Brussels, 19/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is speeding up with implementation of the directive on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). In the perspective of improving road safety, the Commission will open two consultations until next June. One public consultation will focus on safe parking for lorries and the other will look at the possibility of providing free information about road traffic. The EU has set out a target to reduce the number of road accident victims by half by 2020, although this figure continued to increase in 2010 to 31,000.
The ITS directive set out in 2010 six priority action areas for which binding specifications would be established in order to provide a minimum of free services for all road users in Europe. Included in the six priorities are the setting up of information and reservation systems for safe truck parking, as well as minimum universal information sharing on traffic and road safety, which would be free for users. The Commission would like to obtain an idea of people's opinions, as well as those from stakeholders and experts, in an effort to gather a maximum of opinions in these two areas, before proceeding to an impact study and formulating proposals.
Safe parking. The Commission has been looking at safe parking areas for trucks for a long time now. This is because many road accidents involve lorries and are often due to fatigue. Moreover, it is estimated that in Europe about €8 billion worth of goods are stolen from trucks yearly. Drivers in the industry regularly park in places that have not been appropriately designated and are even dangerous from a point of view of road safety and theft. There is a severe shortage of parking. Safe parking areas vary significantly in quality and often cannot be seen very easily. It is not very easy for drivers to obtain information about them and their parking capacity, especially in real-time.
The Commission would therefore like to have a clear idea about drivers' requirements, and possible improvements and innovations. Consultation questions are aimed at identifying supply and looking at safety levels for heavy-duty vehicles currently on the road, as well as their geographical distribution. The consultation will also involve the distribution of information about these parking areas, to the media, and will be adapted accordingly. It will also look at the question of making reservations for these parking areas.
Minimum of information supplied freely. The Commission also considers that many road accidents could be avoided if drivers were warned in time about incidents that had happened on the road network. This would allow them to better anticipate what to do and enable them to adapt their driving accordingly, as well as their routes.
The Commission has therefore opened another public consultation directly following on from the ITS directive and the promotion of road safety. In this perspective it would also like to compile users' points of view on setting up a minimum information service that is universally and freely provided about traffic and road safety matters. The consultation could help define what kind of messages should be sent out, through different media, as well as what geographic areas should be targeted and what advantages could result from developing such a service. If a free traffic warning system is set up, it would also need to be harmonised throughout the EU. (MD/transl.fl)