An EU consortium of researchers, industry and non-profit stakeholders have commenced a project to develop a secure digital platform that would revolutionise the transport sector across the bloc. The Smart Enforcement of Transport Operations (SETO) project aims to replace the existing fragmented landscape of enforcement platforms with a single efficient and secure gateway for transport authorities and operators in Europe.

The resulting efficiencies would yield multiple benefits for the sector and society, including simpler, quicker and more automatic processes for enforcement agencies; faster, seamless, more consistent requirements for transport businesses; enhanced road safety, reduced corruption and reduced costs to consumers.

Speaking at the launch of SETO in Dublin, Dr Beatriz Martínez-Pastor, University College Dublin (UCD), who is coordinator of the project, said: “SETO is ambitious and has the potential to completely transform the existing fragmented system. Developing a comprehensive, secure digital solution with immutable data records will hugely enhance efficiency and transparency. It will make processes much more straightforward and automatic for enforcement and compliance authorities.

“Transport companies will benefit through simpler, seamless, and consistent data requirements, particularly when crossing borders and transferring freight between transport modes. Drivers will benefit by not being penalised, stressed or delayed because of non-compliance.

“In addition, it can yield many other benefits such as enabling better awareness of the needs of under-represented stakeholders, especially foreign drivers and women, leading to improved working conditions.”

Led from UCD School of Civil Engineering, the consortium includes University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) (Austria), Université Gustave Eiffel (UGE) and the CEREMA Institute (France), the Institute of International Sociology of Gorizia (Italy), the four Belgium-based non-profits Hout & Bouw (OHB), Service Public de Wallonie (SPW) Recherche, Flanders Institute for Logistics (VIL) and Urban Waterway Logistics (UWL), and the five industry partners Research Driven Solutions (Ireland), DigInnoCent (Czech Republic), Atlandes (France), Transics (Belgium) and Mainflux (Serbia).

SETO aims to deliver its new solution within the next 3 years, beginning with a comprehensive tool for collecting transport information, with a broader scope to cover multimodal and cross-border transport systems. The platform will have a modular structure, allowing future ambitious scaling across European countries and utilising data from different transportation modes.

The project also considers cybersecurity threats and adopts the latest industrial standards in its data storage and connectivity. SETO will implement blockchain technology to make immutable records of enforcement incidents. It will enable easy access to data from different streams, physical and digital, and will have different levels of data access.

The platform will perform data analysis and provide access to the quantitative results for safety, environment, economic, or social analyses. These results will help make decisions where, for example, transport operators, infrastructure management, and authorities can utilise this analysis based on real-time data.

In addition, SETO aims to resolve technical issues and facilitate a harmonised and generalised procedure for direct enforcement by ‘Weigh in Motion’ (WIM) in Europe. It will introduce new technology – including devices for vehicles enabled for machine learning – to improve accuracy and enhance efficiency of enforcement systems, metrological certification and legislation. 

The project will also analyse the effects of different deployment levels of innovative ‘Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility’ (CCAM) technologies and systems (see notes) for passengers and goods to increase safety and reduce environmental impacts.

 

About SETO

SETO is funded as an EU Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action, under the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), Project No. 101103695.

SETO’s advisory board includes representatives from University of Paris Sorbonne and the Agency for Innovation in Transportation, French Ministry of Transport (France), Inland Waterway Transport Federation (Belgium), the Chair of UN Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (CEFACT), Neurosoft (Poland), Technische Universität Dortmund and Albrecht Consult (Germany), and the Digital Logistics Centre of Excellence (Estonia).

 

About Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe is the EU’s current Research and Innovation framework, delivering on its core strategic goals which include tackling major challenges related to Digital Transformation, Jobs and the Economy, and Climate and the Environment.

Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) and the deployment of Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) are themes under the European Commission’s core Mobility and Transport strand. Find out more at https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/intelligent-transport-systems/cooperative-connected-and-automated-mobility-ccam_en