465!”
That’s the theory. In practice, however,
the drivers who are affected are generally
those caught red-handed on the spot. For
everyone else, the matter is more or less
over – until now, hardly any tickets have
been sent through the post. It is true
that in fall of 2010, an EU Framework Decision
made it possible to enforce fines in
another member state – at least from a
purely legal point of view. But that seems
not to have solved the real problem – the
high administrative costs of determining
the driver or owner of the vehicle.
This is exactly where a new directive
adopted by the European Parliament last
summer comes in. It provides for a central
database to be set up by 2013, which will
enable the competent national authorities
to locate vehicle owners in just a few clicks.
And agreement has also been reached on
the priorities for the cross-border prosecution
of traffic offenders, namely speeding,
not stopping at a red light, not wear-
ing a seat belt, and drunk driving. These
are the four offenses that are currently
responsible for around 75 percent of the
40,000 traffic deaths on Europe’s roads
every year.
Although the United Kingdom, Ireland
and Denmark are not participating in these
measures, and the agreement to cooperate
is limited to fines and leaves out other
sanctions such as the suspension of driving
licenses, the EU Commission believes
that the implementation of the directive
will make an effective contribution to
improving road safety – and thus constitutes
an important element in their program
that aims to halve the number of
traffic fatalities in Europe by 2020.
Their hope is not unjustified. The statistics
show that while only five percent
of motorists on Europe’s roads are from
abroad, on average they account for 15
percent of speeding offenses. In France,
where transit and tourist traffic has traditionally
played a major role, up to 50 percent
of all speeding offenses are committed
by foreign drivers, particularly when
traffic is heavy. “Many people seem to think
that when they cross the border, the rules
do not apply to them any more,” said EU
Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas (see
also the interview, from page 4). “My
message to these drivers is this: The rules
do apply to everyone – and now we are
going to enforce them.” «
4/2011 its magazine 19

Trends & Events
Middle Eastern success story
Gulf Traffic 2011 n Featuring an
even more varied program and a
larger exhibition space than last
year, the industry’s most important
trade fair for the Middle East
opened its doors from December
12 to 14, 2011, in Dubai. More
than 200 exhibitors, including
Russian companies for the first
time, presented their highlights
for traffic and transport infrastructure
at the Convention and
Exhibition Center. The intensive
local interest sparked by the exhibition
comes as no surprise: The
countries organized in the Gulf
Cooperation Council alone
(Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia,
Boulevard of
the Future
eCarTec 2011 n Within no more than two years
after its start, the new series of events launched
by MunichExpo has already become firmly established
as the leading international trade fair on
electric mobility. Between October 18 and 20,
2011, close to 12,000 visitors followed the invitation
to “Join the eMobility Revolution“ and
flocked to the premises of Neue Messe München
for a compact overview of the current state of
the technology. One of the visitor magnets on
the Boulevard of the Future was the uniquely
complete Siemens product range, covering all areas
of electric mobility from modern power generation
and distribution approaches or solutions
for the creation of a cost-efficient electric charging
infrastructure right up to the components
required for eCar sharing schemes and innovative
drives and controls for electric vehicles. «
20 its magazine 4/2011
Top-flight visitors at the Siemens booth: The patron of the fair,
H.E. LT. General Dhali Khalfan Tamim, Chief of Police in Dubai
Motor for the
world economy
ITS World Congress 2011 n “Keeping
the Economy Moving“ was the
slogan for the 18th global meeting
on intelligent transport systems on
October 16 to 20, 2011, in Orlando,
Florida. Before the keynote address
by Bill Ford Jr., Executive Chairman
of Ford Motor Company, wrapped
up the event, visitors from 65 coun-
Focused discussion: The congress in Orlando was all about
the newest in intelligent transport solutions
Qatar, United Arab Emirates and
Oman) are planning road and rail
investments in the amount of
nearly US$100 billion by 2020.
