"Joining forces to transformchallenges into opportunities"
Building on their well-established collaboration, ASECAP and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) have stepped up their cooperation, namely to increase their efficiency through the mutual exchange of knowledge and experience and to examine together the potential and the use of GNSS applications in motorway operations.
The 40th ASECAP Study and Information Days, which took place in Turin, Italy from 27 to 30 May 2012, were an important occasion to examine the common ground between the GSA’s support for the use European GNSS in road transport to improve traffic management and road safety and reduce CO2 emissions, on the one hand, and ASECAP’s promotion of tolling as the most efficient tool to finance the construction, operation and maintenance of motorways and other major road infrastructures, on the other. Conference participants moreover got to experience a real-life demonstration of the latest state of the art in the field of European satellite navigation during a visit to the renowned Istituto Superiore Mario Boella on 30 May.
During the conference, it was among others discussed how the GSA and ASECAP are both pursuing road transport integration, coordination and development. “Our shared wish is to structure realistic deployment-oriented road management and charging, with the goal of offering the customer a road service of a high quality at a fair cost”, explained ASECAP Secretary-General Kallistratos Dionelis.
For this purpose, the GSA and ASECAP are jointly exploring the potential for deployment of GNSS-based road user charging schemes in the EU in the medium to long term. Speaking at the 2012 ASECAP Days, Carlo Des Dorides, Executive Director of the GSA, welcomed that “ASECAP and the GSA are working on a joint roadmap to take advantage of new GNSS services in the evolution of new tolling schemes and ITS deployment. Understanding how European GNSS technology can add value to road infrastructure operators and identifying concrete actions to guide the future trends, we are joining forces to transform challenges into opportunities.”