STA Survey on Smart Sustainability (TC3) highlights that enhanced sustainability performance is at reach

26 September 2018

The STA Technical Committee on  Smart Sustainability, TC3, chaired by Mr César Bartolomé, carried a survey during the month of September to assess the opinion of our readers with regards to the sustainability of transportation infrastructures and Smart Cities.

The survey covered the different key aspects necessary to achieve efficient, climate-resilient and socially-meaningful infrastructures. 84 transport and mobility experts from across the world have contributed to the survey by sharing their views on the current and future hurdles and challenges for sustainability of transport. Most notably the survey highlights that:

• 87% consider that making infrastructure sustainable is affordable.

• Roads and planes are perceived as the less sustainable, with a 50% of respondents considering roads not or only slightly sustainable, and even a higher 57% for planes. Railways are perceived as the most sustainable mode with a 56% voting as fairly or very sustainable.

• Around 80% of respondents think that the sustainability performance of all transport modes (roads, planes, railways, ships, urban mobility) is improvable through different measures.

• Results are quite mixed regarding which is the most important factor for achieving sustainable transport, measured in a ranking scale 1-5. Yet 50% choose Reducing Carbon Foot Print as the most important factor, while 38% think that reducing non-users disturbance is the less important factor.

• Talking about mobility sustainability, the most relevant variables are vehicles (57%) and fuels (51%).

• Durability is the most relevant variable for infrastructure to be sustainable, with 47%, followed by Impacts During Operation, with 45%.

• Again, very mixed results about which elements are relevant for infrastructure to be sustainable. One third of respondents consider that Structures (tunnels, bridges or terminals) would be the most relevant.

• For 63% of the respondents the correlation between sustainable and smart is high or very high.

• In the scope of Urban Mobility, Public Transport (63%) and Users Behaviour (46%) are regarded as the most relevant elements.

• Compared with 10 years ago, all dimensions related to sustainability are perceived in general between slightly and fairly sustainable, for at least a 60% of the answers.

For infrastructures, attention should be put to their durability and their ‘smart’ nature. For mobility an improvement in the environmental impact, especially for roads and air modes should be pursued.

The results of this survey will be presented during the 2018 STA Annual Conference & Innovation Awards (Brussels, 29 November 2018), where transportation and mobility experts share insights on future challenges for transportation infrastructures.

STA would like to thank all participants for their valuable input to this survey.

STA Technical Committee on Smart Sustainability (TC4) launches an open survey on assessing the opinion of the readers at large about the smart financing

24 September 2018

The STA Technical Committee on Smart Sustainability, TC4, chaired by Prof. José Manuel Vassallo, is carrying a survey to assess the opinion of our readers with regards to the smart financing of the Infrastructures of the Future.

The survey covers the different key aspects of the funding mechanisms, subjects involved and Public Private Partnership schemes.

The result of this survey will be presented during the 2018 STA Annual Conference & Innovation Awards (Brussels, 29 November 2018), where transportation and mobility experts share insights on future challenges for smart infrastructure financing.

Please contribute to the survey by clicking here 

STA Chairman José F. Papí discusses the importance of High Performance Steels (HPS) for the Future Generation of Road Restraint Systems: The HIPEBA Project (“Thinking Highways” Global Edition, Volume 13, September 2018)

23 September 2018

The EU is facing more and more competition from non-EU producers and advanced research is vital for the European industry for the sake of competitiveness, as well as to gain a better understanding of the increasing importance of high-performance steel in the everyday road safety sector.

A multinational research consortium comprising seven specialist organisations from industry, academia and research (Centro Sviluppo Materiali, Italy; CIDAUT Foundation, Spain; Copro, Belgium; Gonvarri Steel Services, Spain; Luleå University of Technology, Sweden; SSAB, Sweden; Smart Transportation Alliance, United Kingdom) has explored the development of safer and more competitive Road Restraint Systems (RRS) by using High-Performance Steels (HPS).

The research project has spanned from 2014 to 2017 under the name HIPEBA (“High-Performance Steel for Safer and more Competitive Safety Barriers”) and has been co-funded by the EU’s Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS).

