The most important action plans and policies formulated by the EU and stressed by In-Time are:
• White Paper on European transport policy for 2010: The white paper stressed the problem of congestion in urban environments and the need for the integration of transport for a sustainable development. It proposed some 60 specific measures, one of which is developing high-quality urban transport. The subsequent mid-term review confirmed the urgent need for complementary action at national, regional and local levels and shifts of more environmentally friendly modes in urban areas and co-modality for the optimal and sustainable utilisation of resources.
• i2010 – A European Information Society for growth and employment: In-Time addresses one of the three initial priorities of ICT initiatives: clean transport addressing environmental and safety issues arising from increased road use. It also supports the creation of a Single European Information Space and makes ICT products more accessible by creating standard platforms that allow easy implementation.
• Green Paper – Towards a new culture for urban mobility: In-Time also supports the green paper’s goals by optimising the use of various modes of transport and supporting “co-modality” between different modes and collective and individual transport. In-Time helps to find answers by providing information to optimise trip planning and making better use of the infrastructure through co-modality (challenge 1), fewer emissions (air and noise) through fewer congestions and better use of the existing infrastructure (challenge 2), and availability of user-friendly, adequate and interoperable multi-model trip information for planning a journey and improved exchange of data (challenge 3).
• INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC: One important aspect of In-Time is the interoperability between modes as well as between geographical regions. For this reason, when setting up the pilots, In-Time will consider standards already existing or currently under discussion under the INSPIRE Directive.
INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC
• Greening Transport: Five major negative impacts of transport were identified in the communication: climate change, local pollution, noise pollution, congestion and accidents. In-Time contributes to the reduction of all of these where the use of ICT leads to modal change and traffic reduction through improved information.
• ITS Roadmap: In-Time addresses three challenges identified in the outline of the ITS
Roadmap: reducing congestion and optimising use of existing capacity, increasing traffic safety, and reducing the negative impact on the environment while increasing energy efficiency and reducing the dependency on fossil fuels.
• A European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (Set-Plan): The target of this plan is to reduce green-house-gases (GHG) by 20% by 2020 and to use 20% renewable energy sources in the EU energy mix, and to reduce GHG-remissions by 60-80% by 2050. Fully harnessing the potential for information and communication technologies and organisational innovation is stressed.
• Green Paper - A European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy: This paper fosters fuel efficiency of cars, and the improving of the efficiency of urban, rail, maritime and aviation transport systems, as well as changing transportation behaviour. Co-modality will result in an optimal utilisation of resources, including energy.
• Action Plan for Energy Efficiency: The transport sector accounts for almost 20% of total primary energy consumption. 98% of the energy consumed in this sector is fossil fuel. It is essential to realise the potential for energy efficiency gains in this sector. These potentials can be achieved, in particular by ensuring among others by improving the efficiency of the transport systems, and by changing transportation behaviour.