At the Siemens Mobility booth,
top-flight visitors focused their
attention mainly on innovative
toll solutions, modern adaptive
traffic control systems for urban
traffic and a new monitoring
camera with number plate recognition
function. Due to the growing
success of the trade fair, the
event now takes place every year
instead of every second year. Accordingly
the next Gulf Traffic,
this time in Abu Dhabi, is scheduled
for 2012. «
tries took the opportunity to learn
about tomorrow’s mobility options
on 32,000 sqm of exhibition space
and in more than 300 sessions.
Siemens Mobility was present with
a whole range of solutions for intelligent
traffic systems, for instance
very large multi-touch control panels
for traffic control centers, a special
iPhone and iPad
application for road
traffic management,
eCar sharing
schemes, an innovative
traffic light
control solution
based on the signals
from drivers’
mobile phones –
and of course the
multi-talented
Sitraffic Epos-P,
which combines
the functions of
a pay-and-displaymachine
with those
of an electric car
charging system in
a single device. «

Connection for
higher quality
Düsseldorf n With the goal of enabling systematic
quality assurance for public transport
priorization at traffic lights, the public transport
provider Rheinbahn AG was linked up
with the traffic computer of North-Rhine-
Westphalia’s capital. A client interface now
allows the convenient monitoring of the reference
values for the log-on and log-off signals
of public transport vehicles at traffic signal
installations and on route sections with
new switching programs. The management
tool implemented in Sitraffic Scala 1.5 automatically
detects and immediately reports
any deviations from pre-defined tolerances
or threshold values. As a result, the system
link-up helps secure the investment in the
public transport priorization system. «
Refueling with
solar power
Erlangen n Regional media celebrated the
installation of a solar power car charging
system right behind Erlangen’s city hall
as an important step in implementing the
more general use of alternative energies.
What makes this system special is that it
not only provides power to electric vehicles,
but also produces the necessary
electric energy itself. For this purpose,
three parking spaces are now roofed with
a photoelectric panel construction producing
about 6,000 kilowatt-hours annually,
enough for roughly 30,000 kilometers
of emission-free mobility. «
VIP customer: Lord mayor Siegfried Balleis (r)
inaugurates the solar charging station
Moving about the city
Belgrad n As Serbian trade journalists
calculated, drivers travelling
every day between the Cvetkova pijaca
market square and the Vukov
spomenik monument in the inner
city of the Balkan metropolis will
now save about 50 minutes per
Programmed time savings: For the traffic lights on the Bulevar
kralja Aleksandra in Belgrade an adaptive control is used
month on average. These regular
time savings have been made possible
by the municipal transport authorities,
who ordered the country’s first
adaptive network control system for
the 15 intersections along the Bulevar
kralja Aleksandra. The innovative
MOTION system processes data re-
Countdown for
increased road safety
Wuhan n The need to improve traffic
safety for the city’s 4.2 million
inhabitants was the main driver
behind the responsible authorities’
decision to have the traffic light
installations in the capital of the
Hubei province of China equipped
with so-called countdown displays.
These displays tell the road users
how many seconds are left before
the traffic light will switch from
Partners & Projects
corded by detectors to continuously
analyze the current traffic situation
and uses special algorithms to calculate
the corresponding optimum
signal switching programs for the
individual traffic light installations.
The positive effect, says Ljubiša
Ljubić , head of Belgrad’s
municipal
transport department,
is obvious:
“Streets counting
more vehicles are
assigned longer
green phases,
streets with less
vehicles are given
longer red phases.”
The Serbian
trade journalists,
by the way, personally
tested
the operation of
MOTION and pub-
lished detailed
results of their research.
One such
result was, “We observed
that, within a few minutes, the
duration of a […] phase can vary by
more than 20 seconds […] depending
on traffic density. We never
found a green traffic light when
there were no cars approaching
while cars were waiting at a red light
on the other street.” «
red to green. According to early
surveys by the local authorities,
already shortly after its completion
the measure has led to a significant
reduction in red-light offenses.
