Programme overview

Watch Karel Havlíčeks presentation here!

He graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague and from the PIBS at the Manchester Metropolitan University. He completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Business Administration of the University of Economics in Prague and was habilitated and obtained the Doc. title at the Faculty of Finance and Accounting.

Since the turn of the millennium, he has been defending the interests of entrepreneurs, especially in the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Crafts of the Czech Republic. As co-owner and CEO of the SINDAT Group, he developed this company into a respected investor in the small and medium-sized industry and new technologies over the past twenty years.
He has been involved in the academic world for many years and, in recent years, has was associated with the University of Finance and Administration, where he built a faculty of economic studies and prepared a study program Economy and Management. He has written several books on the subject of small and medium-sized enterprises and has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles in the Czech Republic and abroad.
He has been a member of a number of advisory bodies of the government and ministries; since 2014 he has been a member of the Government Council for Research, Development and Innovation and since 2018 he has been its Vice-Chairman.

In April 2019, he was nominated by Prime Minister for a post of Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Industry and Trade. On 30 April 2019, he was appointed to both positions by President of the Czech Republic. At the same date, he resigned from the statutory and ownership positions in the business sector and left the management of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises and Crafts. He speaks English, German, Russian, Spanish, partly French and Chinese. 

Watch Kristian Hedbergs presentation here.

Representation for the European Commissioner for Transport

Intelligent transport systems have the potential to revolutionise road safety, reduce congestion and improve the environmental performance and economic efficiency of road transport. As outlined in the European Commission’s recent Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, we need to seize the opportunities presented by smart digital solutions to make transport safer, more efficient and sustainable.

The steady positive trend towards higher levels of road safety in the EU is slowing. Road transport is still responsible for the bulk of transport emissions and pollutants. And every day, congested roads represent a huge cost to the EU economy.

Digital technologies can help to address all these challenges. The efficient exchange of data means transport supply and demand can be matched in real time, leading to a more efficient use of resources, be it for shared vehicles, container deliveries or railway networks. With this, we can build a truly multimodal transport system integrating all modes of transport into a single, seamless mobility service, allowing people and cargo to travel smoothly from door to door, spurring social innovation and facilitating mobility for all.

And of course, by enabling vehicles to interact with each other, as well as with the surrounding infrastructure and other transport users, cooperative intelligent transport systems can drastically reduce human error, one of the greatest source of accidents in transport, while also improving traffic efficiency and comfort.

I am proud that the EU and the Member States have been at the forefront of this technology, not least thanks to the shared vision and strategy developed through the C-ITS platform, and the coordination of interoperable deployment in C-Roads, which has resulted in the real-life deployment today. I am confident we can build on this successful cooperation towards the full realisation of cooperative, connected and automated mobility for all.

Watch Christel Fiorinas presentation here.

Transport infrastructure is the backbone of the European Union. From a philosophical and political point of view, it helps realise the dream of the EU’s founding fathers, built on the four freedoms. From an economic point of view, the freedoms connect territories, decision-making centres, companies and citizens within the single market and contribute to its wealth.

However, the transport sector of the 21st century must face the challenge of digital transformation. Indeed, for more than a decade, the sector has been faced with fundamental changes in its organisation and functioning due to the emergence of new uses and new mobility. This ongoing revolution has profound consequences for the relationship between citizens and mobility, but also for the business model of traditional stakeholders in the transport sector.

The C-Roads Platform is the keystone of this revolution. Thanks to collaboration between road operators from 18 countries, it demonstrates that the ambitious objective of deploying a connected road network by 2050 is perfectly achievable. C-Roads also creates an attractive environment in Europe for developing cutting-edge and disruptive technological expertise on C-ITS, in a fierce globally competitive environment. Moreover, C-Roads demonstrates that, by combining their strengths, the Member States and operators have the capacity to build an interoperable, connected sovereign European infrastructure network.

The strength of the C-Roads Platform also lies in its concrete operational approach. In point of fact, intelligent transport systems will make it possible to improve the safety and quality of the network, optimise traffic and relieve congestion in cities.

Lastly, the European C-Roads project is a fine example of what European cooperation can bring to territories, companies and citizens.

Watch Martin Böhms presentation here.

