EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Strasbourg, 14.12.2021

SWD(2021) 474 final

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT

IMPACT ASSESSMENT REPORT

Accompanying the document

Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council

amending Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2010 on the framework for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in the field of road transport and for interfaces with other modes of transport

{COM(2021) 813 final} - {SEC(2021) 436 final} - {SWD(2021) 475 final}

Table of contents

1.Introduction

1.1.Political context

1.2.Legal and policy context

1.3.Evaluation of the existing Directive

2.Problem Definition

2.1.What is the problem?

2.2.What are the problem drivers?

2.2.1.Driver A: Lack of interoperability and continuity of applications, systems and services hinders the development of a common ITS market

2.2.2.Driver B: Lack of concertation and effective stakeholder coordination

2.2.3.Driver C: Limited data availability and access, lack of data quality and limited exchange and usage of data

2.3.How will the problem evolve?

3.Why should the EU act?

3.1.Legal basis

3.2.Subsidiarity: Necessity of EU action

3.3.Subsidiarity: Added value of EU action

4.Objectives: What is to be achieved?

4.1.General objectives

4.2.Specific objectives

5.What are the available policy options?

5.1.What is the baseline from which options are assessed?

5.2.Description of retained policy measures

5.2.1.Measures discarded at an early stage

5.2.2.Retained policy measures and policy options overview

5.3.Description of the policy options

5.3.1.PO1: Strengthened coordination and deployment principles

5.3.2.PO2: Mandate collection and availability of crucial data

5.3.3.PO3: Mandate provision of essential services

6.What are the impacts of the policy options?

6.1.Economic impacts

6.2.Social impacts

6.3.Environmental impacts

7.How do the options compare?

7.1.Effectiveness

7.2.Efficiency

7.3.Coherence

7.4.Proportionality

7.5.Summary of comparison of options, including stakeholder views

7.6.Sensitivity analysis

8.Preferred option

8.1.Policy option 3: Mandating provision of essential services

8.2.REFIT (simplification and improved efficiency)

9.How will actual impacts be monitored and evaluated?

Annex 1: Procedural information

1.Lead DG, Decide Planning/CWP references

2.Organisation and timing

3.Consultation of the RSB

4.Evidence, sources and quality

Annex 2: Stakeholder consultation

1.Introduction

2.Consultation Methods

Annex 3: Who is affected and how?

1.Practical implications of the initiative

2.Summary of costs and benefits

Annex 4: Analytical methods

1.Description of the modelling tool used

2.Baseline scenario

3.Assumptions on the ITS deployment in the policy options

4.Assumptions on ITS service cost data

5.Primary input data

5.1.Bundle 1a- Multimodal travel information service

5.2.Bundle 1a - Multimodal travel information and booking/re-selling service (MaaS)

5.3.Bundle 1b - Travel Information Service (Road)

5.4.Bundle 1b - Real-time traffic information service

5.5.Bundle 1b - Parking and pricing information

5.6.Bundle 1b - Recharging/refuelling location and pricing information

5.7.Bundle 2 - Traffic network management systems

5.8.Bundle 2 – Mobility Management systems

5.9.Bundle 3 - Road safety-related minimum universal traffic information service

5.10.Bundle 3 - Safe and secure truck parking location information system

5.11.Bundle 3 - Safe and secure truck parking location reservation system

5.12.Bundle 4 – Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) C-ITS services

5.12.1.Emergency electronic brake light (EBL)

5.12.2.Emergency vehicle approaching (EVA)

5.12.3.Slow or stationary vehicle(s) warning (SSV)

5.12.4.Traffic jam ahead warning (TJW)

5.12.5.Hazardous location notification (HLN)

5.13.Bundle 5 - C-ITS V2I motorway focused applications

5.13.1.In-vehicle signage (VSGN)

5.13.2.In-vehicle speed limits (VSPD)

5.13.3.Probe Vehicle Data (PVD)

5.13.4.Roadworks warning (RWW)

5.13.5.Weather conditions (WTC)

5.13.6.Shockwave damping (SWD)

5.14.Bundle 5 - C-ITS V2I urban only applications

5.14.1.Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA) / Time to Green (TTG)

5.14.2.Signal violation/Intersection safety (SigV)

5.14.3.Traffic signal priority request by designated vehicles (TSP)

5.15.Bundle 6 - Vulnerable road user protection – pedestrians and cyclists (VRU)

5.16.Bundle 6 – Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control

5.17.Bundle 6 – Other

6.Overlap between services

Glossary

1.Introduction

1.1.Political context

The Commission’s Communication on a Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy (SSMS) 1  puts forward a fundamental transformation of the European transport system to achieve the objective of a sustainable, smart and resilient mobility. The strategy is clear: in order to make transport truly more sustainable we need to deliver effective multi-modality, using the most efficient mode for each leg of the journey. In addition, each mode needs to become more efficient; for road this means that shared solutions increasingly provide a viable alternative for private vehicle ownership. Digitalisation is an indispensable driver to making the entire system seamless and more efficient, as well as further increasing the levels of safety, security, reliability, and comfort. The Strategy identifies the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) as a key action in achieving a connected and automated multimodal mobility. The latter combines new developments such as Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM). CCAM transforms a driver into a user of a shared fleet of vehicles, fully integrated in a multi-modal transport system, made seamless by Multimodal Digital Mobility (MDM) services such as MaaS. ITS deployment has the potential to improve significantly the functioning of the whole transport system as they better inform transport users and enable them to make safer, more coordinated and ‘smarter’ use of transport networks.

The SSMS reaffirmed that the death toll for all modes of transport in the EU should be close to zero by 2050 2 . Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) 3 , which allow vehicles, transport infrastructure and other road users to communicate and coordinate their actions, have an important role in the next steps towards Vision Zero 4 . Building on existing synergies (such as eCall) with the General Safety Regulation 5 ITS will increasingly complement and provide support to advanced driver assistance systems (e.g. Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA)). This will mark a move from passive and active safety, to cooperative safety, and is expected to bring a much needed step-change to bring evolutions in road fatalities back on track.

The Commission’s Communication on a European Strategy for Data 6  recognizes that data-driven innovation will bring enormous benefits for citizens through its contribution to the Green Deal, as well as help making Europe fit for the digital age. It announced the revision of the ITS Directive, including some of its delegated regulations, as well as the intention to establish in 2021 a stronger coordination mechanism for the National Access Points (NAPs) 7 established under the ITS Directive through an EU-wide CEF Programme Support Action.

Improved functioning of the entire transport system is a key element to deliver a 90% reduction in the transport sector emissions by 2050, a target needed to achieve climate neutrality. The European Green Deal 8  is the new growth strategy for Europe by placing climate action at the core of the EU’s policies and the European Parliament and the Council have found a provisional political agreement on the European Climate Law 9 , setting into law the objective of a climate-neutral EU by 2050 and of the collective net greenhouse gas emission reduction target of at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. On 14 July 2021 the Commission adopted a package of proposals, “the Fit for 55 package”, to achieve this target. 10 This revision will complement that ambitious package by fostering connected and automated multimodal mobility. This also fosters the uptake of zero-emission vehicles as in the future, based on fully interoperable data underpinning new mobility services, a user will have a whole fleet at his/her disposal. Anxiety about range or purchase cost is then mitigated, especially when that fleet can go recharge itself automatically. In other words, emerging ITS services could not only accelerate the uptake of zero-emission vehicles but also help use them more efficiently. Finally, smoothening road traffic flows (noting that zero-emission fleets should not lead to zero-emission traffic jams) will bring a smaller contribution. Such improvements come with (small) rebound effects, i.e. more efficient traffic may lead to some more traffic. This is however not an argument against efficient traffic; it does highlight that we need flanking measures to decouple the amount of traffic we want from the efficiency of remaining traffic. Ideally, shared zero emission vehicles function as feeder services to existing and even more efficient modes, for both passengers and freight, providing for seamless and more inclusive travel.

ITS and C-ITS, combined with advances in automated vehicle technologies, are not just strong enablers but an integral part of CCAM services. Europe is still leading (37% of patent applications) but countries around the world (e.g. US, Japan, Korea and China) are moving rapidly towards developing and deploying digital technologies in road transport 11 . The accelerated deployment of ITS and C-ITS would give the European automotive and ITS industry an advantage, leading to higher levels of new business opportunities and job creation, and more significant research and innovation impacts. As the jobs of millions of Europeans depend directly or indirectly on the automotive industry (12 million people, accounting for 4% of GDP) 12 , it is critical that the sector is provided with the conditions to keep up with global market players.

This impact assessment (IA) accompanies a legislative proposal for the revision of Directive 2010/40/EU on the framework for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in the field of road transport and for interfaces with other modes of transport 13 , amended as regards the period for adopting delegated acts 14 . The deployment of ITS can make an important contribution to the Commission priorities, in particular to the European Green Deal and making Europe fit for the digital age. It is part of a package of legislative initiatives aiming at contributing to the goals of decarbonisation, digitalisation and higher resilience of transport infrastructure. Next to the revision of the ITS Directive, there will be the review of the TEN-T Regulation and the urban mobility package, also considering new provisions relating to ITS.

1.2.Legal and policy context

ITS apply information and communication technologies to transport to share transport data and information with all transport users (road authorities, public transport operators, businesses, citizens, etc.). ITS help to significantly improve road safety and traffic efficiency by helping transport users to take better decisions and adapt to the traffic situation (e.g. slow down for dangerous situations, adapt speed to ensure green light, avoid congested areas, etc.). ITS help to better use existing infrastructure, multimodality options and enhance traffic management.

