The White Paper Goals

The overall goal is to establish by 2020 the framework for a European multimodal transport information, management and payment system - we use the acronym MIMP. In the end every user should be able to make the best model choice depending on their requirements both for passenger and freight transport. In order to achieve this, information is a key necessity. The MIMP idea is a subset of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), which refers to all advanced technologies related to the control, sensing and detecting within all different types of transportation systems with the aim of improving safety, efficency, and traffic through the transmition of real-time information.

MIMP helps provide information on what, where, when, how, how much, how long and what happens in unforeseen circumstances. What choices do I have, where do I get on, when do I leave, how long does it take, how can I make connections, how much does it cost, how and where can I pay, what can I do if something goes wrong. This means that information is distributed between the different players and stakeholder in an efficient and secure way. In order to do that a common framework must be agreed upon which clearly describes how such a system should be set up and to ensure maximum interoperability.

The Choices to be Made

In the context of this goal many issues must be considered. Accessibility, data privacy, security and data ownership are key issues. Initiatives like open data can only partially answer some of the questions but many questions still remain unanswered.  Besides technical problems very much depends on the willingness of stakeholders involved to cooperate. Of course, such a cooperation must be done on an established legal basis. Standards must be agreed upon in order to ensure that investment made today do not end up as sunk costs in the future. At the moment, many systems exists side by side with very limited interfaces between each other and some regional solutions have already been established, making further changes even more challenging.

Stakeholders´ Views

In order to reach the goal to establish a framework for European multimodal transport information, management and payment system by 2020 a number of decisions have to be made. These range from data interoperability, legal framework to secure communications and standardization. Operators on a local, regional and international level both for passenger and freight transport have to be involved. Accessibility must be ensured in order to make certain that no user group, for whatever reason, is restricted in their mobility needs. Legal and cultural differences on how data policy is approached must be considered. Stakeholder represented these groups were invited by TRANSFORuM to join the discussions and give their inputs.

Involving Stakeholders

Consultations with stakeholders took many forms in TRANSFORUM. Events like Joint Forum meetings and thematic workshops facilitated face-to-face discussions. Our presence at conferences and other events allowed for more conversations with a broader set of stakeholders and surveys, interviews and online conversations helped to further support the integration of the different stakeholders's views

Our stakeholder selection rationale

Based on the outcome of our stakeholder events we have come to the conclusion that we are currently dealing with three separate systems (information, management and ticketing). Of course these systems cannot be seen in complete isolation from each other, especially as they will often use the same basic data and communication channels but nevertheless, they all have a very different status of implementation and different challenges. At the same time it is to be expected that we will not have one (or three) European systems but rather a combination of national and regional systems, which must be encouraged to work together and it is necessary to highlight long term advantages stakeholders have from sharing data and information. This is due to the fact that many necessary regulations fall into national competences. In addition in some cases compliance depend on the goodwill of the different players, e.g. when providing data that belong to private operators. On the other hand, the EU can make large contributions to achieving the goals by fostering standardisation and certification processes.

From such considerations we derived our rationale to select certain types of stakeholder that were involved:

  • MIMP stakeholders working at national levels
  • EU MIMP interest groups
  • Interest groups representing multimodal transport
  • Experts on standardisation / certification
  • EU representatives
  • Experts on data security and privacy
  • Operators
  • Applications developers

our team

Florian Kressler has been with AustriaTech and the Federal Agency for Technological Measures Ltd., Department for E-Mobility & ITS Innovation since 2007. He previously worked at the Austrian Institute of Technology in the Field for Remote Sensing. He recieved his PhD from the University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria.

If you with further information or if you would like to get involved please contact us at: ITS@transforum-project.eu