A look back on the ITS World Congress 2024 in Dubai
20,000+ attendees – probably a new record, 100+ exhibitors, dozens of conference sessions over 5 days, 3,500 people seated in the Opening Ceremony – these are just a few numbers of the 30th ITS World Congress that took place in the Dubai World Trade Center from 16 to 20 September 2024.
SWARCO CEO Michael Schuch receiving the ITS Hall of Fame Industry Award from the hands of ERTICO Chairman Dr. Angelos Amditis.
SWARCO was well represented in the conference program, in the industry media, and on the exhibition floor. At the exhibition, the focus was on topics such as AI-supported traffic management, Cooperative, connected & automated mobility (CCAM) and Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communication. Colleagues Thomas Ronslund, Andreas Wörner, Firas Attieh and Richard Neumann from SWARCO welcomed visitors at our 35 m2 stand; Sandro Murro, Itir Coskun, Christoph Stögerer and Michael Schuch were in demand as speakers in roundtables, plenary sessions and special interest sessions.
A highlight of the congress for us was the presentation of the ITS Hall of Fame Industry Award for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region to SWARCO. SWARCO CEO Michael Schuch received the award from the hands of ERTICO Chairman Dr. Angelos Amditis.
The ITS World Congress Hall of Fame was created in 2010 to recognize luminaries and true thought leaders in the Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) field. The Hall of Fame Awards provide an invaluable opportunity to highlight the successes of the most outstanding, ambitious, and innovative ITS deployments and to reward those people and organizations most worthy of recognition and praise. The Industry Award is given to a company or research organization that developed and/or deployed a significant innovative product or service over the course of the previous year; produced a new product and/or service that played a key role in accelerating development and deployment of ITS in its region over the course of the previous year; plays a leading role in the ITS Community.
The laudatory video underlined that SWARCO has been nominated and recognized for our ongoing commitment to the development and deployment of ITS solutions as game changers for the evolution of mobility and a greener planet. With 55 years of leadership in road safety and intelligent traffic management, SWARCO takes part in EU innovation initiatives such as ‘AIAMO’, ‘SHOW’, ‘SOTERIA’, ‘Inclusive Spaces’, ‘SmartZone Buffer’ tackling hot topics like AI, CCAM, clean and inclusive mobility and access regulation.
Students from Dubai trying SWARCO's GoGreen Virtual Reality Experience
In 2023, at the ITS European Congress in Lisbon, SWARCO launched GoGreen, a neutral, collaborative campaign for promoting ITS impact across the continent. This initiative makes use of 3D Virtual Reality technology to demonstrate how ITS solutions can help Green Deal cities achieve their ambitious climate goals. At the 2024 Intertraffic Amsterdam exhibition, SWARCO showcased the use of Artificial Intelligence in optimizing traffic flow and launched CCAM solutions with Dutch cooperation partners to improve safety at roadwork zones and to make intersections smarter.
During the week, SWARCO conference speakers addressed topics like “Towards carbon neutrality: transitioning mobility in cities”, “Preparation of the city infrastructure for autonomous driving”, “Hybrid technologies in large scale CCAM deployments”, “Better Traffic Information, Improved Safety”, and the “ERTICO City Moonshot: Experiences of cities on their mobility challenges”.
The exhibition stand was not only visited by industry professionals mainly from Asia, but also by a high-ranking ERTICO delegation with Chairman Angelos Amditis and CEO Joost Vantomme. They were introduced to latest developments of SWARCO in the context of AI-supported traffic management and smart traffic signals. On Thursday, when the exhibition opened to the public, numerous school and academy classes from
Dubai raided our stand, not only with assignments they got from their teachers, but also to try out our GoGreen Virtual Reality Experience. “Amazing”, “great”, “very impressive” were the comments after using our VR goggles.
Museum of the Future near World Trade Center in Dubai
Traffic on many junctions in Dubai is managed by SWARCO's energy-saving FUTURIT LED traffic lights
The social program of the congress with gala dinners led us into the breath-taking Museum of the Future near the World Trade Center and the Souk Madinat in Jumeirah. The Dubai event already shed light on the upcoming ITS congresses in Seville and Atlanta (2025), Gangneung in South Korea (2026) and Birmingham (2027).
An interesting fact when travelling the streets of Dubai: At countless road junctions, traffic is regulated by our energy-saving FUTURIT LED traffic lights made in Austria.
SWARCO | The Better Way. Every Day.