Partner reflections on the SOCRATES2.0 project and results

Why did the partners participate in SOCRATES2.0? Why is it necessary that private and public entities work together in traffic management?

Serge van Dam - Rijkswaterstaat
Over the years we have learnt that managing traffic by ourselves does not work. We need to cooperate with other partners, both other road authorities as well as service providers. We cannot do it alone. So, the main goal and main aim of this project was to find a way to cooperate between these partners. 

Chris de Veer - Province of Noord-Holland
I think it is important for us, because we want to manage our traffic, but we don’t really have any tools anymore. We used to inform the drivers with our road signs and dynamic panels, but nowadays drivers depend on their navigation apps. So, to effectively perform traffic management we need to collaborate with services providers. 

Wim Broeders - MapTM 
We had big expectations, because we believe in cooperation between the public and sector to innovate, but also to get more benefits for the end user. 

Art Feitsma - BrandMKRS
BrandMKRS as a relative young and small but very innovative company, we knew that we would be able to add new things to the international Smart Mobility toolbox.

Patrick Deknudt - AWV Vlaanderen
The project went far beyond what we expected initially of it. We thought it was mainly about data sharing, but we ended up describing and achieving common goals and we’ll have a real closer cooperation. 

Mark Grefhorst - BE-Mobile
We created a new type of business model within the project, focused on creating impact and also where service providers contributed actively to the common or the public goals. This is a completely new business model where it’s no longer about managing traffic as a whole, but it is more about managing the individual. And this is I think, a new and scalable business model that we created that we will definitely use in future project, but also in future services 

Matthias Mann - HERE
Bringing in our experience in working successfully together with public and private parties, HERE wanted to further elaborate on how successful implementations of interactive traffic management can contribute to make traffic safer, more efficient and sustainable. 

[Question] Partners reflect on the public-private collaboration and on the SOCRATES2.0 cooperation framework. 

Paul van Koningsbruggen - Technoloution
We started with sincerely high ambitions, and you know that in reality you have to bring the organizational elements together. Technology can be solved, but bringing all the people and organizational elements together, that makes something like Traffic Management2.0 work. And I think we have done a pretty good job there. 

Irina Koller-Matschke - BMW Group
We as BMW Group participated in SOCRATES, because we think to cooperate with other partners is the base to have good services. And the main thing of this cooperation is that we trust each other. And to build up trust is the primary aspect is that we know each others concerns that we know how the other partners think and that we come to a main understanding on how we want to interact and how we can collaborate. 

Alexander Kröller - TomTom 
Everybody knows that public private cooperation’s can be difficult. The need of the authorities to consider the needs of the entire population, and the need of private organizations to delight costumers with products that they like, can lead to conflict. And that is something we did not experience in SOCRATES at all. There we were able to focus on commonalities and shared goals instead. And it was a very good example for how this kind of cooperation can work out and it is definitely we something we would like to see more of in the future. 

Wim Broeders - MAPtm
Well, sharing data between competitors is always a quite difficult issue, because you don't want to give your competitor your information. And a role of an intermediary can help in that, because the intermediary can bring that data together and create value to it and give that back to the service provider without exchanging the data of competitors between each other and that helps in creating the trust, but it also helps in heightening the overall quality of the data and finally of the service. 

Chris de Veer - Province of Noord Holland
The cooperation framework is very helpful for other road authorities to use, because it provides you a way to collaborate between governments and with service providers. It gives you a good structure for that 8.49. 

[Question] The SOCRATES2.0 partners discuss the benefits for road users.

Peter Lubrich - BASI: The road user in SOCRATES concept is one of the major actors. So when you build interactive traffic management schemes, you always put the road user in the middle. And this is what SOCRATES is about. All those end user services always looking at the perspective from a road traveller in terms of traveling freedom, safety, efficiency and other considerations the road user might have. 

Alexander Kröller - TomTom
For TomTom and TomToms driver’s navigation is very often about fast and safe. How to get to your destination as quickly as possible, without considering anything else. And the system like we developed in SOCRATES allows to influence that route by adding something else into the mix. Something that combines it with common or public goals and offer it as an alternative to a driver. And we find that they actually appreciate that. 

