NEARCTIS – European Society for Traffic Management and Control

AbstractFrom EU funded project to the structuration of a European community on traffic management – the NEARCTIS experience NEARCTIS, “Network of Excellence for Advanced Road Cooperative Traffic management in the Information Society” was an EU funded project which gathered, from 2008 to 2013, research institutes such as IFSTTAR, DLR, TU Delft, EPFL, TU Crete, University of Southampton, UCL, Imperial College of London. The efforts of the Network have been mainly on harmonization (developing of a common research agenda in cooperative Traffic Control and Management; compiling a set of leading case studies in Europe that can be used to test new Cooperative Traffic Management; generating a common database of shareable resources) and providing trainings for young researchers (drawing up the education and training options and requirements in Cooperative Traffic Management, delivering effective training and research exchanges including 3 days training schools and mobility programme for young researchers).The aim of the partners, after the end of the project, has been to maintain the dynamic initiated by NEARCTIS: perpetuate the teamwork involved in activities such as promoting and jointly implementing a research agenda on traffic management, sharing resources and publications, responding jointly to certain calls from EU and national funding bodies.The NEARCTIS virtual Centre of Excellence (NEARCTIS VCE) will continue within the European association ECTRI (European Conference of Transport Research Institutes). NEARCTIS VCE has opened to new partners, beyond the original consortium. The NEARCTIS VCE will be an intermediary level, functioning as a think tank to define research topics of interests, as well as disseminating those ideas through participations to various influence groups. NEARCTIS VCE will also work to increase the community's participation to EU projects.Beyond this action, we intend to shape a NEARCTIS community. NEARCTIS VCE counts three ERC grants within its members, whose work will provide the NEARCTIS community with a vision. NEARCTIS will also collaborate with a COST action on “Connecting urban mobility laboratories for multimodal traffic network management and planning in the EU cities of the 21st century” which will help structuring a community, providing a platform for exchange, sharing of resources, education and training activities, interaction between users and researchers through forums and workshops