INTERVIEW TERRY BERGAN, IRD
last decade but there are people who firmly believe that we haven’t come far enough, technologically speaking. It’s fair to say that Terry Bergan is not one of those people. “We’ve come a long, long way. There have been true visionaries
in this industry and I’m talking about the early visionaries that were the drivers behind the R&D and had an idea that could help traf- fic move more safely and efficiently. Those ideas involved into the likes of ITS America, ERTICO, ITS Canada, the ITS nationals – within those organisations are the leaders, the ones that put all the ideas together and made them work. They went to governments as that was who was taking the ideas from R&D out to deployment. Origi- nally it was government programs that had to drive this thing but now the ITS market is even bigger as it moves into the private sec- tor,” he says with no small amount of audible pride. “For our customers, the ports, the trucking companies etc, there
are numerous applications as the automated highway system starts to interface with the private sector to help their operations run more safely, smoothly and efficiently.”
DON’T ARGUE WITH THE DATA Looking 10 years into the future, is it possible that the industry will be as radically different, as unrecognisable, as today’s is from the 2006 version? Autonomous vehicles maybe commonplace on our roads by then, and the chances are that we won’t own them, but what is increasingly certain is that it will be an even more data-driven world. “I think this is an exciting time,” enthuses Bergan. “Look at what
we saw in Detroit at the ITS World Congress in 2014 and the one before that in Tokyo – we saw the automobile companies’ visions. We’re moving towards driver-assisted and ultimately autonomous vehicles and we’ll have a combination of the two in 10 years time. What’s exciting is the development of the vehicle – it’s becoming tailored to the individual customer’s needs. It will be your work- place, an entertainment centre and so on. There’ll be reduced ownership but there will still be people who want to own their own vehicles, autonomous or otherwise. There’ll be a greater emphasis on the interface between shared vehicles and public transportation – and the backbone of all that is data that will become increasingly valuable. We have all this technology at our disposal – memory stor- age, toll road transponders, cameras, vehicle ID systems, you name it – but data is the backbone to all of it. It’s all about using and utlis- ing the data and always will be.”
RISE OF THE MACHINES The rise of autonomous vehicles and autonomous driving technol- ogies is having a significant effect on virtually every sector across the ITS spectrum. Not just traffic data disciplines but also fleet telematics, ETC, access control – all areas in which IRD have a global presence, be it collecting or processing the data. “And accessing it. We have customers now who say that they
don’t want to own the data collection equipment. We collect, store and deliver data in whatever format the customer looks at it. It can interface with a traffic control system, a traffic signal, an emergency response system – it’s all there and the customer can pick and
CONNECTED CANADA SUPPLEMENT 4
choose what data they want, how they want it and when.” The groups of people who want the data are also diversifying.
“That’s what we’re finding. You have to come up with some sort of value equation that works for the customer.”
A DECADE OF COOPERATION When we launched this magazine in 2006 we gave one of the rea- sons for publishing two regional editions as being that the North American market was distinctly different in approach to that of Europe, Asia, Australasia and Africa. At that time the EU and US worked almost entirely separately but since 2008 this situation has changed completely – does Terry Bergan see less of a difference now? Is it much easier for a North American company to do busi- ness in Europe, and vice versa? “Oh absolutely. There’s still a number of different standards
between regions but in African, Asian and Latin American countries they see how we do things in North America and Europe and even though they do things differently they use our leadership to tailor their systems to what their customers need,” he reiterates. “ITS is a global industry but in each of the markets in order to get
your equipment certified or to meet certain standards there are barriers. They aren’t necessarily barriers that can’t be overcome. There’s going to be a champion, most likely a political leader or the head of a major corporation, who says that the barriers are ridicu- lous and we get to the point where they disappear. Right now the differences are so great that it would take a lot of work.”
AND FINALLY… Without wishing to end on a negative note, I wondered if there was one thing in particular that had disappointed Bergan over the last decade? Something that didn’t happen but should have; something that did happen that shouldn’t have. Maybe it’s the cynic in me but I was expecting a tolling-related answer. “As you can imagine there’s been quite a few disappointments
along the way but most of them have been specific to us rather than the industry as a whole. I would say that the one thing I have been pushing for a long time is standards. Standards just make it easier for a company to know what the customer is looking for and that way you can set expectations. Unfortunately standards are dif- ferent throughout the world. Even within specific regions it’s some- times been a challenge to get that standardisation in many of the markets” he says, with a degree of frustration evident. “I’m talking about standards for data collection, data quality,
machine vision – what should you expect? Evolving standards help the whole industry because you are going to find more of the private sector participating in those standards. There are so many benefici- aries of ITS if we all operate from the same basis, if we are all on the same page.” l
Terry Bergan is President and CEO of International Road Dynamics, Kevin Borras is editor in chief of Thinking
Highways, Thinking Cities and the Connected series of supplements
www.thinkinghighways.com
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