§ Mr. GrayTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions how the Galileo navigation system may be deployed to tackle road traffic congestion; and if he will make a statement. [40309]
§ Mr. Jamieson[holding answer 4 March 2002]: How and when Galileo could be deployed to help tackle road traffic congestion will depend on timing and technical decisions yet to be taken.
Satellite navigation is used as an embedded technology in many intelligent transport systems (ITS) such as in-car navigation, passenger and traffic information, vehicle tracking and fleet management systems. It has the potential to he used in road user charging.
At present ITS use data from the US Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. The European Commission has proposed that Galileo be developed as an independent satellite navigation system but inter-operable with GPS. The Transport Council on 26 March is expected to take decisions on the development and validation phase (2002–05) of Galileo. Subject to this work, further decisions would be required to proceed to deploy Galileo and begin operation in 2008. In principle, therefore, Galileo and GPS could jointly provide a navigation service from that date.