Besides increased road safety,
the countdown displays help reduce
overall pollutant emissions
because the additional information
enables road users to drive more
proactively. «
4/2011 its magazine 21

Know-how & Research
The virtue
of being
miserly
EU Project eCoMove n Although alternative drive systems are the most widely
discussed options for reducing transport-related emissions they are certainly
not the only ones on the table. Experts are also promising significant
effects from intelligent transport systems that have the potential to become
reality much sooner.
The response in the media was quite
mixed when one of the biggest names in
the European electronics market took the
decision to cast one of the cardinal sins as
the core of an advertising campaign. In the
context of the EU’s eCoMove project, a
positive representation of the virtue of being
miserly, however, seem beyond criticism.
Because it is a fact that every drop
of fuel burnt in a vehicle engine produces
CO2 as a combustion by-product, which
migrates into our atmosphere where it
plays an undesirable role in a complex
chain of events.
Throughout the world, road traffic is responsible
for about 17 percent of all CO2
emissions, of which cargo transport in turn
accounts for some 30 to 40 percent.
Despite the many and diverse efforts that
are going into alternative types of drives
and energy vectors, there is scant prospect
of overcoming this problem in the short to
medium term. So it makes perfect sense
for the European Union to look elsewhere
for viable solutions – from the economic
viewpoint, for reasons of competitiveness
and also with an eye to limited fossil resources
and global warming. This has
prompted the EU to raise the topics of energy
efficiency and low-carbon economy
to the very top of their agenda and to pro-
22 its magazine 4/2011
vide support with a range of programs and
action plans. The Strategic Energy Technology
Plan (SET) and the Intelligent Energy
Europe Program (IEE) are just two examples
of these initiatives. In this context, discussion
often turns to so-called 20-20-20
goals, which encapsulate the aim of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent,
growing renewable energy production by
20 percent and increasing energy efficiency
by 20 percent, all by the year 2020.
Parts of these action plans are related to
road transport efficiency. A considerable
potential has been identified in this area,
which intelligent traffic technologies can
help in exploiting. One of the major integrated
research initiatives in this field is
eCoMove, a project started in the spring of
2010 by a consortium of 32 European
partners. The project’s basic aim is to reduce
overall emissions from the entire road
traffic by up to 20 percent, with the aid of
systematic cooperation between vehicles
and infrastructure.
eCoMove is concentrating on three
areas in which optimizations will combine
to deliver a corresponding reduction in
fuel consumption, namely driver behavior,
route selection for vehicles on the
network and last but not least traffic
control and traffic management. The
following components form the project’s
technological basis:
• extended vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicleto-infrastructure
communication with
comprehensive data protocols that
integrate present consumption figures
from individual vehicles;
• models for short-term in-vehicle forecasting
that calculate the most likely
trajectory of the vehicle;
• emissions and network models that
are capable of calculating reliable estimates
for the consumption of all vehicles
for a given road section and moment
in time, using individual vehicle
consumption figures and other traffic
condition data;
• network models which are capable of
determining the optimum distribution
of traffic flows on the network from
the point of view of fuel consumption.
With this firm technical footing, novel
types of driver assistance systems can come
into play at the individual vehicle level.
Grouped under the concept of ecoSmart-
Driving, these assistants support a driver
before, during and after a journey with tips
on driving style adapted to prevailing conditions
and situation and to the emissions
profile of the vehicle. What makes this assistance
system especially innovative is the

supply of comprehensive information about
the surrounding traffic situation collected
from other vehicles and the infrastructure.
This enables it to calculate short-term forecasts
about the further trip profile, from
which it can then derive the optimum
speed profile and driving maneuvers.
Taken together, these systems will not
only enable improved training for drivers
employed by freight and logistics companies,
but also the conception of general
incentive systems that will help reinforce
the positive effect. At the level of route
planning, too, company headquarters will
be able to leverage the additional economic
planning and route information as
a means of minimizing energy consumption
and hence, costs.
