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Special Session on Smart Transport by the EU Project SAFESTRIP.

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the SAFE STRIP Special Session on smart infrastructure sustainable solutions enabling C-ITS, which is organised this year in conjunction with DCOSS 2019 in Santorini, Greece.

Even with the advances in technologies applied to the transport of persons and goods, the casualties on European roads remains unacceptable high. Τhough Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) are acting as a great enabler in that respect with a proven positive impact on road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort, their extremely small penetration practically nullifies their impact. That is basically due to their installation and maintenance cost, and, in specific, due to the very high cost of applying the infrastructure required.

The novel C-ITS solution, proposed in the context of the SAFE STRIP H2020 EU funded project project (GA: 723211; starting on 1st of May 2017; https://safestrip.eu, aims to tackle this challenge by shifting intelligence from the vehicle to the road infrastructure, in a cost-efficient way, deploying I2X communication technologies and energy harvesting modules to support the micro/nano sensorial networks that will be embedded on the road pavement surface in custom-made road strips and will transmit real-time information (static and dynamic) about the road condition, the traffic and environmental conditions to the road users. In this way, a series of C-ITS applications can be supported with real-time, reliable, accurate and lane specific information, directly coming from the infrastructure, that will be further personalised and supported through a negotiations-based Human Machine Interface (HMI). All vehicles generations will benefit; C-ITS equipped vehicles through upgrade of their intelligence, non-equipped vehicles will benefit from intelligent functions that lacked before and autonomous vehicles will acquire lane localization data that will assist them fulfilling the gaps of on-board systems for the creation of virtual lanes, corridors, etc. that are essential to them. Infrastructure operators as well as all road users (passenger cars, PTW’s – Powered Two Wheelers, buses, trucks) are supported, while benefits for Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) are also essential.

This special session aims to inform industry and research /academia world about the implementation and validation approach followed in the project, the progress made in this respect and discuss liaison with other initiatives in the area as well as the future and challenges of C-ITS towards the wide establishment of self-explanatory and forgiving infrastructures.

The members of the Technical Program Committee identified the following 5 high quality papers for presentation in the workshop technical session addressing all aspects aforementioned.

- "Implementation and validation approach of the C-ITS novel solution proposed by SAFE STRIP for self-explanatory and forgiving infrastructures”, Maria Gkemou, Andrea Steccanella, Ioannis Gkragkopoulos, Dionysios Kehagias, Evangelos Bekiaris

- "An encapsulated energy harvesting platform for on-road low power sensing systems”, Gavrilis Filios, Ioannis Katsidimas, Vassilis Kostopoulos, Thanasis Kotzakolios, Sotiris Nikoletseas, George Sotiriadis, Ioannis Tsenempis

- "Cooperative Safety Applications for C-ITS equipped and non-equipped vehicles supported by an extended Local Dynamic Map built on SAFE STRIP Technology”, Francesco Biral, Giammarco Valenti, Enrico Bertolazzi, Andrea Steccanella

- "HMI to exploit the potential of Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems”, Roberto Montanari, Andrea Castellano, Elisa Landini

- "Intelligent roads as part of the C-ITS reference architecture”, Erwin Vermassen

The organization of this workshop has been possible due to the hard work and dedication of many colleagues. Special thanks are due to the members of the Technical Program Committee and to all external referees for their invaluable contributions in completing the review process. We are also very grateful to all the authors for submitting their fine work to our workshop.

We sincerely hope that you will enjoy the program.

Workshop Chairs
Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris, Director, Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT)/ Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH)
Erwin Vermassen, Senior Project Manager, ERTICO-ITS Europe