ITS World Congress, Vienna displays latest in ITS

More than 10,000 participants from 91 countries, including 3000 delegates, 2500 visitors and 183 representatives from 22 countries, attended the 19th ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) World Congress held in Vienna from Oct 22 to 26, 2012. The theme of the Congress was ?Smarter on the way?. About 304 companies from 33 countries exhibited the latest ITS products and services while there were 2480 participants in the 23 technical demonstrations. The Vienna Congress was the first ITS Congress which featured a Ministerial round table that included Doris Bures ? Austrian Minister of Transport, Innovation and Technology, Siim Kallas ? Vice-President of the European Commission, German transport minister Peter Ramsauer, ten other international ministers, four vice-ministers and two state secretaries. The ministers pledged to enhance the deployment of ITS and to practically integrate the outcome of future ITS World Congresses into the structuring of political frameworks of EU Member States.

Eight of the technical demonstrations took place in real-time traffic of Vienna. Demonstrations ranged from EV (electric vehicle) journey optimisation showing how ITS helps the visually challenged in their journeys to dangerous goods tracking to parking optimisation. There were Plenary Sessions, Executive Sessions, Special Interest Sessions, Technical/Scientific Sessions and Interactive Sessions at the Congress. The topics discussed and debated included monitoring urban traffic and networks using mobile sensors, traffic management for disasters or extreme conditions, predicting occurrence of traffic accidents, mobility for elderly and disabled people, advances in V-to-X cooperative systems, human behaviour and human factor interventions utilising ITS, possible deployment of highly autonomous vehicles and possibilities of worldwide collaboration on trials of connected vehicle systems.