Regional Multimodal Approach for Improving Intelligent Transportation Systems in the Western Balkans

Abstract

With a budget of €24.05 billion until 2020, the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) are an ambitious infrastructure policy of the European Union adopted in 2014 with the goal of connecting the continent between east and west, north and south. This policy aims to close the gaps between member states’ transport networks, remove bottlenecks still hampering the smooth functioning of the internal market, and overcome technical barriers, such as incompatible standards for railway traffic. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are a critical element of successfully achieving the goals of the TEN-T policy. The Western Balkan countries are at different stages in their introduction of ITS, without a coherent introduction of ITS even on a national level (for different transport modes), and usually without the necessary interconnection between modes and between different systems nationally and internationally. ITS implementations suffer from insufficient standardization of information exchanges, market actors’ disparate capabilities in using information and communication technology (ICT), legal requirements hampering the use of ICT, and data security and privacy issues. This paper presents the results of a recently completed study, Assessment of ITS Deployment on TEN-T Core Network in the Western Balkans, to develop a multimodal road map for addressing the challenge of improving ITS in the Western Balkans to meet TEN-T demands. The paper demonstrates how a multimodal assessment of ITS considering legislative and operational issues can be used to develop a road map for ITS deployment that will not only overcome the fragmented approach adopted at present but will also provide significant economies of scale for implementation and operation through regional harmonization.