In the field of traffic control and traffic
management systems, eCoMove addresses
three distinct optimization approaches
at the network, road segment and intersection
levels. At the network level the
project endeavors to control traffic and
distribute it around the road network in
such a way as to reduce the total consumption
of all vehicles on the road by the
greatest possible amount. This includes
routing support for vehicles on the basis
of a calculated optimum distribution of
traffic flows on the network. For individual
road sections there is an enhanced control
of green waves, which sends speed information
to the vehicles floating with the
wave, keeping groups of vehicles together.
At individual intersections a novel type of
signal control is being trialed, which connects
with approaching vehicles and assigns
vehicle-specific priorities.
To validate and verify the applications
and services developed under eCoMove,
several test areas have been set up in Berlin,
Turin and Munich, in Helmond in the
Netherlands and on some motorways in
France. Once trouble-free technical interoperability
has been proven for the components,
the focus will shift to quantifying
the actual saving effects that can be achieved
by the processes that have been developed.
To arrive at robust conclusions, the fieldbased
investigations will be complemented
by a simulation environment that will reproduce
the Munich and Helmond test areas.
The development of these models offers
two additional advantages. To begin
with, it is an opportunity to investigate in
how far the effectiveness of the scheme
depends on the penetration rate of vehicles
equipped with eCoMove systems.
Moreover, it will be possible to pinpoint
the impact of the combination of different
applications and services and the most efficient
ways of achieving the targeted consumption
savings of up to 20%. «
In the side-view mirror
The journey
is the destination
The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy once said: “Europe is
not a place, it is an idea.” As far as mobility is concerned, there’s
something in that.
Travelling through Europe can mean
far more than simply covering the
route from A to B. The simplest of
journeys can transform into a profound
experience - dramatic, often genuinely
mystical and always probing some
existential question or other.
European literature is richly laced
with proof of this, and sometimes richly
laced with blood. The Nibelungenlied
recounts how a journey from the Rhine
to the court of Attila, King of the Huns,
culminates in slaughter. Bram Stoker,
the Irish author of “Dracula”, describes
journeys between London and Transylvania
as a hardcore horror trip. And
when queen of crime writing Agatha
Christie turned her hand to the drama
of the voyage, her novel “Murder on the
Orient Express” became less a description
of a winter trip by rail from Istanbul
to Calais than an account of a sudden
death and its ramifications.
Or take a look at voyages by sea and
how they give rise to all the heavy hitting
emotions: love, madness, jealousy.
We need look no further than Zeus, supreme
among the gods of Antiquity,
who appeared in the guise of a bull and
carried away the Phoenician princess
Europa from Asia Minor to Crete. Of
course the mother of all maritime ad-
ventures is the Odyssey, undertaken by
the Greek hero who gave the epic its
name. How this seafarer contrived to
spend ten years taking one perilous
detour after another instead of sailing a
direct course for his none-too-distant
home is the stuff of great cinema.
Some of these archetypal European
journeys resonate to this very day. It’s
exactly 2,230 years since a certain Hannibal
led more than 50,000 soldiers,
9,000 cavalry and 37 elephants over the
snowbound Alps to attack Rome. But
the idea is still around today; in the
countries north of the Alps, travel invasions
are a tradition. Every year, hundreds
of thousands of pale-skinned holidaymakers
descend on Italy like so many
Hannibals and lay claim to the best
bits of beach.
At a fundamental level, we are less
interested in being away, but more in
being under way, which is the quintessence
of mobility. To the farthest-flung
of our outposts, this is one of Europe’s
export successes. The inhabitants of the
island of Saba in the Dutch Antilles own
800 cars between them, which they
drive on the island’s single 14.5 kilometer
road. Day in, day out, the Sabanese
sit in the jam, living a wonderful idea:
The journey is the destination. «
4/2011 its magazine 23

Mobility & Living Space
Veltins-Arena, access road: “Auf Schalke” the authorities know the different traffic patterns chapter and verse
24 its magazine 4/2011

There and back
Traffic control for events n Whenever an audience of umpteen thousand
fans is heading to the stadium to watch the ball fly into the net, the neighboring
streets have to cope with exceptional conditions. Over time, however,
the city of Gelsenkirchen has developed a good handle on this motorized
swarm. Directed by the city’s custom-built traffic management
system, visitors to major events generally enjoy a smooth trip to the
Veltins-Arena – and back to the motorway.
