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Policy to drive n ational take u p of systems
Page 18
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Public policy, rather than commercial fleet benefits, will drive the national take-up of telematics systems in the UK, according to former Minister of Transport, Steven Norris.
Norris, a former director general of the RIM and chairman of the Intelligent Transport Society UK, said recently that the need for better traffic management, improved road safety and road-user charging would all force through the widespread adoption of telematics systems in Britain.
Optimising road capacity in particular is the big challenge, he said. "When you look at how we use the road system we have already got, it's estimated that we still only use something like 25% of our road capacity. It's inevitable that you have to optimise on-road capacity—and that's the great challenge far telematics."
Road-user charging will play a big part in this, he added. "The essence of the sophistication of telematics is that we can charge for the use of a main road at peak hours on a different basis from use of that same road at midnight OP indeed a different, preferred route to optimise capacity at the same time of day."
The result, said Norris, could be a dramatic fall in congestion. "The Commission for Integrated Transport produced a report that suggested that proper use of a GPS-based charging system applied nationally an a revenue-neutral basis could actually produce a reduction of congestion overall of around 40%," he said.
New technology like independent speed adaption systems, meanwhile, will help boost safety, added Norris. "Effectively that means the speed of your vehicle will be controlled independently of the driver.
"That kind of technology is becoming very prominent in EU road safety circles. EU transport ministers generally are very interested in where we can go with it.
"There's a great deal more developing every day. So watch the public policy development of telematics, because I think it's in the public poky arena we're going to see some of the most exciting and challenging changes over the next decade," he concluded.