Cycling ITS at the Intertraffic Amsterdam
BITS Project Manager Ronald Jorna went to Intertraffic, in Amsterdam. Intertraffic is the world's leading trade exhibition for mobility and traffic technology professionals. Here some thoughts and takeovers from his visit!
While preparing my visit to the Intertraffic Amsterdam (from 29 March – 1 April 2022), I got overwhelmed by the sheer endless list of exhibitors. I had only one day at the Intertraffic, so I had to be selective in what to do.
First of all, I wanted to meet people, because that was what I had missed most in the last few months. And it really felt good, talking to (former) colleagues and project partners, which I hadn’t seen for month, drinking coffee with people that I had only met via Teams, participating in sessions with a live audience!
The remainder of the time I spent on visiting the various exhibitors, with a special focus on providers of ITS systems and services for cycling. As expected, cycling ITS is not mainstream at Intertraffic. Nevertheless, there were quite a few exhibitors that offered ITS for cycling, in most cases as part of a wider portfolio of ITS products and services. I talked to companies that provided ITS services to the BITS project, such as Cycledata, delivering counting systems, and Viscando and Microtraffic, both offering near-accident analysis systems.
But I also spoke to exhibitors I hadn’t seen before. I clearly noticed a variety of providers of bicycle counting equipment, using thermal sensors, lasers or cameras, each with their specific capabilities. Just two examples are SwissTRAFFIC and neo.sens, The Spanish company Industrias Saludes provided a warning system to make car drivers aware of cyclists on the mountainous roads. The Colas Group provides Flowell, a luminous active road marking designed to enhance road safety. GEVAS offers a form of C-ITS that can provide speed advise to car drivers and cyclists approaching traffic lights, and in combination with C-Call can also give priority to dedicated road users, including cyclists. Technolution provides traffic management (MobiMaestro) and traffic counting (FlowCube). Sitraffic FUSION, offered by Yunex Traffic, is an adaptive traffic control and signal optimisation solution, that can provide priority to all kind of road users, including cyclists.
I had only time to visit approximately half of all stands, so for sure the above overview is only a sample of what is currently available in the domain of cycling ITS. However, it gives a good overview of what ITS can do for cyclist, from counting to increasing cyclists’ safety, and from optimizing traffic flows to giving priority to cyclists.
The BITS project gives a voice to the innovators in ITS, where the focus is not on ITS for car users, but on those companies that see the growing potential of smart cycling!
Ronald Jorna
Project manager BITS
Province of Overijssel