New Working Group arrangemments are coming up

Operational Structure

CITA Secretariat

The CITA Secretariat takes care of the day-to-day management and activities for the association. To this intent, it employs an Executive Directive, an Administrative Assistant as well as external advisors for strategic and new technology issues.

• Principal Activities

• Administrative day-to-day management of the organization
• Assist in setting out and implementing the strategic direction on a continuous basis
• Organise a.o. CITA Council, Bureau Permanent and Working Group meetings
• Organise CITA’s International Conferences
• Assist the activities of CITA Working Groups
• Internal and external communication
• Issue CITA publications

CITA General Assembly

The General Assembly is the highest decision making body of the organization. It represents all CITA Members and meets about every 18 months. Full Members have voting power.

The General Assembly has decisive power of approval for:

• Budgets and accounts
• Memberships
• Modifications to the Articles of Incorporation
• Dissolution and winding-up of the association
• CITA Recommendations
• Appointment of Council and Bureau Permanent Members and the President

CITA Council

The CITA Council consists of the CITA Bureau Permanent Members and the Chairpersons of the CITA Regional Advisory Groups. It meets at least once a year.

All members are elected at the CITA General Assembly and represent a Full Member of the association.

• Objectives

• Provide strategic direction at global level to the CITA organization
• Approve activities at global level within the CITA organization

CITA Bureau Permanent (BP)

The main objective of the CITA Bureau Permanent is managing the association and continue to give strategic direction between two General Assemblies.  The CITA Secretariat assists the BP by taking care of the daily work. 

The BP meets 3 to 5 times a year and may also decide to establish sub-committees to work on specific issues.  Two such sub-committees are currently active:

• Strategic Direction Group
• Relations with International Bodies

BP members and the position of President, are elected at the CITA General Assembly. Vice-Presidents are appointed by the BP.

• Principal Activities

• Supervise the administrative and financial situation of the organization
• Decide on granting provisional approval of membership applications. The formal approval is confirmed by the General Assembly.
• Supervise the work of the CITA Secretariat, allocate resources for activities. This can be work for Working Groups, Regional Advisory Groups, CITA Secretariat internal and external staff, new services to members, new studies and projects, etc.

CITA Regional Advisory Groups (RAG)

The Regional Advisory Groups' objective is to take forward the CITA objectives in their geographically defined region through regionally focused advice and activities.

Four Regional Advisory Groups are currently established and more may follow where justified. The chair of a RAG is situated at a CITA member location, within the specific region.  For Europe, the Regional Advisory Group is located at the CITA Secretariat.

The establishment of a RAG is put to the vote at the General Assembly. It consists of at least a Chairperson, possibly assisted by one or more assistants or advisors. All RAG chairpersons are elected by the General Assembly; other RAG representatives are appointed by the Bureau Permanent.

• Regional Advisory Groups

• Asia/Australasia
• Central & South America
• Europe
• North America

The European RAG's principal activities vary from the other Regional Adivsory Groups, which are predominantly occupied with developing activities in their specific regions.  The European activities are very well established, partially due to the fact that the CITA Secretariat is situated in Europe. Therefore the European RAG actively assists in developing CITA’s strategic direction, overseeing its European Working Group activities and maintaining contacts with European regulatory and international bodies.

CITA Working Groups

CITA takes forward most of its technical and specialist work using Working Groups of interested CITA members.

CITA Working Groups meet as often as necessary and meetings either take place at locations on the invitation of CITA members, or in Brussels at the CITA Secretariat.

Activities originate from within the Working Group itself or at the request of the Bureau Permanent or the General Assembly. All work is subject to approval by the CITA Bureau Permanent.

More details on the current established CITA Working Groups.

• CITA Ad-hoc Working Group 1 on Suspension Testing
• CITA Working Group 1 on Emission and Noise Testing
• CITA Working Group 2 on New Technologies
• CITA Working Group 3 on Quality Assurance
• CITA Working Group 4 on New Testing Items
• CITA Working Group 5 on Brakes Testing
• CITA Working Group 6 on the Scope of In-service Vehicles Periodical Roadworthiness and Roadside Inspections
• CITA Working Group 7 on Electronic Controlled Systems Testing
  
• CITA Working Group 8 on Inspection of 2 & 3 Wheeled Vehicles
• CITA Working Group 9 on Training

New Working Group arrangemments are coming up - CITA's new Topic Area and introduction of Policy Experts, Technical Experts and Project teams

CITA Working Groups are in a transitional period over 2010.

The proposal by the CITA Bureau Permanent to replace the former arrangements for the European CITA Working Groups was approved at the 2009 CITA General Assembly. The aim of it being to continue make CITA's work more effective by separating project work from the core objective of Working Groups, promoting exchange of views and best practices. Project work will now be handled separate as individual projects managed by project teams.

CITA Working Groups will now become a part of the CITA's work under specific topics areas, each with some sub-topics areas. Activities for these topic areas will be coordinated under the Regional Advisory Group for Europe. A Policy Expert (PE) will be leading each topic area assisted by 1 or 2 Technical Experts (TE) for each sub-topic area. All member will be able to give their input through Working Groups. More details

Since the CITA General Assembly in 2009 new topic area for CITA's work have been identified, covering state of art themes for modern vehicles roadworthiness. Working Groups were before especially technical orientated, the new topics areas are in addition also more operational and strategicall y orientated.

Five topics areas together with their Policy Experts have been approved by the CITA Bureau Permanent at its 132nd meeting held on 17 March 2010. The Policy Experts will start to contact candidates for Technical Experts to submit over the next few months a proposal to the CITA Bureau Permanent. A Working Group will be set-up for each topic area to make sure the full range of CITA members and roadworthiness schemes is represented.

 The CITA Secretariat will confirm early April 2010 with its members people who they want to become member of the different Working Groups. People from any CITA member are entitled to become a member of any CITA Working Group. Afterwards Working Group meetings will be set-up again to kick-off the activities for the different topic areas.

Projects

CITA is currently working on two priority projects:

1. Low Emission Diesel Testing, currently under the leadership of Mr. Axel Richter, CITA Policy Expert for Environmental Protection Systems
2. Inspection of Electronic Controlled safety Systems (ECS) under the leadership of Dr.-Ing. Thomas Aubel, CITA Policy Experts for Safety Systems

Don't hesitate contacting the CITA Secretariat if you have any further question.