Performance Impacts through Intelligent Transport Systems : An Assessment of how to Measure and Evaluate

Abstract: This study assesses how to measure and evaluate performance impacts of IntelligentTransport Systems (ITS) in the transport chain.The importance of transportation in global trade has increased significantly in the lastdecades. Cost pressure, rising customer demand for sophisticated logistics services, sustainabilityand security as well as safety issues have boosted the need for more efficient,effective and differentiated transport operations. Intelligent Transport Systems werefound to have the potential to address these challenges in the transport chain. However,due to the novelty of the technology both ITS developers and users face huge uncertaintyabout the performance impacts of ITS. Evaluating ITS in the transport chain beforethe rollout based on concrete measures is likely to reduce the uncertainty involvedin ITS developments and enhance the adoption rate of the new technology. The increasingnumber of ITS projects, like the Secure Intermodal Transport Systems at VolvoTechnology, create a need for a structured approach to measure and evaluate ITS.A literature review concerning the characteristics of the transport industry, technologyadoption, ITS and performance measurements served as a basis for the empirical studyin which 8 semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders in the transport industrywere conducted in order to find out how the performance impacts of ITS are perceivedin the industry and how they could possibly be assessed. The focus groupmethod was used to validate and apply the findings from the interview study to a GeofencingITS-service.The study has confirmed that the concept of ITS is still an emerging phenomenon in thetransportation industry. There is no common understanding of ITS among researchersand practitioners in the transport industry and still a lack of knowledge regarding theperformance impacts of ITS. Even though it could be found that ITS leverages mainlythe service level that can be offered to the customer and that they increase the efficiencyin the back office, the great variety of ITS-services calls for an individual assessment.Structuring the assessment into the phases of measurement design, implementation anduse of the measures facilitates this process. For the different phases a set of activitiescritical for a successful assessment of ITS have been identified. Despite its usefulnessfor mitigating the uncertainty related to the new technology, the focus group validationuncovered that a comprehensive measurement for ITS is not appropriate from the outset,but should be assessed based on the cost of the measurement, the ITS project priority,the customer relations as well as the hierarchical structure in the provider firm.