The ITS Directive establishes a framework to support the coordinated and coherent deployment of ITS in the road sector and its interfaces with other modes of transport (e.g. multimodal journey planners combining road and rail). It also ensures interoperability and fosters continuity of services (i.e. it always works, for all users, everywhere) while leaving Member States the freedom to decide which ITS services to invest in. The ITS Directive provides for developing specifications (the detailed requirements needed to ensure the objectives of the Directive) in four priority areas, a description of which is provided in Annex 1 of the Directive and summarised in Table 1 below. In addition, six sets of requirements are identified as priority actions. The Directive foresees reporting by Member States every three years on all priority areas, complemented by reporting requirements in Delegated Regulations.

Table 1: Priority areas and priority actions

So far five priority actions resulted in supplementing the Directive by a Commission Delegated Regulation (a, b, c, d and e). Regarding the provision of reservation services for safe and secure (S&S) parking places for trucks and commercial vehicles (priority action f), the Commission conducted several consultations with Member State experts and the main stakeholders, which led to the conclusion that there was no need for specifications and standards on reservation of parking areas. Four Commission Delegated Regulations ask for setting up a national access point, establishing a single access point for ITS users to discover ITS data and foster its sharing and re-use (related to priority actions a, b, c and e). A delegated regulation on C-ITS was adopted under priority area IV but never entered into force following an objection by Council. 15

Synergies with other EU policy instruments

For in-vehicle emergency calls to 112 (eCall) a Delegated Regulation 16 under the ITS Directive combines with a specific legislative framework for the mandatory equipment of vehicles in Regulation (EU) 2015/758 17 . Such synergies are expected to increase in the area of CCAM, for example on ISA as defined in the General Safety Regulation 18 and on C-ITS 19 . The ITS Directive also has synergies with the new road safety policy framework for 2020-2030 20 and the legislative initiatives on vehicle and pedestrian safety 21 and on infrastructure safety management 22 , all of which provide complementary provision to increase road safety.

Digitalisation is an important aspect of the revision of the TEN-T Regulation. Road users on the TEN-T network must benefit from the opportunities offered by developments on data collection and ITS services to increase their safety. Therefore, a provision has been added to the Regulation to ensure safety-related events are detected for re-use in safety-related traffic information services, in line with Delegated Regulation 886/2013 under the ITS Directive.

As specific legislation, expertise and programme support actions on alternative fuels infrastructure are in place, discussions on the relevant data types are (also) held within the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) framework. 23 To ensure complementarity and transparency with the ITS Directive, it has been proposed that the AFIR covers the mandate to make data available for the related data types and further specify the data requirements. To ensure AFIR data is made accessible on the NAPs in a standardised format, a reference to Delegated Regulation 2015/962 under the ITS Directive is made.

Most ITS data is not personal (e.g. speed limits, traffic rules, maps) but some personal data is needed for some critical road safety services (e.g. vehicles sharing they are braking hard warn oncoming traffic of a potentially dangerous situation). Despite measures such as anonymization and data aggregation, data generated through the usage of vehicles can be considered personal and in those cases the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 24  applies.

The upcoming multimodal digital mobility (MDM) services initiative announced in the SSMS aims at increasing the deployment and operational use of MDM services within and across modes, to significantly improve multimodality, inclusiveness and sustainability. In view of identified market imbalances and difficulties to share commercially sensitive data, this proposal seeks to address market challenges hampering the development of MDM services and to establish a framework for commercial agreement for services reselling mobility products.

The provisions of the Platform to Business (P2B) Regulation 25 are applicable to several ITS service providers, such as MaaS applications which offer services to consumers in the EU, and impose more transparency obligations to platforms in relation to the access that business users may have to data (personal or not) when using the platform. The forthcoming Digital Markets Act and Data Governance Act, part of the EU’s Digital Strategy may have synergies with the ITS Directive notably in the field of Business to Government (B2G) data sharing. Data made accessible under the Delegated Acts under the ITS Directive is also expected to be part of the future initiative on a common European mobility data space. This initiative aims to facilitate the access, pooling and sharing of data from existing mobility and transport databases.

1.3.Evaluation of the existing Directive

The evaluation 26  of the ITS Directive 2010/40/EU concluded that it had overall positive impacts on the deployment of ITS across the EU and Member States. Despite this, the evaluation identified shortcomings leading to 1) lack of coordination in ITS deployment across the EU and 2) slow, risky and not-cost-effective ITS deployment. In consequence, ITS deployment, despite improvements, still often remains restricted to a limited geographical scope. Thus, there remains a clear need for further action at EU level on interoperability, cooperation and data sharing to enable seamless, continuous ITS services across the EU, the evaluation concluded. Stakeholders responded strongly positive on the relevance of the delegated acts adopted under the Directive, however a few considered that some delegated acts could be extended to further increase their relevance. This has been reflected in the Directive’s updated working programme adopted on 11 December 2018 27 . 

Member states reported progress in all priority areas, notably area IV, which was lagging behind, now witnesses the emergence of many pilot projects for C-ITS, following actions to establish a common legal and technical framework in order to ensure interoperability and continuity at EU level. 28  To make progress the EU level is still considered the most relevant for providing such a framework to foster deployment. The main conclusions from the ex-post evaluation, and their links with this impact assessment are presented in Table 2 .

Table 2: Links between conclusions of the ex-post evaluation and the impact assessment

2.Problem Definition

2.1.What is the problem?

Building on the evaluation of the ITS Directive, this IA further corroborated the problem analysis through desk research and stakeholders participating in exploratory interviews and workshops. The main problem is the “slow and fragmented deployment of ITS services, hampering also the uptake of emerging ITS services”. Beyond TEN-T and including urban areas (Member States are free to choose which sections of their road network they want to cover) deployment remains slow and fragmented. ITS services cover many different aspects of (road) transport but they all aim at improving road safety or at improving transport efficiency. The latter includes linking all transport modes to foster a more sustainable and more inclusive multi-modal transport system, also for people with reduced mobility. In addition, market development in areas that are key for future transport competitiveness and growth is hampered, including CCAM and MaaS. These are expected to be key enablers in the transition to a mobility system that combines shared door-to-door mobility with public transport, using the most effective mode for each leg of the journey, and help break the paradigm of private car ownership. 29 An overview of the drivers and consequences of this problem is presented in Table 3 .

Table 3: Overview of drivers, problems and implications

The Commission’s evaluation of the ITS Directive indicated that many of the actions set out in the ITS action plan and the priority actions identified in the Directive have been completed.  Table 4 outlines progress made across each priority area, as reported in the 2019 Commission report to the Parliament and Council 30 . As of June 2021, all Member States have set up NAPs 31 , enabling data sharing for the different specifications of the ITS Directive. The Member State reports on the implementation of the Directive paint a picture of incomplete deployment of ITS services and infrastructure and availability of relevant data along the different road types within Member States, with deployment taking up predominantly within the TEN-T network (core and comprehensive). Moreover, where Key Performance Indicators (KPI) 32 on deployment are reported 33 , they highlight the uneven deployment of various ITS services. In the comprehensive TEN-T network, a relatively high coverage is identified – considering this is voluntary deployment – by ITS information-gathering infrastructure (57% for 14 Member States) and RTTI data (75% for 14 MSs) and to a lesser extent traffic management and control (18% for 11 MSs) and automatic incident identification (24% for 13 MSs).

Table 4: Summary of Member States progress on implementing the Directive

Source: Member State Reports (2020-2021)

The availability and accessibility of quality ITS data is a prerequisite for the deployment of all ITS services and remains a serious issue. According to a JRC study 34 , innovation deployment in the area of CCAM, as well as in the area of low-carbon and shared mobility is significantly lower as a consequence of the (slow) rate of investment in (ITS) infrastructure. The study identifies a time delay of 10 to 20 years from the technical emergence of new solutions to their actual implementation and large-scale deployment. For instance, in 2016, a number of manufacturers announced that vehicles of higher automation levels (SAE level 4 or 5 35 ) would be available as early as 2020-2021. This has not happened and release dates have been postponed 36 . Regardless, deployment is expected to vary significantly due to the availability of (roadside and other) ITS infrastructure and data necessary for CCAM. 37 As a result, even when automated vehicles would be available, until the supporting ITS infrastructure is too, CCAM services will not.

The deployment of MaaS is slow, some initiatives have been piloted across Europe but most had problems reaching a significant scale and stable business operation replicable at the EU level 38 . Shortcomings of the implementation of the ITS Directive contribute to this as MaaS requires relevant MMTIS data, currently available only to a limited extent. 39 Additionally, where MMTIS are developed, they are locally or regionally focused and not continuous across larger geographical areas. Furthermore, the extent to which these mobility platforms will integrate booking and payment services is uncertain. The deployment of (new) ITS services with no harmonised specifications (such as mobility management services) is expected to lag for a number of years and remain fragmented. Although such services are not explicitly excluded from the current scope of the ITS Directive, they are also not clearly defined and specifically targeted by existing priority actions and their deployment is slower and fragmented as a result. Figure 1 shows that a clear majority of the stakeholders indicated that current deployment levels of ITS services require further action in relation to the priority areas already identified in the ITS Directive (priority areas I to IV), but also for emerging ITS services (priority areas V to VII).

Figure 1: Stakeholder views on the need for EU action in existing and new priority areas

2.2.What are the problem drivers?

All ITS, mature and emerging, depend on the - often bi-directional - exchange of data between many stakeholders. That means that, despite the wide scope of services covered by the ITS Directive, the problem drivers are common for all priority areas, namely:

·Driver A: Lack of interoperability and continuity of applications, systems and services hinders the development of a common ITS market

·Driver B: Lack of concertation and effective stakeholder coordination

·Driver C: Limited data availability and access, lack of data quality and limited exchange and usage of data

These problems drivers and their underlying factors are described in more detail below.

