At the ITS European Congress at the Evoluon Congress Center (pictured) in Brainport, The Netherlands, this week (June 3-6) ERTICO CEO Jacob Bangsgaard, Ronald Adams of Rijkswaterstaat and Sasha Westermann of Hamburger Hochbahn, launched a new service – the ERTICO Academy.
The ERTICO Academy is an online, ad hoc knowledge base training programme to support and foster sustainable deployment of ITS and C-ITS across Europe. It promises to help with the enhancement of skills, allowing users to seize the opportunity to learn how to best use ITS to enhance their citizens’ quality of life.
From January 2020, the ERTICO Academy will offer a wide choice of trainings focused on a variety of topics, including the benefits of ITS, C-ITS deployment (challenges including large scale deployment and gaps), MaaS, 5G/ IoT, access to EU funding and programmes (H2020, CEF, Erasmus+).
“Thanks to the expertise of the ERTICO team and our network of 120 Partners, ERTICO is well placed to bridge the knowledge and experience gap for the deployment of smart mobility solutions. It has long been ERTICO’s ambition to share the knowledge that we have at our fingertips with the ITS Community. And now it is a reality,” said Bangsgaard (below).
All training will be given by ERTICO’s experts and partners, with customized modules depending on the level and needs of users. Furthermore, trainings will be prepared for targeted audiences working in different transport sectors, from traffic management operators to civil servants, legal departments, procurement departments, national experts and national decision makers, policy makers and more.
What makes the ERTICO Academy unique is not only the quality of the selected topics and the trainers, but also that all lessons will be taught in different formats, guaranteeing a high flexibility in the learning process. On-demand and online interactive trainings, peer-to-peer collaboration, coaching, mentoring and tutoring, access to publications and material, teaching external staff and workshops are some of the many services offered by the ERTICO Academy.
“If we want to release the urgently needed full potential of ITS and smart mobility to make mobility safer, cleaner and more efficient we definitely need more skilled professionals in the public sector but also in the private and scientific sectors. Therefore, I will fully and actively support this important ERTICO initiative,” said Ronald Adams, Rijkswaterstaat.
“In 2016, Hamburg introduced an ITS Strategy that sets out the contribution that Intelligent Transport Systems can and should make to Hamburg’s journey towards becoming a model city for mobility. It is important that we exchange views with International Partners on new topics such as quantum technology, blockchain or urban air mobility and on how they can contribute to MaaS or Traffic Management. ERTICO already offers a good platform for this. The Academy will make another very helpful contribution, which we are very much looking forward to,” said Sasha Westermann, Hamburger Hochbahn.