A soccer team ranking among Germany’s
best? Of course, but such a dispassionate
definition could only come from
someone who does not sleep between
Schalke-blue bedsheets. For its fans, FC
Schalke 04 has always been much, much
more. Schalke is their cult, their religion
even, as former manager Rudi Assauer
once claimed during a discussion on ethics
at the Evangelical Church Congress. In any
case, during the 2010/11 season, Schalke
was certainly reason enough for an average
of 61,320 spectators to make the pilgrimage
to the Veltins-Arena, putting it
at the top of the German Bundesliga table
for attendance with a 99.4 percent rate.
While the hearts of the home fans have
always gone out to their blue-jerseyed galacticos,
others such as Bruce Springsteen,
Robbie Williams and Metallica have also
rocked the arena. The Klitschko brothers
both defended their clunky world title belts
“Auf Schalke,” as the stadium was called at
its opening in 2001. In 2010, now called
the Veltins-Arena, the stadium was the
scene of a genuine world record at the
World Ice Hockey Championships, when
Germany beat red-hot favorites USA 2:1
in front of 77,803 spectators, a figure unprecedented
in the annals of ice hockey.
Even from bare numbers alone it is easy
to understand the burden that faces the
road network surrounding the Schalke
shrine in the hours immediately before and
after events like these. For those in charge
of mobility in Gelsenkirchen, these exceptional
traffic conditions have long since
lost their horrors. The stadium’s generous
links to the local road network and an intelligent,
customized traffic management
system leave them generally well-equipped
to efficiently channel the motorized streams
of spectators.
The overall traffic management concept
around the Veltins-Arena mastered its bap-
tism of fire during the Soccer World Cup in
2006. With time in hand before that festival
of friendship, the A2 motorway had
been expanded to six lanes as far down as
to the Gelsenkirchen-Buer access point,
while an additional exit had been added
to the A42. The heart of this solution package,
however, is an event-specific system
for dynamic route control that guides
traffic to its destination along the fastest
available route.
A total of ten variable information panels
present visitors with a choice of routes depending
on the prevailing traffic situation
and the occupancy conditions in the parking
lots around the stadium. Special switching
plans for some 60 nearby traffic signal
groups maintain the maximum possible
flow of traffic on recommended routes.
Their programs are based on empirical data
from earlier events and also on measured
traffic levels. In case of unexpected incidents
such as accidents or technical disruptions,
experts can of course intervene in
the system’s control manually at any time.
This is all orchestrated by a traffic computer
of the Sitraffic Scala type, which collects,
stores and processes all relevant data.
The computer can be operated via a convenient
graphical interface and it keeps the
local experts permanently informed on
the state of affairs, such as which signal
programs and response plans are currently
active. “Besides its superior efficiency, it was
operating convenience that persuaded us
to choose this system,” says Andrea Herold
from the Gelsenkirchen municipal transport
board. “A short training session was all it
took for our engineers to get to grips with
its many and varied possibilities.”
The availability of this multitude of
options generally makes it easy to define
the ideal parameters catering to the very
diverse demands that arise from different
events. For the transport managers, FC
Schalke 04’s Bundesliga matches have long
been a home game, also in a metaphorical
sense. They know the typical traffic patterns
chapter and verse and are only rarely
forced to resort to manual interventions.
Things are somewhat different in the case
of concerts. The first wave of arrivals generally
comes much earlier than it does for
soccer matches and the visitors tend to
include greater numbers from outside the
area. These are the kind of factors that traffic
management has to take account of.
The thing that is common to all events
is the enormous difference between inbound
and out-bound traffic patterns:
While the arrival of an audience might be
spread over several hours, depending on
the type of event, once the final whistle
goes or the last encore fades, everyone
wants out of the stadium at once and simultaneously.
