Assembly of the Association of Intelligent Transport Systems Croatia held on 20 December 2019. An overview of the work in the past period was given by President Prof. Sadko Mandžuka, who emphasized, among other things, the following activities:
1. Within the objectives of encouraging and promoting the development of intelligent transport systems in the Republic of Croatia, including promoting the importance of intelligent transport systems in the field of efficiency, safety and quality of transport services, and supporting the harmonized development of intelligent transport systems in the Republic of Croatia, the most significant event was the achievement of full membership in the Thematic Innovation Council of the Government of the Republic of Croatia for Transport and Mobility. Within this body, ITS Croatia actively participates in several activities, and in particular in defining the scope of new calls within project Increasing the development of new products and services arising from R&D activities, financed by the Operational Program Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014-2020 from the European Regional Development Fund. Also, the President of the Association is a member of the Permanent Council for ITS Development in the Republic of Croatia, as an advisory body of the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure. In the past, there have been several meetings of this body, defining the policy and operational procedures for Croatia’s involvement in the European funding programs for ITS projects. The most significant was the Crocodile2Croatia project. This project is in its final stages and has been launched at the European level to equalize ITS between all entities in the road sector.
2. Within the objective of stimulating scientific and professional work in the field of intelligent transport systems, the work of the Association is closely connected with the activities of the ITS Department at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences. Most of the employees of the Department are also members of the Association, so this is achieved in a certain way through the existing projects of the Department. Besides, members of the Association are teachers from the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Rijeka, who through their scientific and research activities, also increase the corpus of knowledge in the field of ITS. In the previous period, the Association itself organized a scientific and expert workshop: Cooperative Systems in Transport and Traffic under the high auspices of the Croatian Academy of Engineering, co-organized by the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences and the Croatian Section of the IEEE. The association has supported multiple EU and domestic project applications. It should be emphasized that in this sense, the Association had one project within the National Road Safety Program named “Application of innovative supporting technologies for traffic accidents investigation” lead Ass. Prof. Pero Škorput.
3. In the context of the goal of cooperating with ITS associations in Europe and the world, the past period has been very intense. Our Association was a co-organizer of the Korea-Croatia Business Forum “2017 ITS ROADSHOW”. The corresponding Memorandum of Understanding was also signed at the meeting. As a thank for this event, ITS Korea organized and funded a visit to the Republic of Korea and the capital of Seoul. We have also intensified our cooperation with ITS Slovenia association. Organized by ITS Slovenia, we visited the relevant institutions and entities in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Serbia.
4. In the area of cooperation with the economy, ITS Croatia emphasized organization appearance for Croatian companies (Viatel Ltd, Mobilisis Ltd) at TEN-T 2019 Days event in Ljubljana. Also, several meetings held with stakeholders in the field of traffic information provision in the Republic of Croatia.
5. As part of public dissemination activities about the development of intelligent transport systems, it improved the website, which is now much more informative. There were more appearances by members of the Association in other electronic and print media, where they emphasized the importance of our Association. One such performance was by Ass. Prof. Pero Škorput at Croatian TV regarding the project “Application of innovative support technologies for traffic accident investigation “.
6. The President commended the members of the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Rijeka, who significantly expanded their membership.
The Assembly elected a new leadership with a new (old) President, Prof. Sadko Mandžuka, who has submitted the appropriate work plan for the next period.
After the Assembly, the traditional banquet was held for members.
