As societies are increasingly faced with natural and human-made catastrophes, the topic of transport resilience has been gaining prominence in the agendas of governments and local authorities. In times of crises, it becomes even more urgent and imperative for transport and mobility systems to withstand and recover quickly from disruptions that may be caused by extreme weather, cyberattacks or infrastructure failures.
Strategies and Investments for a Resilient Transport in Europe
The European Commission has prioritised enhancing the resilience of the EU’s transport sector through a number of strategic initiatives, including the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, launched in December 2020 which outlines a roadmap for the EU transport system’s green and digital transformation. A key component of the strategy is enhancing resilience to crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical events, to ensure the continuity and robustness of transport services through the use of digital technologies and green alternatives.
The Contingency Plan for Transport is another initiative, adopted in May 2022, which draws on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions such as the conflict in Ukraine. It aims to strengthen the EU’s transport resilience during crises, including measures to ensure minimum connectivity, protect travellers and enhance cybersecurity.
Alongside instituting policies and directives, the EU has also allocated significant funding to modernise and enhance the resilience of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). The 2024 Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – Transport Calls for proposals made available €2.5 billion for projects focusing on sustainable, smart, and resilient transport infrastructure.’
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) innovations are instrumental in strengthening transport resilience by improving its safety, efficiency and reliability. By integrating advanced technologies and real-time data, ITS can bolster the capacity of networks and services to adapt to the evolving circumstances and withstand shocks, so that disruptions to the mobility of people and goods are minimised.
ERTICO’s Contribution to Enhancing Resilience in Practice
ERTICO and its partners have been active participants in several EU-funded projects supporting research and innovation in transport resilience through ITS.
In the area of logistics, ERTICO coordinated the 5G-LOGINNOV to optimise logistics operations and improve supply chain resilience through the integration of 5G technology. FENIX developed a federated network of platforms for data sharing and collaboration in logistics to improve the interoperability and connectivity of transport systems, making them more resilient to disruptions and better equipped to handle emergencies. The goal of BOOSTLOG was to enhance the sustainability and resilience of logistics operations and supply chains by promoting green logistics strategies and the use of zero-emission vehicles.
The PLOTO project intends to increase the resilience of Inland WaterWays (IWW) infrastructures and the connected land infrastructures so that the network remains available despite extreme weather conditions and other menacing circumstances. The technological pillars of the project include computer vision, digital twins, data fusion, incident management and decision support systems, among others.
Privateer, a project coordinated by ERTICO Partner ICCS, includes use cases around Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and connected ITS highway systems to test security enablers of 6G networks through a privacy-by-design framework. PoDIUM and ENVELOPE, two other projects coordinated by ICCS projects, focus on maintaining connectivity and ensuring the preparedness and resilience of the physical and digital infrastructure for Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM).
Real-time data analytics play a central role in making systems resilient. The work done within the NAPCORE project aims to expand the availability of interoperable and standardised mobility-related data by coordinated data access and better harmonisation of the European National Access Points. ERTICO’s new project BoostEDIC will allow the aggregation of data from different modes, using digital twins for modelling, to create resilient mobility networks.
In addition to EU-funded projects, ERTICO’s Innovation Platforms also facilitate the implementation of ITS solutions to make transport networks more resilient in diverse ways. The TM2.0 brings together stakeholders from across ITS sectors interested in developing new solutions for advanced traffic management systems that can adapt to and mitigate various disruptions. ERTICO’s newest platform, IDI, launched during the ITS World Congress in Dubai last September, focuses on accelerating the deployment of innovative technologies to enhance sustainability and resilience in multi-modal mobility by integrating ground, air and subterranean transport systems.
“It is clear that a holistic approach to safety, cybersecurity and disaster preparedness is required for transport networks and systems to be robust against challenges. ITS is quickly adopting and integrating technologies like AI, digital twins (DT), augmented reality, etc. to improve efficiency, sustainability and resilience of the mobility chain,” said Vlad Vorotovic, Director of Strategy and Innovation at ERTICO. “With new and emergent technologies comes a lot of unchartered territory that needs exploring, and ERTICO is committed to doing just that through its projects and platforms together with its Partnership”.
Transport resilience will also be one of the topics of the programme of the 16th ITS European Congress in Seville. We invite the entire ITS community to join us and share research, products and services that are part of the innovation in this area.