2.2.1.Driver A: Lack of interoperability and continuity of applications, systems and services hinders the development of a common ITS market

A first contributing factor is financial and administrative capacity limitations. This is highlighted in the KPIs for ITS deployment presented in the Member States country reports 40 . According to these, deployment of ITS services can vary significantly between countries, even when comparing only the TEN-T network or motorways and the disparity between Member States appears to be growing with some countries (e.g. Austria and Spain) having made significantly greater progress than other countries (e.g. Latvia and Greece). Lack of administrative and financial capacity is expected to continue delaying and fragmenting the deployment of ITS services across the EU transport network without further EU level intervention. 41  Although several Member States receive funding for the creation of NAPs via the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) 42 , this does not mean the full set of data types is available on all NAPs. Several stakeholders 43 pointed to the challenges with regard to collect, prepare and share data on all road networks, especially for smaller cities.

This will likely also be the case for the deployment of services unreported so far, such as MaaS applications. The mapping of such services reveals that deployment is highly localised and driven by the private sector, resulting in the deployment of services with relatively limited functional and geographic scope 44 . Achieving the appropriate balance between public and private components in a combined mobility scheme is a major issue, with actors needing to compromise on different business roles and objectives within the same transport ecosystem. 45

Barriers to interoperability and continuity of services also include lack of common standards, principles and quality requirements for emerging ITS services. New service concepts such as MaaS and CCAM require the development of new common standards and priority actions if they are to develop at scale across the EU, including on sharing data between road operators and other stakeholders, speed limits, cycling networks, Urban Vehicle Access Restrictions (UVAR), historical traffic data, roadworks in cities and other road and traffic specific rules. 46

The majority of stakeholders responding to the Inception Impact Assessment referred to the absence of interfaces that are able to link (all) essential vehicle data with (all) relevant ITS service providers as the most important missing piece to support interoperability, scalability and resilience of ITS services. The lack of interoperability and continuity of ITS services has also been acknowledged as a key issue amongst the Open Public Consultation (OPC) respondents as 42 out of 75 respondents participating to the survey indicated that they do not know which systems are available in a given situation.

Figure 2: Survey responses regarding the relevance of Problem Driver A

Respondents to the targeted survey agreed to a large extent with the existence of Problem Driver A for all types of ITS services as can be seen in Figure 2 .

Finally, data generated by different transport modes also lacks interoperability, which is especially relevant for services such as MMTIS and MaaS, as these integrate different transport modes and modes of operation (including not only traditional modes such as road and public transport, but also active modes and new mobility services such as shared and micro-mobility). The 2016 Study on ITS Directive, Priority Action A: The Provision of EU-wide MMTIS revealed that there is no single data exchange protocol for all transport modes, but rather one per mode. This was identified as the primary issue to enable a level playing field for intermodal services as the different data formats cannot be used by mobility platform providers and consumers. 47 The European Platform for SUMPs underlined the need for the legal framework to define interoperable architectures to ensure service availability to all users. 48

2.2.2.Driver B: Lack of concertation and effective stakeholder coordination

A first contributing factor is the limited involvement and buy-in from external / industry stakeholders through the existing cooperation mechanisms in the ITS governance framework. The governance structure of the ITS Directive includes the following three bodies:

·The European ITS Committee (EIC) 49 , composed of Member State representatives was established through Article 15 of the Directive and is consulted on the working programme, the reporting Guidelines, standardisation requests and non-binding measures. It is also an important forum to facilitate the exchange of information with Member States and develop an overall vision on ITS deployment in Europe.

·The European ITS Advisory Group (EIAG) was established according to Article 16 of the Directive to advise the European Commission on business and technical aspects of the deployment and use of ITS in the Union. The group is composed of high-level representatives from a number of stakeholders, bringing together industry, users, social partners, local authorities and other relevant parties.

·The ITS Member States Expert Group 50 composed of national experts that are appointed by Member States to provide technical support in the development of the delegated acts and subsequent monitoring of implementation. The Expert Group is composed by different Member State experts depending on the topic of discussion.

This setting includes two higher level structures operating in parallel with the ITS Member State Expert Group(s), which supports the preparation of the delegated acts and subsequent monitoring. The ITS Advisory Group has convened three times formally, and another eight times informally (when these meetings took place outside Brussels, mostly in conjunction with ITS World or European Congresses). This included seven times with the members of the ITS Committee, in the so-called “Friends of ITS” format. In addition, the ITS Advisory Group has systematically been consulted in writing on the delegated acts, even if this was not formally required in the Directive.

Whilst the format of the “Friends of ITS meeting” was generally well appreciated, as it allowed open discussions with and between public and private stakeholders, the structure has not proven to work effectively regarding the role of the ITS Advisory Group. Some members of the Advisory Group have criticised specifically the timing of the involvement they have had via this group as coming only at a very late stage of the regulatory preparation process, implying they are informed, but not consulted on more strategic discussions, e.g. on the definition of the work programmes and on the objectives of the new delegated acts. This may explain their subsequently loss of interest in participating to the Advisory Group meetings. This has resulted in lack of formal industry involvement in the implementation of the ITS work programme. This is not due to lack of interest, as both public and private stakeholders increasingly recognise the importance of coordinating priorities and investments when dealing with ITS. This was demonstrated in the scope of the development of the Delegated acts, which included large consultations of stakeholders to which many actively contributed. Also, within other related Commission expert groups, such as those on eCall 51 , C-ITS 52 or CCAM 53 , coordination with industry stakeholders seemed to work better, which is related to the more upstream timing in the policy development process. 54

In the absence of their inclusion in the scope of the ITS Directive and a clear coordination mechanism for the development of emerging services such as CCAM with all stakeholders, leading to concrete cooperation, for example to coordinate the deployment of ITS-relevant infrastructure, an uncoordinated deployment of ad hoc solutions is probable. 55  Respondents to the targeted survey agreed to a large extent with the existence of Problem Driver B as can be seen in Figure 3 .

Figure 3: Survey responses regarding the relevance of Problem Driver B

The lack of comparable monitoring of ITS deployment across the EU is another issue, Member State reports do not help produce a comprehensive understanding of the current state of deployment of ITS infrastructure and services. The analysis of 24 reports received in 2020-2021 acknowledges that while most report on traffic management information, the majority provided less information on most other ITS services. The reports are also not consistent regarding the level of detail used to monitor the deployment of ITS and the benefits produced thereof. Specifically, only 17 Member State reports follow the proposed structure in line with the four Priority Areas defined in the ITS Directive. The use of KPIs 56 is even less consistent as only 13 provide some sort of reporting on ITS deployment KPIs, 12 on benefit KPIs and 11 elaborate partially on financial KPIs. This leads to difficulties in mapping and supporting ITS deployment across Member States, particularly for cross-border comparisons.

2.2.3.Driver C: Limited data availability and access, lack of data quality and limited exchange and usage of data

A first contributing factor is long standing and emerging (trust) issues and issues related to data protection, privacy and liability, linked to technological and legislative developments. These were also cited in the evaluation of the ITS Directive as hindering the further deployment of ITS services and are recurring issues as proven by the number of times the point has been raised in different meetings of the ITS expert group 57 over the last three years (see Figure 4 ).

Figure 4: Count of concerns raised in the ITS Expert Group meetings, 2017-2020

Source: produced by Ricardo E&E based on available meeting minutes. The red circles indicate topics that are especially relevant to the problem drivers.

The Open Public Consultation (OPC) respondents supported this finding as stakeholders participating to the survey (31 of 75), expressed concerns about the privacy and re-use of personal data. To a lesser extent, concerns have also been expressed regarding the security of ITS systems (18 of 75 participating stakeholders agreed with the issue). Concerns have also been raised with regard to the security and privacy impacts of C-ITS which may slow down wide-spread deployment. In their responses to the IIA, a range of stakeholders, including the EPF, Move EU 58 , the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), ANEC 59 and Eurocities considered privacy and security concerns related to the sharing of static and dynamic transport user and providers data. FIA identified the capacity of drivers to retain ownership of their data as a key consideration for sharing. Other stakeholders also identified challenges to prove alignment of the ITS Directive with the GDPR and ePrivacy legislations. 60

The 2016 Study on ITS Directive, “Priority Action A: The Provision of EU-wide Multimodal Travel Information Services” also revealed that the development of interoperable travel and traffic data and their sharing and reuse is currently hindered by commercial confidentiality issues. It highlighted again the need to increase trust in order to promote data sharing amongst mobility stakeholders. In this respect, a set of common principles on the conditions of data sharing and use of relevant data could increase stakeholder cooperation and the reuse of data.

