"If our phones can become smarter, why can't our roads and cars?" asks ALDE Member Anne Jensen (Venstre, DK) welcoming today's adoption - by a large majority - of her report in the Transport Committee on "Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in the field of road transport and interfaces with other transport modes".

"How many times have we been stuck in traffic wishing that we had known in advance to change our route? And how often have we come across an accident and not known whether anyone has contacted the emergency services? That's what this new ITS directive is all about. No more queuing on the highway. Today we made a step towards an EU standard of multimodal travel and real time traffic information to enable us to have easy access to alternative means of transport information and to choose alternative routes if roads are blocked. An EU-wide eCall installed in each car could save lives, sending an automatic message to local emergency services in case of hazard. Not to mention the benefits in term of reservation services for safe and secure parking for truckers and others who make their living on the road." Mrs. Jensen explained

"The new ITS directive helps us all, from the occasional driver to truckers, setting a legal framework for developing common standards and specifications for a future deployment of ITS to make transport more efficient, safe and secure while meeting our objective for cleaner transport." concluded

For more information, please contact:

Neil Corlett: +32-2-284 20 77 or +32-478-78 22 84

e-mail: neil.corlett@europarl.europa.eu

Federica Terzi: +32-2-283 23 24 or +32-494 18 88 31