On the 19th and 20th of March, the European Commission's Information Society and Media Directorate-General organised a high-level event on ICT for Energy Efficiency. Hosted by Commissioner Reding and in cooperation with the Czech Presidency, the aim was to show how ICT based innovations may help to achieve the EU 2020 energy and climate targets of:

• reducing carbon emissions by 20%
• increasing the share of renewables in energy consumption to 20%
• saving 20% of the EU's energy consumption

SMARTFREIGHT was selected to participate with a stand in this important event, in which more information about the project and its developments was made available.

By addressing individual freight vehicles, SMARTFREIGHT could in the future improve traffic and freight distribution management, contributing to a more sustainable urban mobility.

SMARTFREIGHT Test-sites in Trondheim (Norway), Winchester (UK), Bologna (Italy) and Dublin (Ireland) are currently evaluating how the extended project functionalities could improve urban freight transport by:

• reducing travel/deliveries times
• controlling access to loading/unloading areas
• controlling access to environmental zones by assigning priority to clean vehicles
• guiding vehicles under specific traffic conditions
• etc.

The SMARTFREIGHT concept could lead to a better coordination on city logistics, reducing fuel consumption and carbon emissions, contributing in this way to improving the Energy Efficiency of freight transport in the urban environment.

Based on these potential benefits, the SMARTFREIGHT's application for the 'Best ICT for Energy Efficiency Project Award' has been accepted. The wider Internet community will select the award finalist by rating the different selected projects' websites.

You can vote for SMARTFREIGHT from October 30th to December 31st 2009 via
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/cf/ee09/stream-items.cfm?id=29

For more details on the ICT for Energy Efficiency please visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/ict4ee/2009/index_en.htm