Paul van Koningsbruggen - Technolution
I endorse the idea of BMW for the City Friendly Drive. Because that it is typically a drive where you take one for the team. You take one for the team in the sense that I’ll take some additional traffic time, because it is better for the network, and it is better for us all.

Serge van Dam - Rijkswaterstaat
One important thing is what we learnt as traffic managers is, that even though we provide data and information in a standardized format, that does not mean that it gets automatically integrated into service providers services to end users. So, the next phase would really have to be to increase our cooperation on how can we optimise the use of helpful data in these end user services. 

[Question] Where are the SOCRATES2.0 partners most proud of? 

Art Feitsma - BrandMKRS
The fact that we do not have our own app. We do not have a dedicated user base, but rather we use social media apps, and we form community’s really for the occasion. So, this is non typical, but very effective and also very appreciated.

Patrick Deknudt - AWV Vlaanderen
Well, I think the most proud of, is very nice use case we managed to create in Antwerp, which was the smart smart tunnel service. Which is in essence quite simple on, but very appealing to both service providers and road users. It was also something that none of the parties would have come up with on their own. It was really the fruit of cooperation and it demonstrated that cooperative traffic management can be beneficial for everyone. So, there was a clear win-win-win. 

Matthias Mann - Here Technologies
I’m most proud of the conceptual framework for the cooperation models. There are cities which even don’t have a traffic management. So, if you compare a city like Amsterdam with – a city like - I’m looking for smaller cities in Germany - like Peine for example. They have completely different preconditions, right. So, the one stand already on a high level, Amsterdam, and the others they have nothing. So having a model which actually supports a step-by-step forward approach, will make the introduction easier for cities which start at a lower level. 

[Question] 
What advise do the SOCRATES2.0 partners have for other parties that want to start with Interactive Traffic Management?

Mark Grefhorst - BE Mobile
First advise I would give is to make sure that you have the right parties at the table, make sure that all data and information becomes available, this is I think is a very important condition. And also, be open to investigate new business models or new services you do not know or you are maybe a bit afraid off also to a certain extent. So really, I would like to challenge road operators to open up their perspective and to be constructive in working together with service providers 

Irina Koller-Matschke - BMW Group
Each project and especially Socrates gave us a lot of insights what are the existing hurdles, and we see them especially in the  interfaces and the standardization of protocols and interfaces to have an European wide deployment of this.

Matthias Mann - Here Technologies
The advice I give – not only to road authorities, but also to service providers – to actually enable interactive traffic management and make the transition towards more cooperative world possible, is to put more emphasis on the standards and the harmonization of standards. Because a standard which is not commonly used, is not a standard.

[Question]
And last but not least, some final remarks on the near future. 

Wim Broeders - MAPtm
We are also interested in the next level, in terms of giving the road users credits for his behavior. So, if he behaves according to the plan, he gets some credits. And I think that is the next level we are looking for. 

Mark Grefhorst - BE-Mobile
I think we were definitely able to breach barriers where it comes to sharing of data and information. It was the first time I saw private entities sharing their data and giving insight into their own data and this was only possible because of the save environment we created in the Socrates.

Serge van Dam - Rijkswaterstaat
If we look into the distant future, then for sure at some point we will have self-driving cars. And if drivers don’t have their hands at the steering wheel, then they won’t think about their routing as well. So self-driving cars are gone need guidance on how to choose an optional route from their origin to their destination. And the concept of SOCRATES2.0 lays really the foundation for future traffic management for automated vehicles.

Peter Lubrich - BASt
So, the project is not ending here, but there will be other actions and follow-up projects which I’m looking forward to.

Irina Koller-Matschke - BMW Group: I really want to make a big complement to all the other partners. Because there was always a really positive atmosphere in SOCRATES and also during this challenging Corona crises period, we made SOCRATES really a success.  And I really appreciated to be part of SOCRATES.