Overview
There are potentially dozens of new technologies, which will affect transport in the next two decades. Thus a structured approach is necessary, to permit coverage of important and relevant technologies across all modes and allow for more in-depth investigation of perceived critical issues, identified in advance.
HINT aimed to develop a European strategy for managing the human and organisational impacts of the new technologies, mainly in passenger transport, likely to be implemented over the next 10-20 years.
The main objectives of HINT were to:
- identify the relevant technologies covering all modes of transport (road, rail, air and waterborne) as well as intermodal transport services;
- investigate the human factors, organisational and safety implications of relevant technologies utilising integrated cross-modal studies (by topic) to allow for generic findings;
- develop a strategy for managing those impacts of new technologies.
Funding
Results
HINT has produced:
- a strategic approach towards effective technology watch, related to feeding into standards development, information provision to the legislative process, and influencing of research;
- a tactical approach at the application level to cover human and organisational issues by:
- introducing guidelines at international and EU level, addressing obligations and responsibilities of stakeholders for upcoming new technologies;
- encouraging and enforcing the recommended procedures - involving system suppliers and integrators to certificate their products and services - on a national (legislative) level;
- ensuring compliance with best practice experienced at regional and local level through tendering procedures, where suppliers have to prove their qualification and their compliance with current standards, regulations and procedures;
- prompting suppliers and system integrators to self-certificate and subsequently test their products to outlined standards;
- recommendations on the appropriate distribution of responsibilities among equipment manufacturers, vehicle manufacturers, aftermarket suppliers, purchasing agencies, contractors, installers and users, articulated in a formal statement of responsibility by the EU;
- recommendations on stimulating actions, triggered by the EU, for data collection and failure investigation, in order to identify, in particular, safety problems of new technologies.
Policy implications
The study's findings highlight the need to further encourage public/private partnerships on regional and local level, to promote the implementation of new technologies in transport service. The related organisational changes have to be backed and enforced by policy actions. More important, a co-ordinated approach at EU level is needed to harmonise the pace of technology innovation in the transport sector and the connected regulatory process.