23rd annual ITS World Congress opens in Melbourne

International engineering design and project management consultancy Aurecon is contributing its expertise at the 23rd annual Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress that open in Melbourne today (October 10).

With the expectation by experts that we will see a full autonomous fleet in Australia by around 2050, the automotive industry and infrastructure authorities are planning future transport networks with fully integrated systems designed to make transport safer, more efficient and more coordinated than it is today.

The focus of the 23rd annual congress, which attracted 7000 delegates from around 60 countries and followed the previous congress held in Bordeaux, France, will be on innovation and technology.

It will feature an array of exhibitors, discussion sessions and presentations centred on topics from big data and smart cities to automated and connected vehicles.

Kim Thomas, ITS leader ANZ for Aurecon, will be one of the experts speaking on key issues regarding safety as she moderates the first major plenary session on Autonomous Vehicles.

Speaking before the world congress, Thomas said “Australia will see a gradual introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and we will likely achieve a full autonomous fleet by around 2050, so road and traffic management is going to be an increasingly complex issue in coming years as we integrate smart cars with traditional ones on our urban and rural networks.

“Improved safety levels and efficiency on our road network are what excite me about our autonomous future. Through the clever use of cooperative technologies and with the lack of incidents from human error, our road networks will be safer, better managed and less congested than ever before.”

Thomas said Aurecon believes that the key challenges ahead for the industry are likely to be the intelligent planning for evolving ITS infrastructure requirements and design of better incident and operations management systems.

Thomas will also sit on a City of Melbourne panel to participate in a discussion around driverless cars and road safety as part of the Melbourne Conversations, along with an eminent panel of researchers and practitioners.

Another Aurecon expert, Blair Monk who is the organisation’s network optimisation and intelligent transport systems leader, will be on another panel for the Committee for Melbourne Transport Series.

According to Aurecon’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, William Cox: “We are at a crossroads where, through clever decisions around infrastructure digitisation and ITS, we can enable businesses and communities to maximise the value of built infrastructure while also future proofing those assets.”

“The focus on increasing Small Medium Enterprise (SME) participation in the economy will play a role in supporting start-up ‘infratech’ businesses. We are already seeing this in Silicon Valley.” he said.