In these situations, eventspecific
control brings the highest benefits
– not just for the visitors and other road
users in the city, but also for instance in
neighboring Herne, where appropriate signal
plans can be selected on the basis of
the event data supplied. As Andrea Herold
concedes: “Of course we can’t promise
our guests that they’ll never see a tailback
again, but today, things are running very
smoothly all in all. And with every passing
event, we’re learning more and more.”
Meanwhile in Gelsenkirchen, the reliability
of the system can also be judged,
and here the testimony is every bit as encouraging.
“Since 2006 and the Soccer
World Cup, we have been using the most
important components exactly as they
were installed at the time, with the exception
of a few optimizations,” says Andrea
Herold. “And apart from the beginning,
when we were naturally observing the effects
in great detail, we hardly ever need to
discuss the system at all now. That’s good
sign, wouldn‘t you say?” «
4/2011 its magazine 25

Profile
“Europe has got it”
Interview n Thilo Jourdan, head of Worldwide Sales at Siemens ITS, talks
about current trends in international traffic engineering markets and his
team’s consulting-led approach to the development of customized infrastructure
facilities for cities and regions.
Mr. Jourdan, as head of Siemens’ global
sales team you keep a constant overview
of the entire world of traffic engineering.
What distinguishes the markets
in different parts of the world from
one another?
In essence, the diversity of the markets is
a reflection of the diversity of the countries,
cultures, infrastructure conditions
and people. This means that the different
stages of development within each individual
region of the world ultimately
determine their interests and needs as
regards traffic engineering. In Western
countries, networked and centrally controlled
traffic management systems are in
the spotlight. In the so-called BRIC countries
– Brazil, Russia, India and China –
things have not yet progressed quite that
far. At the moment, for them it’s all about
the reliable operation of individual systems
and about today’s investments not
hampering any future developments. But
in the long term, integrated solution scenarios
are looking more and more attractive
to these countries as well and are
sometimes already ordered and implemented
today.
“ Europe struggles
with the outcomes
of the crisis”
What are traffic managers in Europe
concentrating on at the moment?
In Europe, the aftermath of the economic
crisis two years ago is the most acute
problem, because the lack of tax revenue
is affecting the budgets available for developing
the infrastructure. In case the
debt burden of the EU states is now going
to trigger a similar recession, we will face
the same problem again in two years’ time
– but it will be even worse than before.
26 its magazine 4/2011
That’s why at present the European countries’
primary concern is to maintain the
current status and the existing traffic infrastructure.
New investments are expected
to show a faster pay-off – if there is a business
model involved at all. So two possibilities
are currently under discussion – more
efficient parking management and toll
collection systems for both motorways and
“Europe’s liberal approach
to legislation brings many
advantages, but also a few
drawbacks. The huge hurdles
to investment plans make us
too slow in implementing
large infrastructure projects”
inner city areas, along the lines of the
London Congestion Charge.
But in most European regions, all this is
still in the planning stage …
Correct. And that’s where we come in. Because
the consulting services provided to
local authorities by Siemens ITS and the
consultants of Siemens Mobility Consult-

ing headed by Dr. Andreas Mehlhorn can
create a win-win situation from which everyone
will profit in the end. That’s why
we approach traffic managers at an early
stage and offer our consulting expertise.
Our customers are not naive – they usually
have their own ideas and vision of how
their cities should look in the future. And
“ We see the city as
an infrastructure
package”
our sales team is able to talk to them on
equal terms. We understand the complex
relationship between transport infrastructure
and the resulting economic effects,
we know about the effect of pollution on
the quality of life and consequently on
the attractiveness of a location to businesses
and people. We don’t just look at
the city purely from a transport perspective,
but rather see it as an infrastructure
package. Our goal is to create an optimized,
energy-efficient transport infrastructure
– for instance through a reduction
in the share of private transport in
favor of public transport.
And what role do your products play in
achieving that?
Of course it is our job to work together
with our customers to find the best solution
also on the level of individual products.
But as we always develop our solutions
with an eye on current market needs,
this is virtually an automatic by-product
of the joint development of a master plan
for the specific infrastructure.
