Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-22-Speech-3-499"
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"en.20090422.61.3-499"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Parliament, particularly the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, and all the shadow rapporteurs, for their excellent work and the way in which they have welcomed the Commission’s proposals.
I am, of course, pleased with the choices made and take note of the suggested amendments to the draft directive. Most of all, I am happy to see that Parliament has confirmed the importance of the EGNOS and Galileo satellite positioning systems for the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) application. I would, however, like to ask Parliament some questions and try to give some answers as to why the Commission has put forward a directive to promote the deployment of ITS and, secondly, whether the local and national initiatives in this field are not sufficient.
The Commission has been funding specific research and development programmes into intelligent transport systems since 1988, which have produced unquestionably positive results and inspired numerous recommendations. These research and development projects have formed an important basis on which to make technological progress, coordinate actions and encourage preliminary deployment, in general, in a fragmented fashion.
It is now time, therefore, to move from recommendations to concrete action in order to reap the benefits of applying intelligent transport systems: benefits that may take the form of road safety, easing traffic jams and reducing the environmental impact of the road system. That is the purpose behind this crucial draft directive to promote measures aimed at removing the barriers to broader and better coordinated ITS deployment.
I would like to give a couple of examples that help to explain why voluntary or local strategies are not always enough: today, a haulier travelling between Barcelona and Frankfurt is equipped not only with a mobile telephone and on-board navigation system, but also with at least three different electronic toll collection terminals for the countries it must cross, or to avoid passing through residential areas. In 2001, the Commission recommended that Member States publish detailed information on road types within the network and on restricted traffic zones. Unfortunately, we have seen only a few local or national authorities take up this recommendation. What ultimately happens is that drivers with navigation systems use the entire road network, and all too often heavy goods vehicles are directed to wholly unsuitable roads or dangerous routes, for example near schools or on very steep roads.
The new directive will make it possible to adopt the necessary measures to avoid such situations, thereby lessening all the problems we have come across. The Commission awaits an agreement between Parliament and the Council on the draft directive, which represents a key tool for implementing the action plan.
We will work closely with both you and the Council to reach an agreement as soon as possible, and I hope that next week’s informal Council meeting at Litoměřice in the Czech Republic, where ITS is on the agenda, will be instrumental in this. Mrs Jensen has been invited and will therefore be attending, I believe, if only in an informal capacity, but the point is that we will be able to compare the positions of Commission, Parliament and Council in order to try to speed up what I hope will be an easy agreement, so that we may give a practical response to citizens and approve a shared text as soon as possible."@en1
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