TISA Members gather in Brussels for the annual General Assembly

TISA’s General Assembly and Committee Meetings were full of surprises this month. Hosted by ERTICO – ITS Europe, TISA members gathered in Brussels on 18 and 19 June. Highlights of the meetings were the keynote speeches done by Aria Etemad (Volkswagen Group Research) and Stephan Hengstermann (Bertrandt), the appointment of the new Steering Board’s Content & Service Chairman and the announcement of the TISA Annual Achievement Award winner.

Each year, TISA members gather for the annual General Assembly and Committee Meetings to summarize activities and achievements of the organization, operational matters, working groups and task forces and to exchange best practice with external and internal participants, who are regularly invited to give keynote speeches.

The first keynote speech was given by Volkswagen Research Group’s Aria Etemad. Mr. Etemand gave a presentation on Piloting Automated Driving on European Roads, focusing in particular on the EU project L3Pilot, which tests the viability of automated driving as a safe and efficient means of transportation on public roads. The project focuses on large-scale piloting of SAE Level 3 functions, with additional assessment of some Level 4 functions. The functionality of the systems will be exposed to variable conditions with 1,000 drivers and 100 cars across ten European countries, including cross-border routes. The technologies being tested cover a wide range of driving situations, including parking, overtaking on highways and driving through urban intersections. The tests will provide valuable data for evaluating technical aspects, user acceptance, driving and travel behaviour, as well as impact on traffic and safety. With the comprehensive piloting of automated driving functions in test vehicles, L3Pilot will pave the way for large-scale field tests of series cars on public roads.

The second keynote speech was given by Stephan Hengstermann from Bertrandt Group, a company that has been providing development solutions for the international automotive and aviation industries as well as the mechanical and plant engineering, energy, medical technology and electronics industries in Europe, China and the USA for more than 40 years. Mr. Hengstermann provided an overview of the company, its end-to-end Engineering Services, technologies and Car Body Development Process Chain, Virtual Development, Concept right up to Testing and Trials and Consulting and Support.

The third highlight of these meetings was the TISA Annual Achievement Award Ceremony. For 2019, the TISA Annual Achievement Award Committee (TAC) awarded Thomas Klein (Robert Bosch GmbH) for his long term commitment to the Location Table Release Team and representation of TISA in the OADF (Open Auto Drive Forum).

“I am proud of having received this award and it is a pleasure to be at this year’s General Assembly, to learn from the two keynote speeches, which are dealing with interesting topics that are relevant for the future of TISA”, said Mr. Klein.

Not only a new winner, but also a new Chairman for the Steering Board’s Content & Service Committee was announced. TISA members formally welcomed Andras Csepinszky and thanked former chairman Alessandro Taddei for his service and work.

Among the different matters discussed, the meetings provided participants information on the new TISA members since 2018 (Parkopedia, Mecom, XERBRIS, SK Telekom, ENGIS and Kuadeng), on the liaison with ITS stakeholders such as RDS Forum, WorldDAB, EU-EIP (European ITS Platform), DATEX II, Open Auto Drive Forum, NDS and the TM 2.0 Platform.  With the General Assembly and Committee Meetings concluded, TISA members are now getting ready for the next important appointment: the ITS World Congress in Singapore. TISA will be present at the European pavilion at stand # 375 together with GEWI, NDS, NNG, SENSORIS and ADASIS.