ITRI won the Industry Award at ITS World Congress 2019.
Other award recipients include Panasonic North America and Connected Places Catapult.
ITS World Congress 2019, themed with “Smart
Mobility, Empowering Cities”, attracted more than 14,500 participants from 100
countries. Entries from the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and the Americas
competed for the Industry Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, and Local
Government Award at ITS World Congress. The Industry Award honors practical
applications of transportation technologies in industries. Past winners include
the West Japan Railway Company, Taiwan HSR, and Far Eastern Electronic Toll
Collection.
ITRI Chairman Dr. Chih-Kung Lee attended the
award ceremony to collect the award. He remarked that Taiwan government is
working to set up major policies for smart transportation and expressed thanks
to the Ministry of Economic Affairs for the R&D funding and the Ministry of
Transportation and Communications for the deployment funding. Lee further
indicated that ITRI's autonomous vehicles and vehicular communication technology
are implementing their applications. For example, its autonomous vehicles are
already running test drives in Taichung and Hsinchu. This year's award-winning
V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) technology iRoadSafe has also been industrialized
and applied in eight cities in Taiwan. In the future, industries, the public
sector, and R&D agencies in Taiwan will continue to collaborate and bring
Taiwan's smart transportation industry onto the international stage.
Dr. Tzi-Cker Chiueh, ITRI’s Vice President and
General Director of Information and Communications Research Laboratories,
pointed out that the main reason why ITRI stood out and was awarded the
Industry Awards is because iRoadSafe can greatly improve traffic conditions in
the Asia-Pacific region. Traffic environments in this area are usually crowded
and disorganized. The roads are shared between an array of transportation
modes, such as cars, motorcycles, and bicycles, and these conditions can easily
lead to safety concerns at busy crossroads with complex traffic signals. ITRI’s
iRoadSafe offers a smart V2X road safety solution especially designed to handle
the busy and complex traffic environments in Asia-Pacific region.
Chiueh further explained that iRoadSafe
integrates data from communications, sensors, traffic signals and other
equipment to predict possible tracks through anti-collision algorithms on the
distance between people, vehicles, and objects. The system then uses roadside
units (RSUs) to broadcast alerts to all road users via on-board units (OBUs)
and changeable message signs (CMS). Currently the technology is already
deployed at 26 high-risk crossroads in cities including Keelung, New Taipei,
Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung, Nantou, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. The technology has
also been transferred to telematics companies such as THI Consultants Inc. and
Forward Electronics Co.