It has been a pleasure to be a part of the organising team of the International Transport Forum’s 2019 Summit, which is traditionally held in Leipzig. https://2019.itf-oecd.org/
I was responsible for preparing two Summit sessions this year.
The discussions in session Towards safe, efficient and sustainable road freight transport – infrastructure and vehicle fleet perspective were based on two recently published ITF Working Group reports: Policies to Extend the Life of Road Assets, By mitigating deterioration caused by trucks (PELRA) and High Capacity Transport: Towards Efficient, Safe and Sustainable Road Freight. The challenges that most countries face in addressing growing transport demand and increasing environmental costs with limited resources for infrastructure investment were discussed in this session. In this context the international experience with proactive infrastructure policies to extend the life of road assets and mitigate road infrastructure wear, and the use of high capacity vehicles to increase the operational efficiency of road freight, are relevant.
The panel session Connecting vehicles and infrastructure focused on the enormous transformative potential of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technologies and the associated challenges for stakeholders including equipment manufacturers, telecom operators, governments and road users. The implications for freight and passenger traffic, including technological requirements for connectivity, international standardisation, safety and enforcement implications were also discussed.