EU Commission and Industry set up 2010 priorities for Intelligent Car Initiative

Creation date: 18 December 2008

On 17 September industry senior executives met with Viviane Reding, European Commissioner responsible for the Information Society and Media, and high level EU Commission representatives to discuss 2010 priorities for the Intelligent Car Initiative.

ICT and the Intelligent Car Initiative, of which eSafety Forum is a part, have played a key role in improving road safety in Europe, and there has been considerable progress in the targets set in 2003.

However the current economic situation and the climate change have made necessary to reassess the achievements of the last five years, and to set new targets for the next five years. The Intelligent Car Initiative remains the Commission's main instrument in this area, complemented in the future by the ITS Action Plan which is in conception phase.

The industry representatives coming from the automotive, telecommunications, telematics and services sectors are fully supporting the intelligent vehicle safety systems and Intelligent Car Initiative and therefore it was agreed that the debate on the future directions of the Intelligent Car Initiative and the eSafety Forum should be continued using the already established structures of the Forum.

Industry and EU Commission representatives agreed that the majority of the 28 Recommendations of the 2002 eSafety Working Group have been either completed or show good progress, and new targets are required for the next years.

Another important topics brought into discussion were the establishment of the eCall deployment Platform and the importance of getting Member States and other relevant stakeholders to join it and the lack of progress in some Member States regarding the standardisation process. Therefore industry is not considering 2010 as a realistic target date for eCall roll-out any more. The EU Commission committed itself to find ways of improving he standardisation process and as a first step by taking this issue up with the responsible Commissioners.

At the same time industry welcomed Commission's efforts to look into the potential of ICT in clean mobility, and urged the Commission to continue to promote the use of ICT in this area by implementing the recommendations of the "ICT for Clean and Efficient Mobility" Working Group.

Both parties considered important to maintain the dialogue and decided to meet in the near future for a follow-up meeting.