The 25th ITS World Congress, organised by ERTICO ITS Europe in cooperation with ITS Asia-Pacific and ITS America, took place in Copenhagen. The Congress provided the ideal opportunity for all stakeholders to come together, discuss and make the necessary contacts to develop their business and future collaboration.
The slogan of the 25th ITS World Congress was “Quality of Life”, a cross-cutting theme linking technological and societal impacts. Two aspects of the event were particularly valuable, namely the scientific programme and the exhibition.
Conference presentations included connected and autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles or mobility as a service. The focus was not only on the technological innovations but also how these will affect citizens life and improve the quality of their lives. A core element of the sessions concerned the collection and processing of transport and mobility data, including big data. In this context, Martin Hudak provided an insight from the MoTiV project by giving a talk on “Using smartphones for something more than tracking only”. In particular, the main message was that smartphone capabilities should not be exploited only for the collection of quantitative variables (e.g. trip origin/destination, distance, duration) but also include qualitative ones to better understand travel behaviour and factors influencing the travel experience. This is in line with the general aims and activities of the MoTiV project. A related talk on mobile apps collecting the data for travel surveys was given by Trivector, Swedish company that underlined the potential of smartphone-based technologies to replace the traditional forms of travel surveys. The expected benefits from this form of data collection are not only for citizens, but also for transport operators, transport authorities and other relevant stakeholders.
The exhibition area of the Congress consisted of booths, dedicated sessions/events and demonstrations, in which innovative activities, pilot projects or ITS technologies and products such as modern electric vehicles, intelligent cycling systems or autonomous buses (see picture) were showcased.
A very practical and useful aspect of the Congress, in line with its spirit, was the official mobile app, in which users could find all information about interactive programme, sessions, speakers, exhibitors, technical visits and many others. The app increased the participant experience by offering also the possibility to register for demonstrations or B2B meetings. Moreover, the all participants received an access to the MaaS solution via the mobile app MinRejseplan. This is a very nice example of improving the quality of live and making the travelling much easier. The people can use this app as a journey planner and buy a ticket for all transport modes in easy way. The delegates were also authorized to use the public transport in city of Copenhagen for free during the Congress with this mobile app.