Martin Böhm is Secretary General of the European C-Roads Platform where he focuses on the deployment of interoperable C-ITS services across Europe. Furthermore he is Technical Director at AustriaTech and has been with the company since 2006. For 25 years, he has been involved in the digitalisation of the mobility system from both a public and industrial perspective. His focus is on the areas of connected intelligent mobility systems, travel information systems and mobility as a service with a clear focus on the potential of digitalisation to make the mobility system more sustainable.

Watch Niels Andersens presentation here.

In recent years, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in vehicles have become more and more sophisticated, have made driving easier and have improved road safety significantly. However, there are limits to what can be achieved with vehicle-only systems. C-ITS is a natural supplement to ADAS as it allows information to be shared that cannot easily be obtained using other ADAS systems. It also provides yet another source of information to enable verification of observations by merging data with the information from existing ADAS systems. C-ITS deployment is a long-term investment in future transport infrastructure as we move closer to automated driving. In an early phase of C-ITS deployment, it might be used to provide warnings to drivers, road operators and other road users. Future active interventions – such as braking – will use the C-ITS information as part of the decision-making process. In subsequent phases, C-ITS will allow for negotiations between vehicles, and between vehicles and infrastructure, and will consequently be one of the enablers of fully automated accident-free driving. For the automotive industry, Europe is a single market and so common specifications for C-ITS deployment across Europe are seen as an important initiative. For the CAR 2 CAR Communication Consortium, close cooperation with C-Roads is and has been a unique opportunity to leverage the potential benefits of C-ITS for all parties involved. Working together on common standards for C-ITS and the use cases has allowed both parties to reach a deep understanding of what information is needed and can be made available through C-ITS and how it can and will be used.

Watch Dirk Beckers presentation here.

Dirk Beckers, a Belgian national, has over 30 years of experience at the service of the European Commission in project implementation in the field of transport, energy and research and innovation. After more than 15 years of experience as Executive Director of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), he is now Director of the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), with a budget of around € 55 billion for the period 2021-2027 and 500+ staff. He is responsible for the overall financial and human resources management as well as the coordination of the funding activities performed by the Agency, ensuring successful implementation of operational priorities and European Commission’s policies.

Watch Marek Ščerbas presentation here.

Marek Ščerba is currently employed at VSB - Technical University of Ostrava. He is the Chairman of WG1 (Organizational Issues) within the European C-ROADS Platform as a representative of the Ministry of Transport of Czech Republic. As part of his research activities is the cooperation in the development of a complex solution for modelling, managing and optimizing transport using big data. He has 6 years’ experience in managing ITS department in the Transport research centre of Czech Republic. His main areas of interest and expertise are C-ITS, portable traffic management systems, application of big data in transport, smart cities and all kinds of new generation mobility solutions.

Watch Marie-Christine Esposotos presentation here.

Marie-Christine Esposito has been working on C-ITS since 2013, with the involvement in the French project SCOOP. She was the project manager of the Paris region pilot site at DiRIF, the Ile-de-France public road operator, as coordinator of innovation. In 2016, she became the technical manager of the different C-ITS pre-deployment projects at the French Ministry of Transport, including SCOOP, C-Roads France, InterCor (French part) and InDiD. She's also chair of WG2, the technical working group of the C-Roads platform. At the French Ministry of Transport, she's also working on the different traffic management projects that public road operators implement to optimise traffic.

Watch Onno Tools presentation here.

Onno Tool is a Dutch born and based senior advisor on C-ITS and automated driving. He has been working for Rijkswaterstaat (Executive Agency within the ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management) since 2001 in various capacities.
Since the start of the C-Roads platform in 2016, Onno is the chair of Task Force 2 withing Working Group 2. This task force is harmonizing the functional specifications of implemented C-ITS services by the European member states and works together with the other C-Roads taskforces on an integral set of C-Roads C-ITS specifications.
Onno is currently the project lead for the Truck Platooning Trial within the Ursa Major neo program. In this project the potential impacts of Truck Platooning on the primary processes of a road operator are investigated. He was also involved in the EU CODECS project that was essential in developing the framework that currently is applied in C-Roads and was responsible for the content and dissemination in the Infravation project (www.infravation.net).

Watch Alexander Frötschers presentation here.

