Debate: Intelligent Road Transport Systems
Date: MONDAY, 2 OCTOBER 2023
Speaker: Rovana Plumb
Country: Poland
Language: EN

In such a world, traffic will be a challenge. These vehicles will need to be aware of each other’s position, direction and speed. They will need to trust each other in order to avoid very literally bumping into each other. This requires direct communication between different actors instantly and at any time. The first cars equipped for such a world are entering the European market right now, and the road operators are preparing their roads and starting to equip them for these new circumstances. The ITS Directive is part of a package of legislative initiatives aimed at contributing to reaching the goals of decarbonisation, digitalisation and a greater resilience in transport infrastructure. This directive was designed to be the framework for accelerating and coordinating the deployment and use of the ITS applied to road transport and its interfaces with other transport modes. A radical reform of the legislative framework was necessary to step up to the challenge of the current technological developments. We succeeded to reach an agreement on the ITS Directive on the second and last trilogue on 8 June this year. This result was reached due to the substantial evolution in the Council’s position since the first trilogue in December last year. Thanks to this work, to the valuable support and cooperation from the Commission and to the unity and ambition of the Parliament’s negotiating team, we were able to successfully close this negotiation. The most important elements obtained during the last trilogue are: the types of data and services to be made available are set out in Annex III and IV of the directive. Attached to all these data types are now deadlines by which all new information should be made available. Many data types also have a deadline for the stock of older data to be made available. In certain cases, for the data that are the most difficult to collect, the text still foresees the possibility to have delegated acts to define the deadline for the stock data. To be able to set deadlines, the text establishes differentiated geographical scopes for the different data types and sometimes within data types. For example, road closure should be made available by the end of 2025 for the TEN-T core network and by the end of 2026 for the comprehensive TEN-T network. Finally, the text introduces a review clause in 2028. We are aware that many people expected even more, but, despite the very narrow mandate of the Council, we were able to secure some additional gains during the trilogue, mainly focused on safety issues, in particular the speed limits and the parking spaces. We were able to obtain the following: on some data types, the Council had introduced a threshold of 8 500 vehicles for some primary roads and roads in urban nodes to be included. Parliament managed to lower this threshold to 7 000 vehicles for the roads concerned in urban nodes, therefore enlarging the geographical scope for several data types, including, but not limited to, speed limits. Regarding the dynamic data on availability of parking places, we obtained one year earlier implementation: instead of 31 December 2028, it will be 31 December 2027. Finally, we obtained the addition of a new recital encouraging Member States to make data accessible as soon as possible also for parts of the road network that are not within the geographical scope defined in Annex III. Dear colleagues, the agreement reached will contribute to citizens’ safety on more secure roads, to significant improvements in performance of transport networks, operations and services, while fostering connectivity and facilitating cooperation. Moreover, it initiates a process that will facilitate a faster deployment of intelligent transport systems. I would like to thank all shadow rapporteurs, the EP and the S&D secretariat, the Council and the European Commission for a very, very good collaboration towards a balanced and satisfactory text on this file.