FITS - FINNISH R&D PROGRAMME FOR ITS INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES

The objective of the FITS programme is to promote the establishment of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) services according to the requirements of the users by developing the prerequisites for service provision by both private and public actors, and by advancing the development of nationally important ITS domains. The programme also aims at increasing national expertise and facilitating the implementation of such ITS services and functions which have a considerable impact on reaching transport and information society policy related goals. The programme concentrates on such domains where the significance of public sector funding is essential for development. The programme has 8 programme areas: 1) Prerequisites for ITS services, 2) Evaluation of impacts and user requirements, 3) Monitoring of traffic and goods transports, 4) Incident management, 5) Traveller information, 6) Intelligent control systems, 7) Speed management and automated enforcement, and 8) Terminal operations. In addition, the programme includes a horizontal programme area on "Programme management, dissemination and exploitation of results" as well as the ITS service pilots developed by the public sector, not necessarily within the scope of the programme areas above. The three-year programme commenced in the spring of 2001.