The deployment of new types of services could pose new challenges in relation to existing policies laying down data sharing, data protection and privacy, and liability requirements. The development of the legal framework governing data protection 61 since the ITS Directive came into force might also lead to the need to align the provisions of the ITS Directive to clarify how ITS services need to comply with data-related regulations and identify the conditions under which data collection, sharing and reuse can be performed. The recent work of the European Data Protection Board provides guidance to vehicle and equipment manufacturers, service providers or any other data controller or processor to facilitate compliance with GDPR when processing personal data in the context of connected vehicles and mobility related applications. In addition to general recommendations, these Guidelines also analyse several examples of data processing such as usage-based insurance or eCall.  62

Additionally, liability issues are still considered unresolved and can hinder the deployment of ITS services. For example, in a study from 2018 63 the European Parliament noted the need to revise the liability framework to address issues relevant to the deployment of automated vehicles. Also, a JRC study on “The future of road transport - Implications of automated, connected, low-carbon and shared mobility“ identified Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV) and other new mobility solutions as linked to raising issues in terms of privacy, and equity. As CAVs utilise multiple sources and sets of digitally stored personal data, keeping both personal and proprietary information safe is a key issue. 64  Finally, various stakeholders (AustriaTech, ASECAP and POLIS consulted through the exploratory interviews) identified the lack of a trust model for exchanging data between the involved stakeholders as the main hurdle to enable the necessary data flow for the (quality) operation of ITS services. They highlighted that MaaS deployment requires a fair and non-discriminatory system outlining the rights and obligation of involved stakeholders, access and data sharing and reuse conditions.

Another factor elaborated in the evaluation of the Directive was that the actual sharing of data beyond static network information has been very limited. 65 This is despite the fact that NAPs have been set up as a potential backbone for the digital transport infrastructure and an entry point for sharing data. An approach to develop a coordination mechanism to federate NAPs is currently in preparation and aims to stimulate and accelerate the coordinated provision of data (addressing also problem driver B). 66  

The current lack of data sharing can also be attributed to a lack of awareness of incentives and benefits to collect and share such data amongst the different stakeholders involved in the data value chain (e.g. data producers, intermediaries, users etc.). The support study on RTTI defines essential services and identifies the data types necessary for the operation of these services, which currently lacks availability.  67 The study concludes that there is a clear added value for making these data available in a phased manner, initially for a strategic road network and then expanding to the entire transport network.

Respondents to the targeted survey agreed with the contribution of Problem Driver C in hindering the deployment and use of ITS services across the EU as can be seen in  Figure 5 .

Figure 5: Survey responses regarding the relevance of Problem Driver C

There also seems to be a lack of policies and measures aiming to make fare information and service sharing possible, resulting in a barrier for the uptake of certain ITS services. 68 Some of the stakeholders responding to the IIA suggested that the lack of two-way sharing of data between transport users, the public and private sectors may be a contributing factor. A number of stakeholders suggest that there is a minimum level of standardised data that would need to be shared to overcome this problem. However, differences in opinions persist as to how far the sharing of data also includes private sector data. A limited number of Member States have declared their intention to make also dynamic data available through their NAPs. 69

2.3.    How will the problem evolve?

In the absence of further EU level intervention to address the problem and its drivers, it is likely that the deployment of a number of ITS services that rely on EU-level standardised data streams will remain slow and fragmented, hampering innovation. In particular, ITS services will likely function primarily at a local, regional or national level as is currently the case, with limited cross-border interoperability and only at a later stage considering integrating EU-level services.

In the absence of additional EU level intervention, the problem drivers contributing to the problem would likely persist. Specifically, Problem Driver A: Lack of interoperability and continuity of applications, systems and services (across different Member States and modes of transport), cannot be fully resolved by actions undertaken at a Member State or regional level alone. The Member State reports on the implementation of the Directive paint a picture of incomplete deployment of ITS services and infrastructure and availability of relevant data along the different road types within Member States, with deployment taking up predominantly within the TEN-T network. This points to the fact that deployment of continuous ITS services is unlikely until relevant infrastructure and data are delivered across the whole of the EU transport network. There is no indication that future Member State priorities will converge to the point of achieving full deployment of ITS services across the EU in the short- or mid-term.

Beyond these continuity concerns, stakeholders also raised the high risk of fragmentation of (emerging) ITS services due to the use of different standards by different stakeholders 70 . Service interoperability will thus most probably develop on an ad hoc basis between service providers of different modes or regions but lacking a universal framework of application. The majority of respondents to the targeted survey, shared the view that most of the ITS service types identified, would only be fully available towards 2040 as illustrated by the examples presented in Figure 6 for “travel information” and “V2V C-ITS” services. As such, only partial availability of services is expected until then, with travel information services expected to be deployed earlier than C-ITS services.

Looking at the expected development of Problem Driver B: Lack of concentration and effective coordination among stakeholders, this also does not seem possible to be tackled in the absence of further EU-level action. Although stakeholder cooperation is already a fact for some ITS related topics (e.g. NAP coordination), this is largely a result of EU action. Therefore, in the absence of further EU-level action, public and private stakeholders could be expected to continue developing voluntary industry or Member State-led cooperation mechanisms to deal with specific ITS issues that would not contain the full selection of relevant stakeholders. Such initiatives could be expected to develop a common approach or policies to deploy ITS, but would do so taking a more narrow geographical or modal view point and in relative isolation from other groups attempting similar initiatives.

Figure 6: Stakeholders' expectation of the state of deployment of ITS services

Source: Targeted stakeholder survey

Finally, with regard to the Problem Driver C: Limited data availability and access, as well as lack of common data quality standards and limited exchange and usage of data, no significant developments are expected without further EU-level intervention. A number of Member States are currently moving forward in making crucial data for the deployment of ITS services available (e.g. France has already mandated the availability of MMTIS data for persons with reduced mobility 71 ). However, this is not expected to expand to the whole of the EU. As data sharing and reuse is currently often left at a voluntary basis, the sharing of data will likely remain limited to the level of individual business agreements. Also, current trust issues affecting the willingness of stakeholders to share and reuse data can be expected to continue in the absence of an EU level action, especially on addressing concerns regarding compliance of ITS deployment with EU data protection legislation.

The deployment of certain innovative services that rely on sharing specific data categories, is therefore expected to suffer from the lack of incentives to produce, share and reuse specific high quality, real-time data. Also, such data, where made available, would follow different quality standards introduced by different Member States or industry stakeholders in the absence of an EU-level coordination on this topic intervention taking place. Thus, although it can be expected that more data will be made available in the future, these would come at different levels of availability and quality standards across the EU leading to the retention of the problem of essential data for ITS services being only partially available and used in the future.

3.Why should the EU act?

3.1.    Legal basis

To ensure the correct functioning of the internal market the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) establishes the EU’s prerogative to makes provisions for the Common Transport Policy, Title VI (Articles 90-91) and for the trans-European networks, Title XVI (Articles 170-171). With this legal framework in mind, EU action allows better coordination for even, continuous and widespread deployment of ITS, instead of relying on Member States only. This facilitates travel across the EU for consumers and transport operators. It also helps to avoid fragmentation of ITS deployment and encourages private service providers to commit to deployment, knowing the road infrastructure is in place.

3.2.    Subsidiarity: Necessity of EU action

While ITS services can be (and are) introduced at regional or national level, the continuity of the EU transport system requires an EU-wide approach to deal with the problems at stake. Discrepancies between Member States and local authorities in support measures for the deployment of ITS could lead to a fragmented market leading to increased costs and reduced benefits for all stakeholders, including service providers, Member States, local authorities and transport system users. Different regional approaches may even lead to a complete inability to deploy specific services involving multi-modal or cross-border cooperation.

Industry-led standardisation through the European Standardisation Organisations contributes to interoperability, but it is voluntary by nature and allows non-interoperable implementations, and with many different actors and strong network effects, no actor can introduce an interoperable solution on its own. Similarly, setting rules at the national level would likely hinder the provision of continuous ITS services in the Single European Transport Area.

Compatibility between infrastructure and vehicle solutions will need to be assured across the EU in order to fully benefit from ITS. In addition, to ensure effective synergies with the deployment of new safety technologies and the roll-out of CCAM across the EU a more harmonised approach at EU level is needed. Only when reassurance is given that harmonisation is achieved at EU level, implying also, crucially, that vehicles will benefit from infrastructure services all across the Union, does deployment make sense. Similarly, though the business case is calculated differently for the public sector, it makes no sense to invest unless large portions of the fleet are expected to be equipped in the near future.

EU-level coordinated action is already introduced as an optimal approach for the deployment of the current version of the ITS Directive and EU action is foreseen to tackle the four priority areas identified in the Directive. A revision of the ITS Directive would aim to further yield results in these key priority areas as well as in new defined policy areas aiming to cover emerging ITS service. Stakeholder consultation also revealed support for action at EU level.

3.3.    Subsidiarity: Added value of EU action

The main benefits of EU action lie in the continuous ITS services across the EU which the initiative aims to achieve. Travel throughout the EU should become safer and more efficient, whereby less advanced Member States will be able to benefit from the experience of more advanced Member States. This should in turn improve the functioning of the internal market, through a smoother and more coherent travel experience for passenger and freight transport, and support the EU's objective of economic, social and territorial cohesion.

A framework for continuous ITS services, supported by a broad group of stakeholders, would also help create a supportive ecosystem for the research and innovation in new ITS services and technologies such as MaaS. The development of highly automated road transport is part of a global race and competition, including stakeholders from outside the traditional automotive sector. As (cooperative) ITS is a key enabler for automation and deploying CCAM in the EU, its continuous, harmonized and EU-wide deployment would improve the EU’s international competitiveness in this field.

4.Objectives: What is to be achieved?

4.1.    General objectives

This initiative aims to increase the deployment and operational use of ITS services across the EU, to improve road safety, increase the efficiency of the transport system as a whole and help linking all transport modes to foster a multimodal transport system and, and in doing so, to reduce the negative external effects of transport.

This contributes to the two key priorities for the transport system described in the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy: the decarbonisation and digitalisation of the EU transport sector. In addition, this will contribute to reducing accidents and achieving Vision Zero.

