Intelligent logistics solutions driving the digital economy of today
Bordeaux, 6 October 2015 – Ms. Nathalie Delattre, Deputy Mayor of Bordeaux, welcomed to Bordeaux, the 8th European Conference on ICT for Transport Logistics (ECITL) stressing the importance of innovative transportation and the use of intelligent logistic solutions as a catalyst for digital economy.
“To make our metropolitan area more attractive, we must achieve more seamless mobility, including digital mobility. Our objective is to support the multi-faceted development of digital technologies and their uses, and to place them at the service of the local territory and its power of attraction, of its users, businesses and quality of life. The metropolitan area of Bordeaux therefore plans to be at the forefront of the French Tech initiative, to boost the digital transition of our economy and support the emergence of “technological champions” says Ms. Nathalie Delattre in her opening speech to the ECITL Conference.
ECITL held its 8th conference in France and this time, it brings to the table the emerging trends in the field of the deployment of ITS and focuses on the sub-themes among those Co-operative Intelligent Transport System for Logistics; e-Freight; Intelligent Cargo; Logistics in Smart Cities; Safety and Security in Logistics and last but not least Supply Chains.
‘’The subject of this year’s ECITL conference has high priority for the ERTICO – ITS Europe Partnership. The ERTICO Partnership has in fact implemented different programmes on ITS with one of them focusing on Freight & Logistics to provide a specific direction to the related ERTICO activities which focuses on the deployment of ITS in logistics and freight in Europe and beyond’’, says Mr Hermann Meyer, CEO of ERTICO-ITS EUROPE.
Some of these trends are picked up already by CO-GISTICS, the European funded project co-organizer of the ECITL Conference. “CO-GISTICS is the first European project fully dedicated to the deployment of cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) applied to logistics. I am very happy to be here in Bordeaux, one of the CO-GISTICS pilot site which is an important logistics hub in Europe with the city of Bordeaux been one of the early adopters of cooperative ITS” says Ms Lina Konstantinopoulou coordinator of the project.
The Bordeaux pilot site is a central hub or transport between southern and northern countries. The transport activity in this area is particularly heavy between Bordeaux and Bilbao which causes significant congestions especially on the ring of Bordeaux and at the French-Spanish border. The main goal is to optimise the global transport architecture by implementing cooperative, interoperable and multimodal logistics solutions through 3 dedicated services.
The European Commission was represented at the ECITL Conference with several speakers: Ms. Fleur Breuillin from DG MOVE, Mr. Florent Frederix from DG CONNECT and Mr. Joost de Bock from DG RESEARCH. Mr. Florent Frederix from DG CONNECT highlighted the EC initiatives on tackling issues related to cybersecurity. He has introduced actions on implementing an industrial cybersecurity strategy, prioritizing on public-private partnership while also addressing issues of data privacy and data protection.