Sandro Berndt-Tolzmann, graduate physicist, works in the department of “Automotive Engineering” at the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) since 2014. In the section of “Connected Mobility”, he is working on topics like the communication between road infrastructure systems and vehicles, traffic information services and map data, in a national as well as in an international context. Sandro Berndt-Tolzmann chaired the IT security group in the deployment initative “Cooperative ITS Corridor”, preparing the rollout of cooperative services in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, and is also chairman of the security task force of “C-Roads” in the European CEF programme. Moreover he is active on the European Expert Group Level, in EuroNCAP and in the strategy implementation group of the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.

Watch Antonios Herrera Alcantaras presentation here.

Antonio joined the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in 2014, he currently works for the Cyber and Digital Citizens’ Security Unit as Portfolio Leader for cybersecurity projects in road transport such as the Digital/Smart Tachograph or the European Union C-ITS Credentials Management System (EU CCMS). Antonio has also worked for the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) between 2006 and 2014 as Head of Sector for the Anti-Fraud Information System (AFIS). 

In his more than 20 years of experience in ICT engineering and management, Antonio has also worked for the ICT and Telecoms industry in various EU countries in projects of network infrastructure and information systems development, deployment and operation always with a strong ICT security dimension.

Antonio graduated in Telecoms Engineering from the University of Seville (Spain) and also holds and MSc in Communication Systems for the University of Wales (Swansea) and a MBA from IE Business School (Madrid).

Watch Alexander Frötschers presentation here.

Alexander Frötscher is Technical Advisor at AustriaTech, Vienna Austria. The professional tasks performed are the following ones in the C-ITS Domain:
C-Roads project: Member of WG2 Technical aspects and several Task Forces Member of the EU CCAM Platform, WG Security and of the EU C-ITS Expert Group Member of CEN TC 278, WG 16 & ISO/TC204/WG18 - Cooperative ITS
Chair of the Austrian Mirror Group of Standardisation Committee TC278.
Since 2017: Coordinator FRAME NEXT – Extension of the European ITS Framework Architecture.
Since 2017: Lector of ITS for road transport at University and at Universities of Applied Sciences (FH).

Watch Kjell Perssons presentation here.

Working for the Swedish Transport Administration with Telecom and currently participating in C-Roads as chair of Task Force 4 Hybrid Communication. Have a background of working with telecom and cellular networks.

Watch Marwane Ayaidas presentation here.

Marwane Ayaida is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Reims Champagne Ardenne. He is working in the area of Cooperative Intelligent Transport System. He participates to many European projects in this area (Scoop@F, InterCor, C-Roads and InDiD). Marwane studied at E.N.S.E.A (High National School in Electronics and their Applications) in Cergy-Pontoise France, where he took his Engineering Diploma in Electronics of Embedded Systems in 2009. The same year he got his Master Degree in Electronics of Autonomous Systems at the University of Cergy-Pontoise in France. Marwane holds his PhD at the University of Reims Champagne Ardennes in France on 2012.

Watch Luca Studers presentation here.

Luca Studer is Project Manager of several European Studies in the field of ITS Evaluation, Transport Modelling and Transport Planning and teacher at Politecnico in the field of Transport engineer.

Watch the entire Questions and Answers here.

Watch Ricardo Tiagos presentation here.

Ricardo Tiago is a Civil Engineer in the area of transport and road safety, by ISEL - Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa.
He started his professional life in 2004, performing duties in the field of road safety at former EP - Estradas de Portugal From 2008 to 2012, he worked in Road Safety and Quality Department of the former InIR – Instituto das Infraestruturas Rodoviárias (Institute for Road Infrastructures), in the area of road safety, management of concession contracts, monitoring the operation and maintenance activities of the various road infrastructure stakeholders.
With the merge of the three former public institutes InIR / IMTT / IPTM, it has been integrated into the IMT – Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (Institute for Mobility and Transport), on the Departement of Management Contracts and Concessions.
 In addition, since 2016 its course has been more directed to the national and international area in the field of Mobility, ITS, C-ITS, CCAM. He is responsible for IMT, in the follow-up of the C-ROADS PORTUGAL Project, highlighting his involvement in the National Access Point (NAP) subproject in Portugal, and acts as National representative, or Point of Contact, in several European fora and institutions such as:

• European Platform C-ROADS (C-ITS Deployments)
• European ITS Committee and associated Expert Groups
• CEDR - Working Group on Connected and Automated Driving
• High Level Meetings - Connected and Automated Driving
• Datex II Steering Group (2016 to 2017)
• PIARC - T.C. 3.3 - Road Tunnels Operations (2016-2019)
• PIARC - T.C. 2.4 - RNO & ITS (2020-2023)
• ERTICO, IRF.

