eSafety Observers agreed on national priorities to boost eSafety deployment

Creation date: 18 December 2008

The yearly European meeting of eSafety Observers, hosted by ICCS/CERTH, took place on 8 October 2008 in Thessaloniki, Greece.

For the sixth time eSafety Observers met together with the European Commission and eSafety Support experts to look at the real needs of the different European countries, to discuss how the European Union can better fulfil these needs and to come up with specific recommendations based on the actual situation in the different Member States (MS).

30 participants, representing governmental organisation, ITS national organisations or other similar bodies from 20 European Member States (MS), provided their input on eSafety situation, progress, needs, and knowledge on national good practices.

Member States representatives highlighted two actions undertaken or going to be undertaken to facilitate significant progress to reach the eSafety initiative objectives at national level.  

A series of best practices should be disseminated at EU level, included the development of an action plan for eSafety implementation at national level, the large take-up of pilot test on more eSafety technologies, the promotion of eSafety technologies in national languages and the implementation of section speed control.

The major outcome of the meeting was the interest of Member States representatives in having tailor made actions supporting national deployment. For example the creation of local eSafety Fora would guarantee stakeholders’ collaboration at national level, support the development of National ITS/eSafety organisations and the implementation of strategies with a clear identification of priorities and a budget estimate.

A strong cooperation between European eSafety Forum and National eSafety Fora would fulfil the need of synchronisation between decisions and actions undertaken at European and national level.

Finally, the eSafety Observers called for a specific structure to ensure interaction and knowledge transfer from most eSafety-advanced MS to the « learning » ones, and supply them with clear evidences to be shown to local stakeholders and decision makers.