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In the first two articles in this series, I argued that the future of intelligent transport systems depends on public trust, and that closing the trust gap requires transparency, inclusion, and governance that is built in from the start rather than bolted on after deployment. Both articles pointed, in different ways, to the same uncomfortable truth: we already know what good looks like. The problem is not knowledge. It is execution.
This final article, in this series, asks why execution keeps failing at the same point. Not during trials, which are often technically impressive. Not during evaluation, which frequently shows genuine results. But at the moment when a pilot should become permanent infrastructure. That moment is where intelligent transport systems keep stalling, and the consequences are more serious than the sector has been willing to admit.
ERTICO's post-congress report on the 17th ITS European Congress in Istanbul in April 2026 made an observation that deserves more than a passing reference: Europe’s ITS sector continues to out-innovate its ability to deploy that innovation at scale. In short, intelligent transport systems have spent the best part of a decade stuck in pilot purgatory, full of promising trials that never quite scaled.
Pilot purgatory. It is a phrase that will resonate with anyone who has worked in this sector. The autonomous shuttle that ran successfully for eighteen months and was then quietly withdrawn when the funding window closed. The adaptive signal system that reduced journey times by measurable amounts and was never extended beyond the test corridor. The connected vehicle trial that produced an excellent technical report and no permanent deployment.
These are not failures of technology. ERTICO’s ITS Market Radar Report 2026, published in March of this year, was direct on this point: the report’s lead author, Martina Ferrara Snider, noted that the reality of current pilots remains fragmented and small-scale, and that you cannot understand how solutions work in real-life conditions with a very limited number of pilots and vehicles. The problem is not that the systems do not work. It is that the conditions for scaling them have not been created and I agree with this.
The ERTICO Market Radar 2026 and the Istanbul Congress findings together point to three interlocking barriers that keep intelligent transport systems trapped between trial and permanence.
This is the dimension that has been slowest to confront across the board, and it is where this trilogy comes full circle. The ITS sector bears some of this responsibility, but so do governments that structure funding in cycles, institutions that treat pilots as endpoints rather than starting points, and funders that measure success by outputs rather than permanence. This is a shared problem with shared accountability.
In my first article, I argued that trust in intelligent systems is not built once and then banked. It requires sustained investment. Perpetual experimentation does not just fail to build that trust. It actively undermines it.
Every time a pilot is withdrawn, the public draws a conclusion. Not a nuanced one. Not one that accounts for funding cycles or procurement constraints. The conclusion is simple: this did not work, or the people responsible did not care enough to make it last. That conclusion sticks. It is considerably harder to reverse than the scepticism of someone who was never exposed to the technology in the first place. Repeated across enough communities, it becomes the prevailing public view of intelligent systems: promising in theory, unreliable in practice, not for us.
ERTICO’s post-congress report on ITS Istanbul 2026 recorded a finding from the opening plenary that deserves to be read carefully: the main obstacles to joined-up travel were no longer technological, but rooted in user behaviour, fragmented digital ecosystems, and a lack of trusted data-sharing arrangements. User behaviour and public trust are not separate problems from deployment at scale. They are consequences of it. A sector that keeps running pilots and withdrawing them is a sector that keeps teaching the public that intelligent systems are experiments, not infrastructure.
ERTICO’s own analysis of the Istanbul Congress was clear that cities are entering a new phase, the focus moving beyond experimentation toward delivery, where success is defined not by the number of pilots completed but by the ability to embed solutions into everyday urban life. That shift places greater emphasis on governance, interoperability, and long-term planning: precisely the areas that have received less attention than technology.
What does that mean in practice for the UK and Europe? The honest answer is that it means difficult things. Not technically difficult, but institutionally and politically difficult. It requires changing how money is allocated, how workforces are developed, how standards are agreed, and how contracts are written. None of these are quick fixes. But they are the right fixes, and they are achievable if the will exists to pursue them.
Three articles. One argument, built in three stages.
The first established that trust is the decisive factor for intelligent transport systems: not technical performance, but whether the public genuinely believes in them. The second showed what closing the trust gap looks like in practice, and what happens when governance and communication lag behind deployment. This third article makes the structural argument: none of that matters if intelligent systems remain experiments rather than infrastructure.
ERTICO’s conclusion from Istanbul 2026 was that the future of mobility will depend not only on innovation, but on the ability to connect systems, data, and stakeholders. That is right. But connecting systems, data, and stakeholders is not a technical problem. It is a political and institutional one. It requires funding decisions that look beyond grant cycles, workforce strategies that build genuine capability, and a willingness to make the long-term commitments that permanent infrastructure demands.
The UK and Europe have spent a decade proving that intelligent transport systems can work. The evidence base is substantial. The pilots have been run, the data gathered, the technical case made. What has not yet happened, consistently or at scale, is the decision to treat these systems as infrastructure rather than innovation.
Until that decision is made, the trust race cannot be won. You cannot build durable public confidence in systems that keep disappearing. And you cannot build the intelligent transport network that safety, sustainability, and resilience all require on a foundation of perpetual trials.
Pilot purgatory is a choice, and it can be reversed. For public authorities, that means demanding permanence in procurement rather than accepting trial windows. For funders and government, it means structuring investment around operational outcomes, not just project deliverables. For the ITS sector, it means making the case for infrastructure commitment as clearly and persistently as it has made the technical case. The evidence is there. The pilots have been run. What is needed now is the decision to build on them rather than repeat them.
Paula Claytonsmith, Writer | Innovation & Policy Strategist | Speaker
Paula Claytonsmith is a leading independent writer, policy and innovation strategist working at the intersection of transport, advanced technology, and policy in the UK. She advises public authorities, industry and policymakers on highways maintenance and good practice, intelligent systems and the real-world adoption and implications of emerging technologies. She is a board member of the Institute of Highway Engineers.
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