IRU welcomes the endorsement of the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Directive by the European Parliament's plenary. Member States must now provide complete and up-to-date publicly available traffic data to users.
On 8 June, the European Parliament and Council agreed on a provisional text revising the ITS Directive, which aims to facilitate the deployment of digital solutions advancing safety, efficiency and sustainability in the transport sector.
Today’s endorsement by the Parliament’s plenary marks the end of the EU legislative process. The agreed text requires Member States to make existing road information available via digital data repositories, National Access Points (NAPs), as soon as possible, as advocated for by IRU. New or updated data must be available by 2029 and meet earlier intermediary deadlines.
The Council and Parliament agreed to specify the road segments that must be featured in NAPS, including the Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) comprehensive network, other motorways, sections of primary roads, and urban nodes. By identifying the required road segments, Member States will have to make data available on such roads.
IRU Director of EU Advocacy Raluca Marian said, “It’s good to see that Member States have committed to collecting and making information available for a variety of traffic data categories, as demanded and long expected by our sector.
“Efforts should now focus on finishing setting up National Access Points as well as ensuring that data is actually available across the board.”
“Existing traffic data must be available on National Access Points without delay. The agreement allows Member States to catch up and fill the gaps. It remains to be seen how motivated Member States will be in practice to make available data which is created or updated beyond 2025,” she added.
Just like the agreed rules on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure regulation (AFIR), Member States have opted to introduce conditions related to daily average traffic.
On roads averaging over 8,500 vehicles per day, data must be collected on access conditions for tunnels and bridges, freight delivery regulations, permanent access restrictions, and traffic circulation plans. The agreed text also includes all roads in city centres of urban nodes. But Member States can limit the coverage in cities at the centre of urban nodes to streets with an average daily traffic above 7,000 vehicles.
e-CMR and eCall
The agreed text also recognises e-CMR in the framework of an EU-wide Accident Emergency Call Systems (eCall).
“Linking e-CMR to eCall would ensure that 112 operators have full visibility on cargo information. This is especially important when valuable or dangerous goods are transported. However, despite the clear benefits, eCall is still not available for heavy-duty vehicles,” said Raluca Marian.
“We hope that Member States will now rapidly take the necessary steps to prepare for the implementation of the rules,” she concluded.
Members of the European Parliament overwhelmingly adopted the new rules on intelligent road transport systems. Once the Council approves the deal, Member States will have two years to prepare for their application.