Overview
During the past decade, researchers have been working on cooperative systems worldwide in numerous research projects. Tentative results suggest that communication between vehicles and vehicles and infrastructure can substantially improve sustainable transportation. There is today a general understanding of the benefits of cooperative systems in terms of traffic safety and efficiency, but so far these systems have been tried out in small scale experiments only. There is no proof of their benefits yet with many communicating vehicles used in variable conditions on roads.
The objective of the DRIVE C2X Integrated Project is to carry out comprehensive assessment of cooperative systems through Field Operational Tests in various places in Europe in order to verify their benefits and to pave the way for market implementation. This general objective is split into four major technical objectives:
- Create a harmonised Europe-wide testing environment for cooperative systems
- Coordinate the tests carried out in parallel throughout the DRIVE C2X community
- Evaluate cooperative systems
- Promote cooperative driving.
The work proposed builds strongly on previous and on-going work on cooperative systems, which are now considered to be mature enough for large-scale field operational tests. The Europe-wide testing community envisaged for DRIVE C2X comprises of six test sites in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, France and Finland. Essential activities in this project are the testing methodology and evaluation of the impact of cooperative driving functions on users, environment and society. In addition to impacts, other important areas of testing are technical functionality and robustness of the systems also in adverse conditions. The user feedback and the results from technical tests enable the creation of realistic business models for the following market introduction