2.3  The ITS Service Radar concept

The ITS Service Radar graph shows a quantification of the added value of each ITS-service regarding the following three objectives: safety, efficiency and the environment. Figure 7 shows an example of an ITS Service Radar for the Forecast and Real-time Event Information service.

Figure 7: ITS-Core Service Radar for the Forecast and Real-time Event Information service

The service radar graphs have been developed as a way to visualise the possible impact of the deployment of the ITS core service on each of the objectives. The ratings awarded to each objective range between 0-3, with 0 for no expected impact and 3 for a high impact. They have been formed using the following sources of information:

  • An extensive literature research conducted within the NEXT-ITS CEF ITS Corridor, which covers many ITS core services included in this handbook.
  • Useful conclusions and outcomes from the CEF ITS Corridor implementations, as reflected in the Evaluation Reports of each Corridor[1] and the EU EIP Evaluation Toolkit[2].
  • A complementary literature research conducted by EU EIP experts focusing mainly on experiences and evaluations from all over Europe.
  • Discussion within the respective Expert Group of the EU EIP Monitoring and Dissemination activity, the opinion of the ITS core service coordinator (expert of EU EIP with significant experience on the subject) for each service, as well as input from the EU EIP Evaluation activity.
  • Additional insights submitted by external reviewers as part of the review phase of the handbook.

It has to be noted that the purpose of the Service Radars is not to rank the services against each other, but to provide the reader with an easy to understand, visual first idea of the expected impact of each service. They are not in relation to each other and they are not directly comparable. A main reason is that the availability of evaluation results in literature is not equal for all services, making it necessary in a few cases to rely more heavily on qualitative assessments of experts, different for each service. Therefore, although great care has been taken in the development process, so as to create a rating fundament that is as objective as possible, a comparison of Service Radars of different services is not recommended.

[1] A comprehensive collection of Evaluation Reports and further relevant evaluation documents from the CEF ITS Corridors can be found in the EU EIP Evaluation Library (https://www.its-platform.eu/EvalLib).

[2] https://www.its-platform.eu/evaluation-toolkit