Overview
We can consider that the most recent developments of the vehicles are:
- the massive deployment of sensors, actuators and computers allowing to develop a kind of "vehicle and transport system intelligence";
- their ability to communicate among themselves or with the infrastructure through the concept of cooperative systems;
- the introduction of electric motor combined or not with thermal motor: hybrid vehicles or full electric vehicles.
All these changes are beneficial for both the car manufacturers, cycling manufacturers, road networks operators and transport users (drivers or simple users).
This report attempts to describe the key issues and the latest advances around these important developments.
Funding
Results
These are conclusions raising of the project:
The development of cooperative systems and probes vehicles are the foundation of what may be called the "Information system tied to the road". This system should aim at meeting reciprocal expectations: firstly, infrastructure expectations towards vehicles and secondly vehicle expectations towards infrastructure. This duality is justified through the emergence of future vehicles: autonomous vehicles and associated traffic management system.
An automated highway system cannot be well functioning without a detailed knowledge of the network status. The vehicles themselves will contribute to the knowledge of this status through the concept of probe vehicle.
Conversely, to move safely, vehicles will need an accurate knowledge of the state of the road on which they are travelling: this concept of the high level of service road (or secure road) provides the vehicle with guiding functions (thanks to high quality lane markings), a description of its geometry (slope, curvature, cant), its adhesion etc. This set of information will be included in digital maps or transmitted directly to vehicles from the management centres.