Awards Ceremony for most outstanding achievements in promoting eSafety systems

Creation date: 01 October 2009

The third edition of the eSafety Awards took place on 22 September, 2009 at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Stockholm.  Zoran Stanèiè, Deputy Director General of the European Commission's Information Society and Media Directorate General, rewarded personalities and organisations for their outstanding contribution in the deployment of lives saving intelligent vehicle safety systems. The nominees and the award winners have been selected by experts among the road safety stakeholders.

The 2009 eSafety Award Ceremony included six award winners:  three are in recognition of the efforts towards the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) eSafety systems (eSafety Challenge), and three are rewarding excellence on having made outstanding contributions to accelerating the deployment of road safety systems (eSafety Support).

The latter three were selected from the following three categories of road safety stakeholders: Industry & Technology, Policy & Administration and Lifetime Achievement.

• The Industry & Technology Award was presented to Daimler AG, for the key role the company has played in bringing to the market technologies and systems which are proven to enhance traffic safety, such as ABS (1978), ESP® (1995) or in 2000 the first Lane Keeping Assist system for Trucks. More recently, Daimler developed the PRE-SAFE® concept, which consists of protective measures activation before crash.On behalf of Daimler, the award was received by Mr.Jorg Breue, Senior Manager Active Safety (Mercedes-Benz Passenger Cars).

• The Policy Award was granted to the Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Water Management, for the promotion and use of intelligent safety systems on the Dutch roads, as well as their contribution to the development of ITS systems at European level. Mr. Robbert Verweij, Senior Policy Adviser, received the award on behalf of the Dutch Ministry.

• The Life Time Achievement Award was presented to Mr. André Vits for his commitment in promoting ICT based applications for mobility all along his career. From 2002 until his retirement in 2009, he was head of the European Commission's "ICT for Transport" unit (Information Society and Media Directorate General), and also chaired the eSafety Initiative.

For more information about the winners and ceremony please click here.