On Friday 28 April, in a working group on Transport - Intermodal Questions and Networks, the EU Member States will discuss the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council’s new proposal for a text on the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The Presidency has revised its proposal taking into account the remarks made by the Member States at the last meeting at the end of March (see EUROPE 13154/6).
The aim of this text is to make essential ITS mandatory throughout the EU and to solve the problems related to the lack of interoperability and continuity of existing applications and services.
The main changes concern the geographical coverage of the data that will be provided. With regard to access conditions for tunnels, bridges, speed limits, overtaking bans on heavy goods vehicles and weight and size restrictions, the previous proposal already provided for the inclusion of the entire trans-European network. This included roads, other motorways and sections of primary roads with a total annual average daily traffic of more than 2,000 vehicles, as well as all roads in the cities at the centre of each urban node.
The Presidency has added roads managed by cities to this new proposal. It also added the possibility for each Member State to choose to limit the coverage of cities located in the centre of urban nodes with a population of more than 1 million and to streets with an annual daily traffic of more than 8,500 vehicles. The Member State taking this decision will then have to notify the Commission of the streets covered in the urban node.
This geographical extension will also include the direction of traffic on reversible lanes, traffic circulation plans, permanent access restrictions, boundaries of restrictions, zonal prohibitions or obligations, current access status and traffic conditions in regulated traffic zones.
The Presidency also defined the term ‘primary route’. It is therefore a “road outside urban areas that connects major cities or regions, or both, not classified as part of the comprehensive trans-European road network or as a motorway and designated by Member States in accordance with the Delegated Regulation”.
To consult the Presidency’s proposal: https://aeur.eu/f/6lq (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)