Examples of projects (both completed and ongoing research)
Research into ITS in the Netherlands is being conducted by TNO institutes [TNO-TM (TNO Human Factors Research Institute) and TNO-INRO (TNO Institute of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development), etc.], the Centre for Environmental and Traffic Psychology [COV, formerly VSC (Traffic Research Centre at the University of Groningen)] in Groningen, the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, and by certain larger consulting firms, universities and institutes such as ITS Nederland. Much of this research took place as part of European research programmes such as EUREKA, DRIVE and their framework programmes. For an overview of findings from all of these research projects, see the recent summary report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) entitled >Intelligent Transportation Systems and Road Safety=.
The most important objectives of these research projects can be summarized as: obtaining supplementary information about driving tasks, increasing driving comfort, improving road use, and decreasing environmental stress. Improving safety is often claimed as well, but not frequently included as a main objective of the developments. Nevertheless, developments such as Advanced Cruise Control (ACC) were often justified by means of accident analysis.
The many developments to date (examples of which are noted in the following paragraphs) have led to many improvements and innovations but have yet to lead to actual large-scaled improvements in road safety and road use. Reasons for this are:
- the degree to which the systems developed are used is too insignificant to result in large-scaled, recognizable effects;
- many of the developments focus primarily on the main road network, while problems involving safety usually occur on the underlying road network;
- adjustments in the behaviour of users of new technology often lead to the partial compensation of intended effects on safety.