Overview
Being a part of Intelligent Transport Systems, cooperative ITS (C-ITS or cooperative systems) encompass a group of technologies and applications that allow effective data exchange through wireless communication technologies between components and actors of the transport system, very often between vehicles (vehicle-to-vehicle or V2V) or between vehicles and infrastructure (vehicle-to-infrastructure or V2I).
The deployment of C-ITS is an evolutionary process that will start with the less complex use cases. These are referred to as “Day-1-services”, encompassing messages about traffic jams, hazardous locations, road-works and slow or stationary vehicles, as well as weather information and speed advises to harmonise traffic. Using probe vehicle and infrastructure-related data, all C-ITS services shall be transmitted directly into the vehicles in a way that allows users to get informed but not distracted.
The deployment of C-ITS faces many important issues still unresolved, such as legal, organisational, administrative, governing aspects, technical and standardisation issues as well as implementation and procurement issues.
C-Roads is a platform of Member States working on the deployment of harmonised and interoperable C-ITS services in Europe. The C-Roads Platform approach will pursue cooperation on a holistic level in order to cover all dimensions linked with the deployment of C-ITS, such as sharing experiences and knowledge regarding deployment and implementation issues, as well as user acceptance. It will follow a bottom-up approach that will include national pilots. These will form basic elements for a later pan-European C-ITS implementation. The national pilot initiatives will move on to cross-site testing which will allow them to grow together and achieve transnational interoperability. In this way C-Roads will ensure European cohesion of C-ITS deployment in the European Union with regards to a long-term roll-out.
The Austrian pilot will follow the work of the C-Roads Platform and all installations will be done in a harmonised way by ensuring the interoperable end-user services based on international cooperation. The Austrian C-Roads Pilot will encompass test sites in the Vienna area, the motorway section from Vienna to Salzburg, as well as around Innsbruck and the greater Graz area. Harmonisation is the core asset of the C-Roads Cooperation, since it ensures sustainable and efficient deployment. Consequently, all partners share the vision of the main objectives, which are - beside harmonisation - (pilot) implementation, demonstrations of C-ITS deployment and advance to large-scale deployment.