4.2.    Specific objectives

All ITS require the exchange of data. To make that happen the data needs to exist, be standardised, digitalised and available for sharing. In addition, there needs be trust between the parties sharing the data and coordination between multiple actors, particularly when effective delivery of the service depends on parallel investments. Furthermore, the very positive cost benefit ratio of ITS applies when deployment takes place at the scale of the Union. For example, it makes much less sense to equip vehicles when the public data needed to deliver the service is only available in a fragmented manner.

From this, three specific objectives (matching the three problem drivers defined in chapter 2.2) were identified.

SO1: Interoperability is a necessary precondition for reaching cross-border continuity of ITS services. For existing services a lot of work has already happened but for emerging ITS services like multimodal services and when combining data from different modes, issues remain. Without this, deployment will by definition be fragmented and likely be delayed. As a result transport users cannot or will not benefit from such services when travelling in the Union, even when reaching regions that have invested in deployment. This will limit the potential of such services and fail to create the necessary scale required to unlock larger investments and support a European ITS market. Success will thus depend on addressing these issues and be measured by the financial and administrative capacity to develop innovative multi-modal mobility services that depend on this data and the deployment of all services.

SO2: ITS services are beneficial for individual transport users, as well as for transport network managers, road operators, vehicle manufacturers, mobility service providers, fleet managers etc. ITS services can also be offered by public authorities, road operators and industrial service providers. Moreover, some ITS services target multimodal travel services and require the collaboration of stakeholders from other modes. That implies that accelerated and harmonised deployment of ITS services can only happen when clear and effective coordination and concertation processes exist for all ITS stakeholders. Success will depend on aligning public and private interests, matching investments from both sides and the deployment of ITS that successfully builds on and combines data from public and private sources. In addition, comparable monitoring of ITS deployment helps understanding what already exists and works well, realising continuity of services and creating incentives to build on that.

SO3: in order to exchange data it first of all needs to be available. Next, the data also needs to be accessible, in a standardised format, and of high-quality, meaning not only the level of detail but also making sure that the data is not outdated. When personal data is involved, for example when C-ITS or in-vehicle data is used, issues on data protection, data ownership, privacy and liability need to be resolved. Trust amongst stakeholders is important, particularly when dealing with commercially sensitive data, and to be complemented by suitable business models, from both public and private perspective. Common solutions for all interested parties are needed as both vehicles and infrastructure would benefit greatly from increased data availability and sharing. In fact, for higher levels of automation many now consider this a necessary enabler. Success would be the timely availability of the necessary high quality data (such as traffic regulations) to support advanced vehicle features, whilst in-vehicle data is available for enriching traffic management and other infrastructure services. Success would also mean sharing of relevant data by all mobility providers to enable multi-modal mobility services. A by-product/additional manifestation of that success would be the continued presence of EU technology providers and automotive OEMs amongst the global leaders in the mobility sector.

5.What are the available policy options?

5.1.    What is the baseline from which options are assessed?

The EU Reference Scenario 2020 (REF2020) represents the starting point for assessing the options in this IA. The EU Reference scenario 2020 reflects the range of foreseen national policies and measures of the final National Energy and Climate Plans that Member States submitted in 2019 according to the Governance Regulation 72 . The EU Reference scenario 2020 also takes into account the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic that had a significant impact on the transport sector. More detailed information about the preparation process, assumptions and results are included in the Reference scenario publication 73 .

Building on the Reference scenario 2020, the Baseline scenario for this IA has been designed to include the initiatives of the ‘Fit for 55’ package and other measures of the MIX policy scenario 74 . The MIX scenario follows a balanced approach of carbon pricing instruments and regulatory-based measures to deliver on the ambition of at least 55% emissions reductions by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050 75 . The Baseline scenario is commonly used by this IA and the one underpinning the review of the TEN-T Regulation (both planned to be adopted in autumn), to ensure consistency.

The Baseline scenario assumes no further EU level intervention beyond the current ITS Directive. It assumes the continuation of the application of the ITS Directive provisions and the preparation of standards for the already defined priority areas. It also covers:

·National ITS deployment projects (e.g. C-Roads and ITS corridors) are expected to result in important ITS deployment at regional level, but not widespread adoption.

·Industry announcements and identified trends around ITS deployment.

Without further EU level intervention ITS service usage is projected to progress slowly.

In this IA the existing priority areas and services as described in chapter 1.2 (many of which are already covered by Delegated Regulations) are complemented by emerging ITS services. The multi-modal area is strengthened by including booking services and intermodal interfaces for drivers, whilst traffic management is complemented by mobility management and support for automated vehicles is also included. The various types of services have been bundled, taking into account mainly the targeted transport users and the underlying deployment drivers (see  Table 5 ). The 3 C-ITS bundles (4, 5 and 6) are separate because they rely on communication between dedicated C-ITS devices (typically installed in vehicles or in the infrastructure) whilst the information services in the other bundles can generally be delivered through various non-dedicated means, such as navigation devices and smartphones (e.g. planning a multimodal trip). This forward-looking extension, and some regrouping, was subsequently tested in the first open stakeholder workshop. This led to splitting the first bundle, making a clear distinction between drivers and travellers, again strengthening the multi-modal angle. The bundles were presented in several workshops afterwards, in which stakeholders recognised the logic not only in terms of functionality and target users, but also of the required investments.

Table 5: ITS service bundles

Stakeholders contributed to the establishment of the list of ITS services and its bundling during the targeted interview programme and the series of workshops held (see annex II). Electronic tolling and payment services were considered at some point but discarded as they are already regulated outside the scope of the ITS Directive 77 . Stakeholder feedback also led to the splitting of bundles 1a and 1b to clearly identify services having primarily a multi-modal focus targeting travellers rather than drivers. Some stakeholders questioned whether the bundling reflected any choices in technology to deliver the services (particularly related to the C-ITS bundles) but that is not the case. The ITS service bundles do not aim to develop any formal classification but serve a functional purpose for this IA. Specifically, by grouping together services with similar/overlapping functionalities, the deployment rates and their impacts can be assessed in a systematic way, without going into details for the numerous ITS services while at the same time capturing all the costs and benefits associated to them.

The usage of the ITS services in these seven bundles is what drives impact on the transport system so the IA estimates the expected increase in ITS service usage in the baseline for all service bundles until 2040. Services in Bundles 1-3 start from a higher level of usage in 2021 compared to Bundles 4-5 that are reliant on the continued roll out of dedicated infrastructure and deployment of equipped vehicles, which take time to penetrate the total fleet. The more mature ITS services (i.e. travel management services (bundle 1b) and road safety and security applications (bundle 3)) are projected to reach 70% coverage on TEN-T roads in front runner countries by 2040, see Figure 7 . 78  For Bundle 6, which includes services leading to higher levels of automation, no service usage is projected in the IA.  79

Figure 7: service usage in front runner countries in the baseline

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021), Impact assessment support study

In the Baseline scenario, EU transport activity is projected to grow post-2020, following the recovery from the COVID pandemic. Road transport would maintain its dominant role within the EU in 2040, despite the fact that rail transport activity would grow significantly faster. Congestion costs would increase by about 14% by 2030 and 23% by 2040, relative to 2015. Congestion on the inter-urban network result from growing freight transport activity along specific corridors, in particular where these corridors cross urban areas with heavy local traffic.

CO2 emissions from transport including international aviation but excluding international maritime transport, are projected to be 19% lower by 2030 compared to 2015, and 70% lower by 2040. The reduction in road transport emissions would be higher, at around 24% by 2030 relative to 2015 (78% decrease by 2040) driven in particular by the proposed CO2 standards for light duty vehicles, supported by the roll-out of recharging/refuelling infrastructure, but also by other measures like carbon pricing and energy taxation.

NOx emissions are projected to go down by 56% between 2015 and 2030 (77% by 2040), mainly driven by the electrification of the road transport. The decline in particulate matter (PM2.5) would be slightly lower by 2030 at 52% relative to 2015 (79% by 2040).The number of fatalities is projected to be 22% lower in 2030 relative to 2015 and 28% lower by 2040, being however far from the milestone of the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy of close to zero death toll for all modes of transport in the EU by 2050. The number of serious and slight injuries would go down at lower speed (18% for 2015-2030 and 22% for 2015-2040). More details on the baseline scenario are provided in Annex 4.

5.2.    Description of retained policy measures

As a first step, a comprehensive list of possible policy measures was established after extensive consultations with stakeholders, expert meetings, independent research and the Commission’s own analysis. This list was subsequently screened based on the likely effectiveness, efficiency and proportionality of the proposed measures in relation to the given objectives, as well as their legal, political and technical feasibility. The retained policy measures are presented in  Table 6 and linked to the service bundles (SB) that are expected to most benefit from them. Measures 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 are implemented, for most in a phased approach, between 2025 and 2030. All other measures are assumed to be implemented starting in 2025.

Table 6: list of policy measures and service bundles expected to benefit from them

Stakeholders were involved in all steps of the process, from the definition of the problem, to the identification of the policy measures. As such, there is general agreement on the scope of action needed and the options proposed. The detailed figures below show, for each specific objective defined in chapter 4.2 a combination of interview and survey responses presenting stakeholder general agreement with the measures put forward (please note that some measures address multiple specific objectives, for more details on the links between policy measures and specific objectives see chapter 5.2.2).