The full article (including a link to an end-of-project videoclip) can be accessed  here

To learn more about the HIPEBA project and its results, please access the project’s website

The second STA Road Safety Technical Forum took place on 12-13 September 2018 (Yaoundé, Cameroon)

17 September 2018 

On 12-13 September 2018, STA and Pyramide Prévention organised the second road safety technical forum in Yaoundé, with the support of the Ministry of Public Works of Cameroon. 

Under the title ‘Optimise The Users’ Safety Thanks to the Road Safety Equipment’, this workshop gathered 75 road and mobility experts from Africa and Europe over two days. 

The objective of this event was to promote the exchange of knowledge and best practice on road safety in Africa, where poor standards and lack of strategic planning contribute every year to thousands of road fatalities. 

Like many countries in the region, Cameroon is seeking for improved road safety solutions and management strategies. In this context, during this two-day event, STA’s Training Coordinator, Christophe Canal, and other experts provided local road safety and mobility professionals with theoretical background and practical case studies in order for them to: i) acquire an overview of road safety frameworks in the EU; ii) understand the importance of a long-term strategic vision; and iii) the importance in the choice of equipment.  

This event stirred up a great interest from local authorities and professionals. As part of its mission, STA is looking forward for more collaboration with emerging countries in Africa and around the world to share the knowledge and experiences on road safety.

STA General Assembly 2/2018 held on 11 September 2018

12 September 2018

The second STA General Meeting of the year, first one as a Belgium-based entity, was held last 11 September. The Members reviewed the progresses since the last General Assembly on 27 February 2018, and agreed on the steps forward to the implementation of the STA Work Plan. 

Most importantly, the Members agreed on the themes and speakers to be featured in the programme of the forthcoming STA 2018 Annual Conference and Innovation Awards, to be held in Brussels on 29 November 2018.

New frontiersCities2 Bootcamp held in in Brussels

01 October 2018 

STA joined with partners and grantees start-ups at frontiersCities2 Bootcamp in Brussels on 26 & 27 September 2018. In total, some 50+ participants joined the workings, representing a total of 18 Start-ups and SMEs using FIWARE technology for smart cities applications. 

This intensive bootcamp acceleration programme covered several interactive roundtables with senior experts, technical clinic, hands-on training and hands-on workouts. Engaging with cities and monetisation with cities were two of the key topics analysed during the Bootcamp, which also reviewed best practices for sales and pricing. Some of the keynote experts participating were Pascal Smet, Brussels Minister of Mobility, David Bonn, Senior Smart City Advisor at H3B Connected, Georgis Tesfamariam from Contio Consulting, and STA Chairman José F. Papí. 

frontiersCities2 provides EUR 1.6 million in grant funding across two Open Call strands (Market Acceleration Grants, Development & Acceleration Grants), further developing the range of available FIWARE-enabled smart mobility solutions, while broadening into other Smart Cities areas. 

NEWS OF INTEREST

Colorado Prepares to Install “Smart Road” Product by Integrated Roadways

On 30 August, a startup plans to add its “smart pavement” to an intersection in an industrial corner of Denver. The company has encased assorted electronics within four slabs of concrete and will wedge those slabs into the road between a Pepsi Co. bottling plant and two parking lots.

Integrated Roadways says its product, which can deduce the speed, weight, and direction of a vehicle from the basket of sensors buried in the pavement, will face its first real-world test at that discreet Denver junction.

Solar panels replaced tarmac on a motorway—here are the results

Four years ago a viral campaign wooed the world with a promise of fighting climate change and jump-starting the economy by replacing tarmac on the world's roads with solar panels. The bold idea has undergone some road testing since then. The first results from preliminary studies have recently come out, and they're a bit underwhelming.

Potholes: how engineers are working to fill in the gapLife is short, and it seems shorter still when you’re in a traffic jam. Or sitting at a red light when there’s no cross traffic at all.

Potholes are a perennial problem. They are dangerous to road users, and the damage they cause to vehicles can be hugely expensive. The cost of repairing them is also vast. But still they appear, and reappear, in countless places.

So why do these pesky crevices pose such a difficult challenge? And is there any light at the end of this pothole-filled tunnel?

Joining the dots: four ways to help cities make the connection

Forward-thinking cities around the world are exploring innovative, new ways to leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and related technologies to create more connected and efficient transportation systems. Through greater digitisation and connectivity, cities can optimise public transit routes, reduce vehicle congestion, improve emergency response times and even reduce CO2 emissions.