JOSÉ M. COSTA takes a deep dive into intelligent transport systems and concludes humanity will benefit from smart mobility, the more reason ITU’s updated Land Mobile Handbook is a fierce necessity for all.
As the world’s population approaches 8 billion, with more and more people migrating to ever-expanding cities, life and work are also becoming increasingly mobile. But while these long-term trends can boost quality of life and create new communities, they also bring unprecedented traffic congestion, air pollution, and road safety challenges.
Managing these negative impacts calls for new levels of intelligence and responsiveness in the world’s transport systems. Since most of us rely on some form of transport in our everyday lives, a tremendous number of people stand to benefit from smarter mobility.
What are ITS?
Intelligent transport systems (ITS) combine computers, communications, positioning, and automation technologies to improve the safety, management, and efficiency of terrestrial transportation.
Systems using wireless communications, sensors, and computer and control technologies are well placed to ease traffic congestion and reduce incidents. Communication standards ensure interoperability and make ITS easy for anyone to use.
Land Mobile Handbook updated
Growing ITS use increases the need for well-informed digital infrastructure planning, especially in relation to wireless-based land mobile systems. To strengthen decision-making in this area, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has published an updated volume of a key reference guide, the Handbook on Land Mobile (including Wireless Access), whose fourth volume deals with ITS.
The Handbook is designed to assist in training engineers and planners in regulating, planning, engineering, and deploying these systems, especially in developing countries.
The new Volume 4 replaces the 2006 edition. Development of the multi-volume Handbook began in the late 1990s, aiming to help developing countries build state-of-the-art land mobile services of all kinds.
The five volumes published to date are:
• Volume 1: Fixed Wireless Access
• Volume 2: Principles and Approaches on Evolution to IMT-2000
• Volume 3: Dispatch and Advanced Messaging Systems
• Volume 4: Intelligent Transport Systems
• Volume 5: Deployment of Broadband Wireless Access Systems
Volume 4 summarizes the current and developing use of wireless communications in ITS around the globe, including ITS architecture and applications. Despite rapid uptake, ITS remains in its infancy as a technology.
The new volume gives an overview of wireless communications used in ITS globally by 2020.
It also includes chapters on ITS applications, ITS communication architecture, radio technologies for ITS, and international and national standardization. The final chapter describes radio frequency usage for ITS systems
- M. Costa is Chairman, ITU Radiocommunication Sector Working Party 5A.