Figure 8: stakeholder support for measures addressing SO1

Figure 9: stakeholder support for measures addressing SO2

Figure 10: stakeholder support for measures addressing SO3

5.2.1.    Measures discarded at an early stage

The collection of real consumption data of vehicles was briefly considered but discarded as possible updated legislation on this topic is currently being investigated in an IA by DG CLIMA. Requirements on data types regarding availability of relevant recharging and refuelling-related data were also considered but are now part of AFIR. 80

Regarding access to in-vehicle generated data, in the scope of this initiative, the purpose is to facilitate the reuse of in-vehicle generated data relevant for road maintenance and traffic management, not at the level of the vehicle itself, but at the level of aggregation and interpretation of data for that aim. There are existing standards for the re-use of in-vehicle generated data under development, but not all stakeholders have yet subscribed to use them. The adoption of a single standard / single specifications would represent a strong improvement. A complementary mandate on the sharing of in-vehicle data was briefly considered and well supported by stakeholders (see Figure 11 ) 81 . Nevertheless, this is an emerging service at this stage and a mandate was not considered feasible until it is clearer which data is precisely useful for such business-to-government services, and how it can best be collected and shared with infrastructure and road managers.

Figure 11: stakeholder support for a mandate on in-vehicle data (interview and survey responses)

Overall, very few measures were discarded because either stakeholders clearly agreed with the proposed measure or the measure builds on an existing or already planned initiative (see also chapter 5.2). Looking into some more detail by type of measure (as used in Table 6 ):

·Measures on scoping: stakeholder views during the first workshop confirmed the continued relevance of existing priority areas as well as the update of the scoping of the Directive with new priority areas. Subsequent stakeholder consultations agreed and hence none of the proposed measures was discarded.

·Measures on specifications, standards and mandates: these are essentially on/off options (e.g. you develop a standard or not). For the mandates, proportionality is particularly important however and only the most crucial data types were included. Identification of crucial datatypes started with the preparation for the revision of the Delegated Regulation on real-time traffic information, where alternatives were already tested and discarded. These were subsequently confirmed during the various workshops organised in the scope of this IA. The other mandates cover significantly smaller datasets (e.g. the 8 events considered in the safety related traffic information service). Regarding services, the mandates are relatively limited, with the deployment of the safety-related information service on the TEN-T network, and for C-ITS the final selection of services is open and conditional to a dedicated impact assessment.

·Measures on stakeholder cooperation and governance: these are either high-level or build on pre-existing actions e.g. NAP cooperation, mandating the KPIs reporting, C-ITS governance etc. They are widely supported in the stakeholder community and considered essential for continuation.

·Measures on coherence: Measures were developed specifically to tackle the issues identified in the legal coherence analysis.

5.2.2.    Retained policy measures and policy options overview

In Table 7  the policy measures from Table 6  are linked to the specific objectives described in chapter 4.2. The strong interventions (shown as  below) related to the mandatory collection of crucial data (PO2) and mandatory provision of essential services (PO3) contribute to both SO1 and SO3. The retained policy measures were also combined into three policy options (PO), each building on the previous, i.e. PO2 includes all measures of PO1 and PO3 includes all measures from PO2 (the policy measures are re-ordered to illustrate this).

Table 7: Policy measures, their contributions to the specific objectives and inclusion in policy options

As a result, despite all policy options addressing all specific objectives, the majority of measures addressing SO2 are already included in PO1 and the higher level of ambition from PO2 and PO3 comes primarily from a stronger intervention to tackle SO1 and SO3.

Table 8: Overview of policy options in terms of ambition and level of intervention

5.3.    Description of the policy options

As illustrated in Table 7 policy options are built incrementally, with the majority of measures already included in the first policy option. This is because the critical policy choices revolve around the scope and level of ambition of the mandates, as these are the most intervening measures and represent significant investments. The policy options need to provide a good understanding of how these mandates help reaching the overall goal of deploying ITS, as their usage is ultimately responsible for the generation of impacts. To bring this out in the clearest manner possible one policy option introduces the data mandates whilst another introduces the service mandates. A policy option including service mandates but without the data mandates was not considered as all services rely on data. Indeed, though the overall objective is to accelerate the deployment of ITS services, the Directive is an enabling framework and many actions take place at an upstream level, such as working on the standardisation and availability of data.

5.3.1.    PO1: Strengthened coordination and deployment principles

This first policy option introduces the largest amount of policy measures but nevertheless mostly takes a light touch approach, including those related to amendments to the Directive to allow for the expansion of its operation in emerging ITS service areas, addressing shortcomings in stakeholder cooperation with measures improving coordination and finally, ensuring coherence of Directive provisions with those of other existing legal instruments. It also includes measures that aim to institutionalise parts of the governance framework, and aims to future-proof the Directive to function in the advent of known upcoming EU policy initiatives. Policy option 1 includes the following measures addressing each of the problem drivers:

·Problem Driver A (measures number 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 10): improvements and updates to the functioning of the ITS Directive to enable it to account for new developments in the mobility eco-system and the evolving policy priorities in the field of transport as well as to cover emerging ITS services and to ensure coherence with existing EU legislation. These include the renewal of the standardisation mandate to allow the development of standards covering an updated set of priority areas such as standards for in-vehicle generated data for road operation, the revision of the RTTI specifications and new specifications for mature and upcoming C-ITS services. These new priority areas include the areas of MDM services, enhanced traffic/mobility management and CCAM services.

·Problem driver B (measures number 17, 21, 22 and 23): improve stakeholder coordination through the continuation of NAP coordination in a non-binding legal format and set up a more formal format for stakeholder involvement in the implementation of the Directive and the preparation of Delegated Acts. Streamline requirements for Member State reporting on the implementation of the Directive and Delegated Acts (currently each Delegated Act introduces separate reporting requirements) including the use of a set of common KPIs.

·Problem driver C (measures number 16, 19, 20, 24 and 25): facilitate data sharing and reuse between stakeholders by introducing a set of common principles for the deployment of ITS services (e.g. on accessibility of the information, data privacy and transparency of the ranking of services) as well as for the non-discriminatory sharing of in-vehicle data for purposes of asset and traffic management. The application of the C-ITS Trust model 82 becomes embedded in legislation to increase trust in C-ITS services. Finally, in addition to ensuring coherence with existing legislation (e.g. GDPR and ePrivacy), this Policy Option aims to further future-proof the ITS Directive ensuring coherence with known upcoming EU initiatives such as the ones related to the revision of the TEN-T and Rail Freight Corridors Regulations, in-vehicle architecture and the European Mobility Data Space.

5.3.2.    PO2: Mandate collection and availability of crucial data

This strong intervention makes the collection and sharing of data crucial for the operation of essential services mandatory as a means to boost the deployment of such services. These measures aim predominantly to improve data availability, quality, access exchange and usage while all other aspects of Policy Option 1 are retained. More specifically, it will include the following measures for each problem driver:

·Problem drivers A and C (measures number 5, 11, 12 and 13): this policy option will expand the scope of application of the priority areas from “standards and specifications” and introduce the possibility to develop mandates for collecting and making available all data considered crucial for the deployment of essential services in the priority areas of RTTI, MMTIS and S&S truck parking. In doing so, this policy option also enables the development of data quality standards applicable for the mandatory sharing of the crucial data types required for the delivery of these essential services. In that respect, specific Delegated Acts for each priority action are to be included to develop the definition of essential services, the definition of crucial data needed to deliver these services, the definition of the geographical scope and time-horizon for the data mandate as well as the development of the required data quality standards. 

·Problem driver Β (measure number 18): support the data sharing mandate by embedding the NAP coordination platform in legislation.

5.3.3.    PO3: Mandate provision of essential services

This strong intervention foresees the possibility to introduce mandates for the deployment of essential services through Delegated Acts. It especially capitalises on the increased data availability, quality, exchange and usage promoted by Policy Option 2 (Driver C) and aims to further support the deployment of interoperable and continuous services (Driver A). More specifically, in addition to the measures under PO2 and PO1 it includes:

·Problem driver A (measure number 9): Development of a mandatory standard for in-vehicle generated data facilitating their sharing and integration in ITS services.

·Problem driver A and C (measure numbers 14 and 15): Expansion of the scope of application of the priority areas and mandating the availability of data required for essential services and for the deployment of such services. Specific Delegated Acts for each priority area will develop the definition of essential services, the appropriate quality standards, as well as the definition of the geographical scope and time-horizon for mandatory deployment of those services. This mandate focuses on road safety services and will cover the areas of SRTI and Day 1 C-ITS deployment. To support this deployment mandatory equipment of new vehicles with dedicated C-ITS stations from 2028 onwards is included.

·Problem driver B: no additional measures

6.What are the impacts of the policy options?

This section summarizes the main expected economic, social and environmental impacts of each policy option. In terms of time horizon, the assessment has been undertaken for the 2021-2040 period. The measures that are part of the POs will not all be implemented at the same time, notably, the data availability mandates in PO2 (measures 11, 12 and 13) and the service availability mandates in PO3 (measures 14 and 15) are modelled from 2028 and 2030 onwards. All other measures are assumed to be implemented starting in 2025. The analysis presented in this section covers the EU27 scope. Costs and benefits are expressed as present value using a 4% discount rate. The assumptions on the take-up rate of the specific services - as well as their impacts - feeding the ASTRA-TRUST model are based on the best, and most relevant, data identified in literature. Stakeholders were consulted in several workshops on these assumptions, including primary cost and impact estimates for all service bundles. The usual assumptions in monetising externalities are also relevant, for example we cannot model every individual trip but use units representing averages of all types of trips. Additionally, assumptions were introduced to extrapolate and cover possible data gaps in different Member States and road-types, as well as to address potential overlapping effects of services. As a result, we obtain a reliable estimate of the scale of magnitude of the expected impacts. More details on modelling are provided in Annex 4 "Analytical methods".

