Ankerbold International

From 2001-2003 Ankerbold co-ordinated the pioneering project ATLANTIC, an international Thematic Research Network on Intelligent Transport Systems on behalf of the European Union (EU) with USA and Canada.

The ATLANTIC project operated as a network of professionals, researchers and decision-makers from Europe, the USA and Canada working together on key issues in ITS.

Funding came from the European Commission (DG INFSO), Transport Canada and the US Department of Transportation (FHWA).

Although set up as a European/N. American project, ATLANTIC attracted worldwide interest. National ITS organisations in a number of other countries, such as Australia and S.Africa, were interested in participating. The project’s high profile also attracted interest and support from the POLIS network of city-regions.

ATLANTIC gave rise to two ‘spin-off’ organisations – first, a Special Interest Group for International Research and Learning (SIGIRL), sponsored by ITS America. This group was established to promote international networking on ITS issues on behalf of the USA.

A second ATLANTIC spin off was the International Benefits, Evaluation and Costs (IBEC) working group, established during the ITS World Congress in Chicago in 2002, backed by ITS America, in conjunction with the UK’s Department for Transport.

Download reports

• Introduction to ATLANTIC »
  Presentation giving an overview of the ATLANTIC network themes and forum topics
  (File size: 3.0 MiB)

• ATLANTIC case studies »
  Case studies of Traffic and Travel Service implementation in Europe
  (File size: 168.0 KiB)

• Traffic and Travel Information Services Handbook »
  Practitioners' Handbook on good practice in Traffic and Travel Information Services
  (File size: 1,002.2 KiB)

• ATLANTIC Country reports »
  ATLANTIC Country reports on Traffic and Travel Information Services
  (File size: 510.3 KiB)

• ATLANTIC ITS Forum »
  Presentation of results from the ATLANTIC ITS Forum
  (File size: 65.5 KiB)

Project summary

Eight Working Groups, each specialising in a separate ITS-related subject area, were established at the outset of the project. Dr Miles reports that the success of the internet-based discussions held by these groups was mixed. The two ‘top performers’ were the groups on advanced traveller information systems and ITS benefits, evaluation and costs. Intermodal transit , Intermodal freight , Intelligent Vehicles and Road User Charging had attracted slightly less interest from expert contributors. Two groups – Human Machine Interface and Traffic Management – had struggled to attract sufficient interest and the former had to close mid-project as a result.