European Commission, Directorate General XIII

Financial support

The roles of the public and private sectors also need to be clarified – for example, should directives or incentives be given to encourage wider telematics deployment of transport ? The public sector has an important role to play in the strategic development of transport telematics but should they be more involved and perhaps share some of the risks ? The public sector may often shoulder responsibility for data collection, at the start of the information chain, in order to stimulate services and to retain matters relating to road safety, traffic flow and road management.

Public-private partnerships may offer an alternative finance option and there are many examples emerging throughout Europe. The Poznan case study provides a prime example of public-private co-operation where challenges were overcome through a combination of professional and commercial commitment.

Strategic Planning

Defining the concept plan

The Plan will define the framework for future progress and will recognise the objectives, technical and other requirements, potential actors and their possible contributions. The technical requirements include system architecture, communications infrastructure and standards; the institutional framework needs to deal with the various traffic and highway agencies, road transport operators, telecommunications providers and other key stakeholders. Telematics may not fit neatly under existing organisational job descriptions, so some organisations may need to rethink their mission with a transport telematics component added.

Identify the stakeholders

Transportation professionals involved in planning transport telematics projects need to secure support from all the major organisations and agencies who will be associated with transport telematics deployment. The list of organisations potentially involved can be long and will include the agencies involved in operating the major highways, the local authorities responsible for the main arterial roads and local roads, the traffic police and other traffic management agencies, as well as the operators of commercial transport telematics services on behalf of vehicle fleet operators, public transport and private motorists. Normally the senior managers of these public agencies and the chief executives of the private sector companies would be involved in transport telematics concept plan definition.

Each stakeholder’s perceived problems, expectations, and potential role needs to be identified. It is important to involve people with the right, or at least adequate, skills and to identify and cultivate a top-level champion(s) who can get endorsement of the transport telematics master plan by the key decision makers.

Make an inventory of the existing transport telematics systems

Another important input to the transport telematics concept plan will be an inventory of the existing transport telematics systems and services that are already operating or under development. This follows naturally from the analysis of stakeholders. For example, some of the highway agencies may already be operating some form of highway management system, incident detection and management and traffic signal control. To this might be added a public transport management system, emergency management and advanced information systems in the pipeline.

Analyse regional transportation needs

The transport telematics concept plan must build on an analysis of regional transportation needs. This can be drawn up by the authors of the plan through discussion and meetings with the major stakeholders and augmented, if appropriate, by a dialogue with key decision-makers and politicians. Transportation needs and problems can then be grouped into those to be addressed in the near term (next five years) and in the longer term. Transport telematics functions or user services relevant to the regional needs should be identified and prioritised.

Assess the potential for transport telematics

The concept plan must assess the potential for transport telematics to meet the short-term and long-term needs. The analysis must consider the technological, financial and organisational risks involved. A judgement must be made about whether cost-effectiveness in the use of public funds and/or commercial viability can be demonstrated. Transport telematics options need to be evaluated in comparison with plausible non-transport telematics solutions. Any potentially serious gaps and shortcomings in the legacy systems should be identified.

This analysis can be helped by the information about the predicted benefits and costs of transport telematics. Specific objectives and measures of benefits and effectiveness can be identified at this stage. Where transport telematics shows through strongly against these tests, it will not only be because it is cost-effective in comparison with other options but because it serves the central objectives of the main stakeholders' programs. In other words, transport telematics benefit/cost ratios must be superior not only in aggregate but also in distribution to the main stakeholders. It may make sense to choose small projects first which have a high probability of early success in order to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of transport telematics. The successful transport telematics elements will form the basis of the regional transport telematics concept plan.

Specify the requirements for transport telematics architecture

As they develop, transport telematics systems will deliver a wide range of services and support a diversity of activities in many different organisations. However, the technology is purely the means to an end. Therefore when looking at the system architecture for transport telematics it is important to keep in mind exactly what functions the systems are required to perform and for whom. Architecture analysis helps to define the boundaries for the transport telematics systems being considered and determine what performance is needed. Large systems like transport telematics should be analysed in terms of:

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  the activities that take place
  
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  the roles that people are required to play
  
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  the interactions that take place, between the organisation, the system and the environment in which the system and organisation are placed.
  

Documentation

To complete the transport telematics concept plan it is advisable to develop documentation, which will set out the proposals and provide a basis for discussion of the requirements with all the stakeholders. These documents will form the basis for refinement and consensus building during the subsequent stages of implementation process. Together they will provide a comprehensive statement of what is to be achieved and the priorities. Examples are:

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  A mission definition statement summarising the key objectives and priorities for investment in transport telematics;
  
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  A popular “vision statement” to explain to lay people and politicians what will be achieved if investment in transport telematics goes ahead;
  
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  A more substantial prospectus proposing an implementation strategy for transport telematics, outlining the role to be played by all the major stakeholders;
  
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  A transport telematics architecture reference framework document.
  

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