6.1.    Economic impacts

Deployment, investment and operating costs

The deployment of ITS infrastructure over the 2021-2040 period is presented in Table 9 for the baseline and policy options. The deployment assumptions, linked to the policy measures included in each option, build on significant expert input and stakeholder consultation.

Table 9: Cumulative deployment over the 2021-2040 period supporting ITS services

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021)

To deploy ITS services costs are incurred by both the public and private sector, notably by the road authorities and ITS service providers, including vehicle manufacturers. An overview per policy option for various types of costs is presented in Table 10 . Roadside units are required to support C-ITS services, and costs are highest in PO3 as the mandatory equipment of vehicles is expected to trigger significant voluntary investments on the infrastructure side. New and upgraded roadside infrastructure supports data collection and information sharing across all ITS services. While most NAPs have been set up, they are in various stages of operation and ongoing costs will scale according to the number and quantity of data sets that are supported. 83 Central ITS subsystems include traffic management centres and systems that support overall administration and management of road systems. The mandatory data collection proposed in PO2 is responsible for the cost increase in these categories. Mobile systems connect the users to the infrastructure and costs are dominated by in-vehicle systems, which are required for the delivery of C-ITS services whilst smartphone costs only include application development as ownership and data costs are assumed to be covered and will not be affected by the policy options. While costs in PO1 and PO2 have a similar increase, related to policy measures that align GDPR, ePrivacy and passenger rights and the C-ITS trust model provisions, all increasing trust in the system, the costs increase significantly in PO3 as this includes mandatory equipment of new vehicle types from 2028 onwards.

Table 10: Cost for each PO compared to the baseline (EUR bn), expressed as present value over 2021-2040

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021), impact assessment support study

These costs are of course expected to boost service usage, which is presented for all service bundles across all policy options in Figure 7 , Figure 12 and Figure 13 . PO1 is expected to result in smaller improvements, whilst step-change improvements are expected from PO2 and PO3.

For information services (B1a and B1b) the mandatory provision of data in PO2 is the main driver for accelerated usage (these services are not covered by PO3 and do not require dedicated in-vehicle equipment, in the chart lines of PO2 and PO3 overlap). The same is true for travel management services (B2), the only bundle not targeted by dedicated measures at this stage. Road safety service usage (B3) is expected to increase markedly thanks to mandates from both PO2 and PO3, whilst C-ITS services (B4 and B5) benefit from the mandatory equipment of vehicles in PO3 (PO2 does not cover C-ITS, in the chart lines of PO1 and PO2 overlap).

Figure 12: Service usage of information and booking bundles in front runner countries across policy options

Figure 13: Service usage of travel management and road safety bundles in front runner countries across policy options

Figure 14: Service usage of C-ITS bundles in front runner countries across policy options

Administrative costs

The costs to public authorities from the requirements to review and update the national policy frameworks (NPFs) and report on the implementation are similar as in the baseline. Monitoring costs may increase to some extent to report on compliance with the mandatory provision of crucial data and essential services. Stakeholders highlighted that hundreds of authorities across Europe would be involved, which is challenging for smaller municipalities as they might lack the know-how and resources, leading to increased coordination costs. The RTTI support study estimates the administrative burden resulting from a data collection mandate covered under PO2 and PO3 in this IA at just over €18 million (present value) for the period 2021-2030. 84 The estimated cost includes personnel cost for data collection, processing and maintenance, coordination, standardisation and training, but focusses on the actual collection of data, going beyond the administrative costs resulting from it, which can reasonably be assumed to be lower.

On the other hand, the provision of standardised data formats, a common reporting format and KPIs, and alignment of reporting requirements (from Delegated Regulations and Directive) will simplify overall reporting under the Directive and reduce administrative costs. The digitisation of processes leading to the creation of digital information should also reduce the burden of transmission of information to third parties (e.g. transmission of traffic regulations updates to service providers, which would be done only once through the National Access Points). Whether the expected increases and decreases compensate or whether one is higher than the other is however very difficult to quantify. Sources that have been used to try to estimate these costs include interviews carried out as part of the IA, the RTTI support study, the 2020 ITS Member State reports, and feedback from some cities and road authorities. None of the reported costs were, however, sufficiently granular for this purpose, nor could they be compared.

Urban travel time costs

Several ITS services target reductions of (urban) travel time, for example through increased ease of use of multimodal solutions or RTTI. These services types are strongly stimulated by the data mandates in PO2, leading to very large time savings.

Table 11: Monetised urban travel time saving for EU27 (EUR bn), expressed as present value over 2021-2040

Source: ASTRA / TRUST model

The mandatory equipment of vehicles in PO3 enables services such as green light optimal speed assistance, which bring additional time savings. These present reductions in overall annual urban travel time (0.7%, 2.3% and 2.3% in 2040 compared to the baseline for PO1, PO2 and PO3 respectively). Given the high number of hours lost in traffic, the monetary value of these savings is significant. 85

Fuel consumption costs

A range of ITS services have a positive impact on fuel consumption. RRTI will help to improve journey efficiency by influencing vehicles to take optimal routes from a time or even fuel efficiency perspective, which drives the reduction in PO2. The effect of mandatory equipment of new vehicles with C-ITS stations in 2028, enabling services that support smoother traffic flows, becomes noticeable after 2030 and drives the even larger savings in 2040 of PO3.

Table 12: Fuel consumption (in million toe) in 2030 and 2040 for the baseline and policy options

These represent significant reductions in overall fuel consumption as can be seen in Table 13 .

Table 13: Monetized fuel costs saving for EU27 (EUR bn), expressed as present value over 2021-2040

Source: ASTRA / TRUST model

Impacts on transport activity and modal shift

The model shows no discernible impact on total passenger transport activity but Table 14 does show a (very) small increase of freight transport activity (which is more price-sensitive). Road transport benefits most from the deployment of ITS services and more efficient road transport leads to a modal shift towards road. MaaS and mobility management services are an exception and these are not yet included in this analysis as desk research identified very little evidence on the impact of these services. To account for this, two additional sensitivity model runs were performed (see chapter 7.5) to evaluate the potential of MaaS and mobility management services to compensate for the small modal shift observed in Table 15 for the more ambitious Policy Options.

Table 14: Freight transport activity (total of all modes) for EU27

Source: ASTRA / TRUST model

Table 15: Modal split for passengers

Source: ASTRA / TRUST model

Impact on GDP

The ASTRA model also makes an assessment of the impact of each policy option on GDP. These are mainly driven by investments in support of ITS. The 2030 and 2040 annual impacts relative to the baseline are shown in Table 16 , which shows modest impacts in PO1 and marginally higher impacts in PO2 (driven by infrastructure investments needed for mandatory data collection) and PO3 (driven by vehicle investments in mandatory C-ITS equipment), with a maximum of increase of 0.12% relative to the baseline in 2040 for PO3.

Table 16: Impacts on GDP for EU27

Source: ASTRA / TRUST model

Impact on internal market and competition

All policy options are expected to improve the functioning of the internal market, albeit at different levels. In particular, new specifications foreseen to be developed under PO1 will support the development of a common EU market for ITS services. These measures will especially prevent the fragmentation of the market that would take place should different data standards be developed at a national, local or operator level, which is already an issue today for e.g. UVAR regulations. It will also create a level playing field, as it guarantees that all companies will have equal access to the data shared by public authorities, whilst provisions for the implementation of the C-ITS Trust model will strengthen the internal market for C-ITS equipment. The mandate to collect and share data for MMTIS, RTTI and S&S truck parking in PO2 can be expected to further strengthen the internal market. Guaranteeing the availability of crucial data of uniform quality fosters the development of EU-wide ITS services for the transport sector and a level playing field for transport operators. The essential service mandate in PO3 further supports the development of the EU level playing field.

Impact on Innovation

Impacts on innovation can be expected to be delivered through two mechanisms, first, common data specifications and ITS standards preventing market fragmentation and allowing for the accumulation of a critical mass for the development of innovation. All policy options deliver on this however the introduction of mandatory standards for in-vehicle generated data in PO3 is expected to be a game changer, as it would allow the development of innovative services integrating data from sources currently unavailable. Second, improved data availability and quality allowing for the development of innovative ITS services making use of the increased data provision. This is predominantly related to the data mandates in PO2. The mandatory introduction of C-ITS systems in new vehicles post 2028 will assist in reaching a critical market mass, promoting the development of innovative services for these systems.

Impact on SMEs

SMEs are not a specific target of the policy measures and there is no indication that a differentiated impact can be expected to companies of different sizes. However, a fragmented market, as would have been the case without the introduction of new data specifications and standard requirements and the widespread use of NAPs, may produce a comparative advantage for larger companies compared to SMEs. In a harmonised market, as far as standards are concerned, SMEs will benefit from lower entry barrier to expand their operations and compete on an equal basis with larger enterprises. In that respect, the measures included in PO1 are expected to generate the most impact on SMEs, with no additional impacts from PO2 and PO3.

6.2.    Social impacts

Impact on road safety

Several of the ITS services considered in this IA specifically aim to improve road safety and to decrease both the number and severity of accidents. The numbers presented here do not include the improvement in road safety, resulting from a modal shift from passenger car travel to safer modes such as bus and train, related to the deployment of MaaS and mobility management services, which as discussed in chapter 6.1 are difficult to quantify at this moment. All policy options show a reduction in the number of accidents relative to the baseline for both 2030 and 2040, albeit a moderate difference in 2030 (see Table 17 ) as the uptake of C-ITS equipment is still low then. All accident types (fatalities, serious injuries and minor injuries) are projected to decrease under each of the policy options. Minor injuries are most common and are thus predicted to see the greatest reductions in absolute terms compared to the baseline in all policy options.