It has often been pointed out in the
trade press that traffic engineering
services play a larger role in the United
States than on the other side of
the Atlantic. Does that fit in with your
experiences?
Our acquisition of Republic ITS has given
us, among other things, access and experience
in the area of public lighting in the
United States. In this area in particular, the
issue of service is of strategic importance
for us, but it is also an important extension
of the work done by our traffic management
teams. Hitherto the focus in the U.S.
has been on the product business, but now
integrated solutions and the provision of
services for systems and solutions is becoming
increasingly important. In addition,
the U.S. market is showing increased
interest in parking technologies, driven by
the need to find additional sources of revenue
for cities. So-called “advanced parking
solutions” are favored here, that is to
say solutions allowing the parking space
providers to boost parking efficiency by
better monitoring parking times, including
more targeted sanctions in case the
latter are exceeded.
In the wake of globalization, the efficiency
and quality of the available transport
infrastructure have increasingly become
key competitive factors. Where
would you place the EU countries in an
international ranking in this respect?
There isn’t a simple answer to this question.
Of course, traffic conditions or infrastructure
are critical economic factors, as
you can see with goods transport for example.
And the well-developed cross-border
road and rail network in Europe, which
has been extended still further in recent
years, certainly is an important factor in
greenfield developments or the retention
of industrial companies. Seen from a global
perspective, this constitutes a location
advantage for Europe that should not be
underestimated. In other parts of the
world there is a backlog of work to be
done, but they are catching up at an impressive
pace.
“ The Schengen
Agreement has made
things easier”
We know that better is the enemy of
good. Is there anything Europe could
learn from other regions?
All in all, we can confidently say that Europe
has “got it.” When it comes to road
and rail networks, we are among the leading
regions. The Schengen Agreement has
also made matters easier for international
trade and travel. Life in European cities is
very attractive – not least in terms of traffic
and transport infrastructure. However,
across Europe and especially in Germany,
we often have to dig deep in our pockets
to take a ride on public transport. In other
countries, the coordination of taxis and
other modes of public transport is often
better. Seen overall, Europe’s liberal approach
to legislation brings many advantages,
but also a few drawbacks. The enormous
hurdles that have to be overcome by
investment plans make us too slow and inflexible
in implementing large infrastruc-
ture projects. Decisions usually take years,
and this frightens off investors. In the future,
we must be faster.
On the other side of the coin, what
can other parts of the world learn from
Europe?
When optimizing their infrastructure, other
countries do not, unfortunately, always
take account of people and their individual
living space. Decision-making within their
bureaucracy is faster, but sometimes the
citizens’ growing claim to improved quality
of life is forgotten about. This requires a
rethink, because people only feel happy in
a truly livable environment, which in turn
contributes to growth in the region.
Finally, a personal question: How
would you like to travel to work in
20 years’ time?
Preferably in an autonomous, individual
vehicle, which will transport me there
without my having to do anything or pay
any attention. I would like to travel independently,
but without having to worry
about the traffic.
Mr. Jourdan, thanks for talking to us. «
Thilo Jourdan:
Career milestones at a glance
• Born 1965
• 1985-1988: Studies in Electrical Engineering
at the College of Applied
Sciences of the University of the
German Armed Forces in Munich
• 1984-1992: Officer career in the
German Armed Forces
• 1992-1997: Various career stations
and functions in sales, sales management
and helpdesk support at Uniplex,
an American software company
• 1997-1998: Sales Manager for the
ARCIS product line at Siemens Nixdorf
• 1998-1999: Senior Consultant Sales
at Siemens Business Services for the
Industry business
• 1999-2004: Various managerial positions
(Senior Sales Representative,
Head of the Distrikt Süd) at Siemens
Business Services in the Product-
Related Services business
• 2004-2010: Executive positions (incl.
Member of the Management Board
of the Region Südbayern, head of the
Business Development department)
at Siemens AG
• Since 2010: Head of Worldwide Sales
for Intelligent Traffic Systems at
Siemens Mobility
4/2011 its magazine 27