Intelligent Transport System (ITS): How Technology Ensures Operational Efficiency
A significant part of the nation’s economic growth depends on the automotive industry, making transportation and mobility essential. As a result, transportation and mobility systems are undergoing constant enhancement with the help of technology. However, though automobiles add convenience to our lives, the increasing number of vehicles on the road adds to traffic management challenges.
Apart from the technological advancements, ensuring road safety, transport efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and environmental viability are some concerns that need to be acknowledged by key stakeholders in the market. The solution that comes forward is the intelligent transport system (ITS) to counter all these challenges.
What Is an Intelligent Transport System (ITS)?
ITS is an advanced technology application that enhances transportation safety, mobility, and productivity by incorporating modern communication technologies into the transport infrastructure. ITS technology is based on the data processing and analysis available through the wireless connections between the multi-layered transport infrastructure.
The data collection and analysis process are used to monitor, regulate, and enhance the transport network in a country. The other applications of the ITS involve road safety, traffic management, parking management, freight management, and toll management.
This article talks about how a proper application of an intelligent transportation system can enhance a country’s safety and productivity.
Advantages of the Application of ITS
1. Traffic management: According to the BIS research report on the global intelligent transportation systems market, traffic management dominates the application part of the industry. The increasing urbanization of cities and developing infrastructure add to the challenges of extreme traffic congestion on the road.
ITS helps monitor the traffic through various technologies such as inductive loop detectors, traffic sensors, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, and video image detectors (VID). Complicated traffic situations can be analyzed with the help of these devices to make informed decisions. Proper application of ITS has resulted in favorable outcomes on traffic efficiency, safety, and pollution.
2. Parking management: The shortage of parking spaces in crowded urban cities often leads to various conflicts such as lack of parking space, congestion on roads, and verbal disputes between people. In some ways, managing a parking system is more challenging than managing traffic on the road. Hence the ITS approach becomes more crucial. It involves designing a logic architecture to process and transmit data and information.
Therefore, a smart system such as ITS can interpret the data and inform users about the real-time availability of spaces or alternate routes to avoid congestion through its global positioning system (GPS) coordinates. This technology and its applications are crucial for intelligent management of the parking system across cities to solve significant problems in the transport infrastructure.
3. Electronic toll collection (ETC): Toll collections contribute primarily to the transport and mobility taxes of the country. The conventional toll collection system was highly inconvenient and inefficient, which has now been replaced by an electronic toll collection system.
ETC system is a high-end technology that has automated the toll collection process. ETC uses wireless communication technologies such as dedicated short-range communication (DSRC), a global positioning system (GPS), a global navigation satellite system (GNSS), and electronic readers. Such efficient technologies collect tolls without requiring the driver to stop and avoid congestion at the toll plazas.
4. Electronic freight management (EFM): With the growing global economy, international trade increases exponentially. It involves the large-scale transportation of goods and services through various modes. A freight management system involves tracking logistics and supply chains of the delivered goods. Therefore, slight misplacement of the information can lead to significant financial losses to the countries.
Hence, with the advancement of technology, electronic freight management has been introduced through ITS to make the system more efficient and hassle-free. EFM system aims to improve the information exchange between transports and partners by allowing real-time electronic interaction between involved parties and management authorities.
Moreover, the global market has also acknowledged the proven benefits of the ITS application. According to the BIS research report, the global intelligent transportation systems market is expected to reach $40.76 billion by 2031, growing with a CAGR of 5.8% during the forecast period 2021–2031.
Conclusion
To conclude, the system is being adopted by many developed and developing countries to make their transport infrastructure safer and more efficient. Although the high cost associated with ITS proves to be a big challenge for less financially able countries, the need is equally apparent. Efficient transport infrastructure is an integral part of the economic growth of a country, and the governments are hugely investing in the ITS.
