Intelligent Car Initiative
The Intelligent Car Initiative (= Intelligent Vehicle Initiative) is an initiative of the European Commission to bundle all measures related to “intelligent” cars. This means vehicles that are equipped with modern information and communication technologies (ICT) in order to increase traffic safety or the flow of traffic . The ABS anti-lock braking system is an older example . A newer system is the electronic brake assistant , which helps the driver to brake optimally or even applies the brakes independently if a collision is imminent and there is no reaction from the driver.
Beginnings and goals
The initiative was launched on February 15, 2006 through a communication from the Commission and presented in Brussels on February 23 of the same year. Its aim is to make the roads in the European Union safer, above all to reduce the number of more than 1.2 million accidents per year, to reduce the number of traffic jams and to reduce fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions.
Structure and fields of work
The Intelligent Vehicle Initiative rests on three pillars:
- the eSafety Initiative, whose forum it uses to coordinate all measures that are interested in questions of road safety and the accelerated introduction of modern safety systems,
- the research projects that investigate traffic safety and traffic management systems based on information and communication technologies in the 6th and 7th Research Framework Program of the European Union ,
- the measures that should lead to a better knowledge of these systems among decision-makers, drivers and consumers. The last-mentioned measures also include the Intelligent Car website, which the European Commission launched at the beginning of September 2007.
Priority setting
Because of the large number of possible actions and fields of action, the Commission announced in a second communication of 17 September 2007 that it would focus on a few particularly important challenges. These are the introduction from September 2010 of the automatic emergency call system eCall , the mandatory use of ESP from 2012, a stronger work towards efficient fuel consumption and CO 2 savings as well as the safe installation and use in the vehicle of mobile devices such as cell phones that are also used outside the car or navigation systems.
In collaboration with the European research project PReVENT, the new communication was presented to the international press and an interested specialist audience in Versailles , France, on September 18, 2007 , again as part of a large exhibition of intelligent vehicles . In addition to the initiator of the initiative, the European Commissioner for the Information Society Viviane Reding , the French Research Minister Valérie Pécresse , the Chinese Science Minister Gang Wan and the Portuguese Transport and Telecommunications Minister Mário Lino Soares were also present.
Web links
- The website of the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative of the European Commission
- The European Commission's information sheet on the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (PDF file; 124 kB)
- Information and pictures etc. about the event in September 2007
Individual evidence
- ↑ European Commission: COM (2006) 59 final (PDF; 196 kB), accessed on September 2, 2008 .
- ↑ European Commission: COM (2007) 541 final (PDF; 62 kB), accessed on September 2, 2008 .