ITU, ISO launch joint standards initiative on intelligent transport systems

By eGov Innovation Editors | May 1, 2011

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GENEVA – Leading global standards organizations International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and ISO have partnered to create joint standards in the field of intelligent transport systems (ITS).

Industry experts who gathered for the recent ISO/ITU/IEC event at the Geneva Motor Show agreed that the next 20 years will see a huge shift towards ITS.

"Today’s communications capabilities give the potential for vehicles to foresee and avoid collisions, navigate the quickest route to their destination, make use of up-to-the-minute traffic reports, identify the nearest available parking slot, minimize their carbon emissions and provide multimedia communications," ITU said. "But while considerable resources have been invested in R&D, the lack of global standards is widely regarded as a major impediment to large scale deployment of ITS services and applications."

The involvement of international standards bodies is seen as critical to the creation of these standards.

ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré said there is a will from manufacturers to implement these technologies, but as yet there has been no real breakthrough in terms of the technical standards needed to roll this out on a global scale.

"Vehicle manufacturers do not want to create different versions of this technology for every different market. They do not want regional or national standards. They want global standards, and through this initiative ITU and ISO are proving that we are willing and able to provide them,” he said.

Rob Steele, ISO Secretary-General, affirmed that there is a need for harmonization of standardization of essential technologies to provide a solid base for further innovation and the economies of scale for commercialization of technologies.

"Most interestingly of all, is the urgent need to consider the interoperability of all of this technology not only in the vehicle, but in the wider infrastructure that is needed to support this revolution. The value of the solutions proposed is magnified when they are globally relevant," he said.