STA Newsletter
Issue # November - December 2021
A bi-monthly online journal providing news and background about activities undertaken by STA with a view to improving the methods, technologies and standards associated to transportation infrastructures.
Happy Holidays from STA
The Smart Transportation Alliance wishes you a relaxed festive season and a good start into 2022.
STA thanks all of its’ members, partners and allies for their continuous support and all of the projects and initiatives initiated and closed during the past year.
The last year has been busy as ever of regular activities of our organisation such as the successful hosting of our 6th Annual Conference & Innovation Awards 2021, numerous meetings of our technical committees and the attendance of conferences and events. Beyond these usual activities, STA also kicked off the SCALE-UP Project, where the association acts as WP leader on communication & dissemination, relaunched a revamped version of the STA Certified Courses, and published another Discussion Paper.
2021 STA Annual Conference & Innovation Awards Proceedings Available
This 6th edition of the event united key figures of the European transport infrastructure networks.
This years’ conference ran under the headline “Dacarbonisation of transport infrastructures: A realistic outlook into the future".
Several mechanisms for green infrastructures were introduced by 5 expert speakers in two roundtables (one focusing on technical, the other on financial solutions). The roundtables were framed by an introductory keynote by Mr. Rafal Stanecki (Policy Officer at GD MOVE, European Commission) and the speeches of Mr. Borja Carabante Muntada (Delegate for Environment an Mobilty at Madrid City Council), who was recognised by STA’s Person of the Year Award and Mr. Mauricio Esguerra (CEO at Magment Magnetic Concrete for Wireless Charging), who was awarded the Best Innovation Project Award 2021.
The proceedings are available at the link below, including all presentations and a recording.
STA delegation visited Smart City Expo 2021 in Barcelona
As official collaborating organisation, STA members had access to expo tickets free of charge.
The Smart City Expo took place on 16-18 November and has been supported by the real-time coverage of the congress by Tomorrow.City. This year’s motto was “We are the cities we make”.
Thanks to strict hygienic protocols on-site, the event could take place in person with a limited number of in-person visitors and exhibitors. As in past editions, the expo revealed clear trends for smart cities. This year, services and approaches for strong citizen empowerment and co-creation were omnipresent and closely linked to digitization trends.
“The industry needs to adapt to climate variability by changing the planning, design, construction, maintenance and management of roads.”
NEWS OF INTEREST
TEN-T Regulation to be Revised
The European Commission will revisit the current definition and objectives of the network
One of the main goals of an updated regulation is to align it with the European Green Deal objectives as well as the EU Climate Law. Also, governance and monitoring instruments are to be updated to advance the completion of the network and explore synergies for the future.
To contribute to ambitious emission cuts of 90% (measured in 1990 levels), the new version of the regulation includes i) incentivising multimodal and extensive sustainable transport networks, ii) insurances that new infrastructure projects are climate-proof, and iii) extensive infrastructure adapted to alternative fuel deployment.
What the American Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act means for road safety
The bill passed in November 2021 includes much needed investment in road transportation safety.
Automation and sensorisation are two key topics of the Biden administration to increase road safety significantly. One part focuses on tools, which are to be a built-in as an obligatory standard into any new car, such as drunk driving and distraction mitigation sensors.
Further, one focus lies on testing the impact of smart infrastructure and connected vehicles on roads, as well as a study of the impact of self-driving cars on both rural and urban roads. This study will look at signage, lighting, highway design, and the effect on commercial and individual traffic.