Table 17: Annual accidents and accidents avoided relative to the baseline

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021)

However, the reduction in fatalities is where the greatest relative benefits are realised, reaching a maximum 4.5% reduction in 2040 in the case of PO3, which is three times that of PO2 in the same year (1.5%). PO3 is also expected to have the greatest reduction in total accidents (43,206 in 2040) by considerable margin, which can be explained by the marked increase in road safety services deployment and uptake due to the introduction of a mandate covering SRTI and C-ITS services. The relatively low impact in 2030 is because the mandatory equipment, for new vehicles only, is from 2028 onwards. Looking at the external costs of accidents, expressed as present value over the 2021-2040 period, as shown in Table 18 , PO3 shows the largest savings relative to the baseline.

Table 18: External costs of accidents expressed as present value over (2021-2040) for EU27 (EUR bn)

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021)

Affordability of transport services

Table 19 presents the impacts of each policy option on average transport expenditures per person. These transport expenses are reported by the ASTRA-TRUST model and include transport costs for road bus and rail 86 . Each policy option results in average savings per person due to the increased deployment of ITS services that reduce transport costs. PO1 generates a 0.3% saving in 2040 relative to the baseline as a result of the somewhat increased ITS service deployment it brings. This saving increases to up to 0.8% for PO2 and PO3 which through the mandates for data and services lead to a considerably increased usage of services that have an impact on reducing transport expenditure (through the reduction of fuel costs).

Table 19: Average expenditure for mobility per person (Euro/person-year)

Source: ASTRA / TRUST model

Impact on health

Impacts on health are expected to occur primarily as a result of changes in air pollution achieved by the various Policy Options. These impacts are quantified and monetised in chapter 6.3. Further positive impacts on health can be expected from the increased use of active modes in the context of multimodality as promoted by the deployment of MaaS and mobility management services. Such effects would be present in all policy options but can be expected to be higher in PO2 (and PO3) where their deployment is supported by a MMTIS data mandate.

Impact on persons with reduced mobility

MMTIS for people with disabilities and reduced mobility is seen by the relevant representative organisation - European Disability Forum - as being at risk of continued market fragmentation. In that respect, under PO1, the continued deployment of common data standards could help mitigate this risk for new services. However, the introduction of the mandatory sharing of MMTIS data under PO2 and PO3 can be expected to produce the largest effect on people with disabilities or reduced mobility. The mandatory availability of accessibility-related data for the functioning of essential services under these POs, supports the potential development of relevant multi-modal travel information services for this passenger group that can contain real-time updates of accessibility-critical information.

Impact on employment

The increase in deployment of ITS services under the different policy options can be expected to lead to second order employment effects as a result of the increased production of ITS-relevant central systems and vehicle equipment needed for their deployment leading to an increased turnover for the ITS sector in the EU. Additionally, the increased need for collecting and making data available can lead to additional employment due to the need to install the necessary equipment to facilitate this data collection and to operate the systems required to distribute them. It may also lead to the need to deploy human resource to perform these actions. The impact on employment generated can be expected to be larger as ITS service deployment levels increase with the more intervening policy options. This analysis considers two employment impacts calculated through different approaches:

·Direct employment impacts, that is, changes in employment in the sector that would need to produce additional goods and services.

·Total employment impacts, including direct, indirect and induced impacts, which reflect the economy-wide effects of changes in investment. 87

The figures presented in Table 20 represent the average employment ranges (in FTEs) generated from investments in ITS equipment and services, either directly or indirectly. This is presented in average values for five-year periods. As seen in the table, the impacts of all POs reaches its peak by 2035 as ITS deployment levels increase till that moment, in the years after less investments in deployment are needed and costs are increasingly related to maintenance.

PO1 produces the least additional employment due to the lower investments induced by only indirectly incentivising the deployment of ITS services, with the most important contributor being the increased deployment of equipment in vehicles. These peak in the years between 2031-2035 at between 7,800 and 10,800 total FTEs out of which between 2,000 and 2,800 are direct employment generated in the EU ITS sector. The employment generated by PO2 are higher and total employment generated is estimated between 12,000 – 16,600 FTEs in the period between 2031-2035. Out of these 3,000 - 4,100 FTEs are estimated to be the direct employment generation in the ITS sector. This is boosted by the increased deployment of road-side equipment necessary to facilitate the data availability mandates.

Table 20: Impacts on employment

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021)

PO3 leads to the largest employment impacts, predominantly as a consequence of the C-ITS equipment mandate for all new vehicles introduced. As the mandate is expected to come into effect at 2028 for new vehicle models and 2030 for all new vehicles, the majority of additional equipment costs incurred are expected to take place in the period leading up to its introduction. This means that employment impacts can be expected to maximise in 2026-2030 and produce a total employment impact of between 21.200 – 29,500 FTEs. The direct employment generated in the ITS sector is expected to be at the level of 5,400 – 7,500 FTEs for the same period. In all cases, as the vast majority of additional costs are expected to be in the area of additional equipment deployed either in vehicles or in the form of RSIs, these ITS sectors can be expected to see the lion’s share of the direct generated employment.

6.3.    Environmental impacts

Impact on greenhouse gas emissions

Several of the services considered in this IA, such as green light optimal speed advisory, real time information on congestion, roadworks or incidents, will contribute towards a reduced fuel consumption and, in turn, lower CO2 emissions by improving traffic flow, reducing travel time and increasing modal shift towards public transport and active modes. As shown in Table 21 , the model outputs give a reduction of CO2 emissions relative to the baseline for all three policy options, with PO2 and PO3 have significantly greater benefits than PO1, particularly by 2040 when PO3 becomes fully effective.

The CO2 emission values have been monetised using the CO2 price from the 2019 Handbook on external costs. When the present value of the cost of CO2 emissions savings are considered, total benefits are also highest in PO3 with a saving of €2.4 billion between 2021 and 2040, relative to the baseline. PO2 (€2.1 billion) has similar costs savings to that of PO3, while PO1 (€0.6 billion) is significantly lower. As with other impacts described in previous sections, the more significant savings in PO2 and PO3 are driven by increased deployment which is a result of the critical data and service mandates that are introduced. The costs savings associated with each policy option are limited when put into the context of the baseline external costs.

Table 21: Annual CO2 emissions from road transport (million tonnes) – EU27

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021)

Impact on air pollutant emissions

Other emissions modelled include nitrous oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOC) and particulate matter (PM) for all road transport. NOx emissions benefit from the same ITS services and follow a similar trend to CO2 emissions, however Table 22 does not show as clear a picture for VOC and PM. The annual VOC emissions increase in all policy options in 2030 and PM increases with increasingly intervening policy options.

Table 22: Annual pollutant emission savings for EU27 (tonnes)

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021)

NOTE: negative values reflect an increase of emissions

The estimated impacts on PM and VOC emissions across the policy options are based on the findings of the DRIVE C2X study concerning the impact of ‘in-vehicle speed limits’ (VSPD) service under C-ITS V2I applications, showing an increase in PM and VOC emissions. 88  They found that the service would result in a smoother driving style on motorways, while on inter-urban roads the increased braking or speed changes when approaching new speed limits would result in increased PM and VOC emissions. The same study reported on the impact on NOx emissions described above, but does not explain why the impacts differ between pollutants.

At the same time, no evidence was found that confirms this finding and green light optimal speed advisory (GLOSA) – a similar type of service – has been reported to result in emission reductions of these pollutants. Furthermore, it should be expected that a similar impact should be expected in relation to NOx, but the study does not report on the reduction in NOx emissions. Concluding, ITS services and particularly C-ITS services aim at smoother driving, which has a positive effect on all emissions. Implementations that would not pre-empt speed changes (e.g. only warning on the spot that the speed limit has changed) could however lead to increased braking as one study has found, with a negative impact on some emissions. This highlights how certain services, such as those that require speed reductions, can have different impacts depending on the smartness of implementation (i.e. a heads-up on oncoming speed changes should lead to smoother driving).

Despite the potential uncertainty around this impact on PM and VOC, the modelled impact is very small, representing less than 0.35% for PM and less than 0.1% for VOC across the policy options. Nevertheless, in 2040 all policy options are expected to bring emission savings, with PO3 having the most significant impact. Cumulatively, the total air pollutant emissions expected to be saved between 2021-2040 and the reduction in external costs of air pollution (expressed as present value over 2021-2040) is greatest in PO3 with the PV benefits in PO2 also much greater than PO1 (see Table 23 ), although these improvements are dominated by NOx and small overall, compared to the total emissions from road transport.

Table 23: Cumulative air pollutant emissions avoided (tonnes) relative to the baseline and the reduction in external costs of air pollution, expressed as present value (EUR mn) for 2021-2040

Source: Ricardo et al. (2021)

Impact on noise

Impacts on noise are a result of total transport activity. As the impacts of the policy options on transport activity and modal shift are expected to be relatively limited, it is also expected that any impacts on noise production will also be minimal. For more details see chapter 6.1. In addition, smoother driving could also result in less noise but as described in the paragraphs above such impacts face some uncertainty today and are expected to be smaller still.

7.How do the options compare?

7.1.    Effectiveness 

The effectiveness of the intervention is measured by the extent to which the specific and general objectives of the policy intervention are addressed, or, as described in section 4.2, to what extent the indicators of success are met. Table 24 gives a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of each policy option, measured against those indicators. All in all, moving through the policy options from PO1 towards PO3, a progressively improved achievement of the specific objectives set for the ITS Directive can be observed.

Table 24: detailed comparison of policy options measured against assessment criteria linked to problem drivers