Overview
There are more cars and trucks on the roads driving more kilometres. As a result we are facing more traffic jams, higher fuel bills and increased CO2 emissions. More than 40 000 people continue to be killed on EU roads each year. These problems cannot be solved by building additional or extended roads.
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) can contribute to the solution by making transport safer, more efficient and competitive, more sustainable and more secure. ITS does this by applying the latest information and communication technologies (telephone, satellite, computer, etc.) to transport. Examples in road transport include travel information, navigation and Electronic Stability Control (ESC).
Use of ITS in road transport in Europe is still uneven, however. A patchwork of national, regional and local solutions is slowing down overall deployment and fails to provide seamless service.
The FOTsis project falls under Action Area 4 of the ITS Directive and related Action Plan Integration of Vehicle and Transport Infrastructure.In the past many EC-funded research efforts (i.e. AIDE, PROSPER, PREVENT, ISiPADAS…) have approached ITS cooperative systems from a vehicle perspective.
FOTsis (European Field Operational Test on Safe, Intelligent and Sustainable Road Operation) is a large-scale field testing of the road infrastructure management systems needed for the operation of seven close-to-market cooperative I2V, V2I & I2I technologies (the FOTsis Services), in order to assess in detail both 1) their effectiveness and 2) their potential for a full-scale deployment in European roads.
Relying on the common European and open ITS architecture guideline proposal (supported by the project COMeSafety), able to incorporate available and future ITS services and systems, FOTsis aims to contribute to the safety, mobility and sustainability challenges faced nowadays by the European road transport system.
The project represents a major step forward to better connect vehicles, infrastructures and traffic management centres, the main focus being placed on the responsibilities of the road operator.
FOTsis will test the road infrastructure s capability to incorporate the new cooperative systems technology and provide the following services in four European Test-Communities (Spain, Portugal, Germany and Greece) regrouping 9 Test-Sites:
- S1: Emergency Management
- S2: Safety Incident Management
- S3: Intelligent Congestion Control
- S4: Dynamic Route Planning
- S5: Special Vehicle Tracking
- S6: Advanced Enforcement
- S7: Infrastructure Safety Assessment
Using an integral and comprehensive approach, FOTsis will therefore review the road infrastructure and communication networks required to secure a proper connectivity from the traffic control centres (and all the information they already have available, enhanced with the V2I data) with the users/vehicles.