TomTom publishes 2020 Traffic Index

The TomTom Traffic Index has been providing detailed insights on traffic congestion levels in over 400 cities around the world for the past 10 years. The report ranks cities from the most to the least congested. It’s powered by real traffic data and reflects all the changes on our roads in 2020, so it’s no surprise that this year’s ranking is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

The index also takes into consideration the impact that COVID-19 had on traffic.

Click here to access all information.

TISA welcomes a new Member: QMap

TISA is delighted to welcome a new Member to the Group: QMap.

A company based in Italy, QMap is active in ITS and has been able to bring innovation in different fields of application, earning the trust of the large public and private companies. Among its most important references, QMap is working with the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport for the implementation of the new official versions of TMC.

An important development of QMap is QUBE, a Geospatial Platform which offers solutions and services for infomobility, analyzing every day more than 250 million GPS points moving on a TMC-based map network, monitoring more than 100 thousand km of road network and generating about 20 thousand alerts.

As a TISA Member, QMap will benefit from priority access to TISA specifications and guidelines, the work with an experienced product-driven team of experts, advocacy and global outreach and much more.

The Traveller Information Services Association is always open for new organisations to join. More information on how to join TISA can be found at this link.

A message from TISA’ President

Dear TISA Members,

What an incredible year! None of us has ever experienced something like in 2020. The impact of the pandemic on our private and professional life has made us experience things that we certainly would have done without. Travel restrictions, social distancing, temporary lockdowns – all this kind of stuff was completely unknown to us some twelve months ago.

And today? If not working in the same organization, the only opportunity to meet is usually via WebEx, Teams, or so. We learned to cover our faces with masks. And we need even more discipline for communication and cooperation because of the lack of networking opportunities.

An organization like TISA was extraordinarily challenged by the pandemic. Personal contacts and fruitful meetings are deeply embedded in TISA’s DNA. Lively discussions and lab working are the basis of TISA products. The situation created by COVID-19 could have been a starting point for TISA to fail.

But it wasn’t.

TISA’s Executive Office rapidly set up new opportunities to keep both work and communication channels viable – and visible. We made excellent progress in I4AD. We integrated TISA products effectively in the ITS environment. We positioned EAW as a remarkable milestone for the safety of people, not only in terms of road safety. We have been present on the most relevant events. And in addition, we created the basis for further administrative and organizational development of TISA.

Although we could welcome new members, losing some other was a very sad thing. But our business is highly dynamic and realignment of some stakeholder’s strategies and adaptation of their product developments have played a certain role for a decrease of our membership. The Steering Board has taken reasonable measures to consolidate the budget and to enable TISA to continue its successful work. All necessary decisions were supported by the membership – and in this context I have to mention the change of statutes, agreed on 8 December. Due to the pandemic this was only possible by lots of proxies and I have to thank our members for their trust. Thanks to your support, we can see a positive future for TISA.

Nobody knows how the year 2021 will develop. At least we can hope at some point to witness substantial improvements related to the COVID-19 situation. Then TISA will finally be able to hold a face-to-face meeting again. And that will be a reason to be happy, I’m more than sure of that.

I wish you a merry, peaceful and blessed Christmas season and a happy, prosperous and – above all – healthy New Year.

TISA goes beyond traveller information at the Virtual ITS European Congress 2020

Decision makers, disrupters and high profile companies from a range of industries including the European Commission spoke at the first ever Virtual ITS European Congress on key issues and game-changers for ITS in adapting to the crisis, post-crisis and for the future.  TISA President Thomas Kusche-Knežević spoke at the Highlight Session “Public-private cooperation for Safety on the Road” about the benefits of TPEG.

Public private cooperation for road safety, data-driven actions and strategies, learnings from the cooperation between public authorities and map providers, and much more. The highlight session on public-private cooperation for safety on the road brought together representative from HERE Germany, Technolution, Rijkswaterstaat, ERTICO and TISA.

Once again, TISA served as successful example of how the collaboration between the public and private sector can foster the advancement of technologies in the field of road and traffic safety and benefit the large public. “Today, TISA can boast of a global membership covering the entire value chain for traveller information, with hundreds of millions of TMC devices all over the world, and a significant percentage of devices with TPEG in cars with advanced Assistance Systems.” said Thomas Kusche–Knežević in his presentation of the Emergency Alerts and Warnings (EAW). “Thanks to this cooperation, we at TISA were able to develop technologies that can be used worldwide, such as EAW. In particular, the cooperation between TISA and BBK, founded by the EU/International Security Funds, has been crucial for the development of EAW.”, he concluded.

Participants had the chance to learn about the advantage of TPEG, which is not only the readiness of implementation on every distributions channel, but also its design, which features a powerful tool box. In the framework of road safety, the TPEG EAW application offers the most promising solution, as any alert and warning message can be shown on a TPEG device worldwide, giving the possibility to also choose a preferred language.

The next steps for TISA will be to test TPEG EAW in a field trial in Germany. Stay tuned!

More information about TPEG EAW is available here.

TISA focuses on TPEG2-EAW at the upcoming Virtual ITS European Congress

TISA is delighted to invite attendees of the Virtual ITS European Congress to join TISA President Thomas Kusche-Knežević at the Highlight Session “Public-private cooperation for Safety on the Road”, on 9 November (1 to 2 pm CET).

 

Mr Kusche-Knežević will highlight the benefits of the public-private partnership in preparing the first field trials in Germany for TPEG2-EAW (Emergency Alerts Warnings).

Don’t miss the chance to learn about this application, developed by TISA and the BBK (German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance) to disseminate Alerts to travellers/public at large and warn about emergencies.

 

For more information, please consult the Virtual ITS European Congress online programme.