Brussels, 31 March 2009.

Further to the article published in the Guardian today, 31 March 2009, “Follow that car: the box
that will let Big Brother track drivers anywhere in Europe”, ERTICO-ITS Europe, the European
partnership leading the CVIS project, would like to issue the following statement.

The Cooperative Vehicle Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project is a pan-European research project
supported by European funds (within the 6th EU Framework Programme of the European
Commission).This project aims to design, develop and test a communication platform which will
enable vehicles to communicate with each other and with the nearby infrastructure. It is also
validating a range of cooperative mobility applications and services using this technology.

This “open” (non-proprietary) platform developed by CVIS provides interfaces for both short-range
and wide-area mobile communication, innovative techniques for positioning, as well as support for
application software management. The deployment of such technologies is expected to provide new
services for drivers, road operators and fleet managers such as: personalised routing guidance;
goods vehicle loading/unloading and parking space booking; selective priority at traffic lights for
emergency, transit and special vehicles; instant traffic information for the whole road network;
speed recommendations for smooth traffic flow and for environmental and safety alerts; hazard
warnings for road or weather conditions, hazardous goods incidents or wrong-way drivers.

Equipped vehicles and infrastructure will produce and share real-time traffic and environment
information, which when processed and delivered to drivers will lead to fewer traffic accidents,
lower congestion delays and costs, and less fuel consumption and pollutant emissions.

The CVIS project, involving 61 partners from across Europe, represents a mix of public authorities,
car and truck manufacturers, mobile telecom operators, software developers, road operators,
system suppliers, research institutions and motorists’ organisations. The project is currently
entering its final testing and validation phase. The UK government is one of several public authority
partners in the project and will host the London test site, where trials are due to run between July
and October this year, which will feature freight and fleet applications of the CVIS technology.

Ensuring that data security and privacy requirements are identified and addressed is a vital task in
CVIS. While it is essential to be able to gather information from vehicles that can describe the latest
traffic status and especially pinpoint incidents or hazards, it is a fundamental principle of this data
collection that individual vehicle data are anonymous, with no means of identifying or linking
information pertaining to a specific car journey with data identifying a particular individual.

ERTICO-ITS Europe believes that a framework for user data privacy to protect users and ensure
public acceptance of these very promising technologies should be put in place before the
technology reaches the market.

For more information please contact:

Alina Cornea
Communications Officer
Email: a.cornea@mail.ertico.com
Direct Tel: +32 2 400 07 27

Ariane Brusselmans
Communications Officer
Email: a.brusselmans@mail.ertico.com
Tel: +32 2 400 07 33

Notes to the editor

About ERTICO – ITS Europe

ERTICO – ITS Europe, a multi-sector partnership dedicated to the development and deployment of
intelligent transportation systems and services (ITS). ERTICO supports the development and
deployment of ITS solutions to achieve safe, efficient, clean, secure and affordable cooperative
mobility in the EU and beyond.

About the CVIS (Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure System) project

CVIS is an integrated R&D project co-funded by the European Union under the ICT (Information and
Communication Technologies) priority of the 6th Framework Programme for Research. With a
budget of over €40 million and a consortium of over 60 leading industrial, public and academic
organisations, CVIS will complete its 4-year programme in early 2010. CVIS is coordinated by
ERTICO-ITS Europe.

CVIS aims to design, develop and test the technologies needed to allow vehicles to communicate
with each other and with the nearby roadside infrastructure. CVIS’ achievements will be applied in
test sites in seven countries across Europe, to increase road safety and efficiency and reduce the
environmental impact of road transport.

More information can be found in the public document library on the CVIS website at:

http://www.cvisproject.org/en/public_documents/deliverables/