I am an Engineer and Civil Servant who has worked in electronics, electrical, telecommunications, information technology, research and policy. I have over 30 years’ experience of planning, installing, maintaining and managing Intelligent Transport Solutions (ITS) such as Motorway Communication Systems, Enforcement Systems, CCTV and Traffic Signals. I have spent the last 4 years working on Cooperative ITS systems (C-ITS), managing the UK A2M2 connected corridor, leading the UK partnership in the ‘InterCor’ project and representing the UK on the C-Roads Platform.

Watch Jacqueline Erharts presentation here.

Jacqueline Erhart is team leader for Cooperative, Connected and Automated Driving and Digital Infrastructure at ASFINAG Maut Service GmbH. She studied engineering physics at the Vienna University of Technology. She started her career in the automotive industry. Today she works for the road operator ASFINAG and as Chair of the working group for ITS and Automated Driving for the European Toll Operators Association (ASECAP). She is active in the field of physical and digital infrastructure, cooperative traffic systems and mixed traffic control for Automated Driving.

Watch Steve Phillips presentation here.

Steve is Secretary-General of the Conference of European Directors of Roads which comprises over 30 national road authorities and entities across our continent. His career in road transport also spans over thirty years of which most has been spent in international and European cooperation. He is passionate about CEDR’s key objectives on sustainability, safety and digitalisation, and believes public procurement can save the planet.

Watch Niels Andersens presentation here.

Mr Niels Peter Skov Andersen is General Manager for the Car-2-Car Communication Consortium and has more than 25 years background in standardization. He is currently the chairman of ETSI TC ITS and has been an active industry expert in the EU C-ITS Deployment platform and EU CCAM platform. Before joining the Car-2-Car Communication Consortium Niels Peter Skov Andersen has long experience in taking new technologies through standardization to operational systems, as well as global coordination of standards. He was an industry participant in standardization of GSM phase 1, part of ETSI project team responsible for GSM phase 2, Chairing the ETSI SMG2 – ETSI’s lead GSM radio group - through the elaboration of GPRS, EDGE and 3G. When the successful global partnership project 3GPP for mobile standardization between ARIB, TTC, TTA, ATIS, CCSA and ETSI was created, Niels Peter Skov Andersen was elected the first chairman of the main plenary - TSG SA a position he held for 6 years. In addition, when the remaining GSM work was transferred to 3GPP, he in addition was elected chairman for the TSG GERAN the group responsible for maintenance and evolution of the GSM based radio network. In addition to this he has been a member of the ETSI Board in the period 2005-2020 and also for a period of 3 years been member of the Board of directors the Open Mobile Alliance.

In parallel to his standards engagement Mr Niels Peter Andersen, before joining the Car-2-Car Communication Consortium has held senior position within the Mobile Industry, latest as Vice President of Standards and Technology Strategy at BlackBerry. Before that he was Vice President of Standards at Qualcomm and in the past had senior positions at Motorola and Tele Denmark Mobile (now TDC)

Watch Torsten Geißlers presentation here.

Torsten Geißler, degree and doctorate in economics from University of Cologne (1996, 2001) has got 25 years research and policy implementation background in Intelligent Transport Systems. Since 2010 Torsten works for the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt). His area of responsibility as Deputy Head of the Connected Mobility section lies with deployment of innovative technologies in public-private collaboration. Torsten has contributed to numerous ITS and Cooperative ITS related research projects, Field Operational Tests, pilots and deployment initiatives. In recent years, he is involved in European ITS and C-ITS infrastructure deployment initiatives and their knowledge management (Cooperative ITS Corridor, C-Roads, EU EIP). He is active on European level in the Conference of European Directors of Roads - CEDR - Working Group CAD (Connectivity, Automation and Data), chair of the Amsterdam Group and member of the CCAM Platform (on behalf of CEDR). He has helped to form the Horizon Europe co-programmed CCAM Partnership and acts as coordinator of the research needs cluster on integrating vehicles in the transport system. Torsten is also involved in policy and deployment related working groups in Car2Car Communication Consortium and 5GAA.

Watch the entire Questions and Answers here.

Watch Geert van der Lindens presentation here.

Watch Christel Fiorinas presentation here.