Overview
NordicWay will test and demonstrate interoperability of C-ITS (cooperative ITS) of services both for passenger and freight traffic, piloting continuous services offering an equivalent user experience in the whole network. NordicWay is a real-life deployment pilot, which will facilitate a wider deployment in the Nordic countries and in Europe in the next phase.
The key innovations of NordicWay are the following:
1. It is the first large-scale pilot demonstrating the technical feasibility and as a proof-of-concept of probe data collection and C-ITS service delivery using cellular communication (3G and LTE/4G).
2. It offers to the users continuous interoperable services with roaming between different mobile networks and cross-border, offering C-ITS services with equivalent user experience in all four countries.
3. It is a business – industry/promoter oriented project, with the emphasis of building a sustainable business model and ecosystem for the data value chain and stakeholders (public sector – road authorities, C-ITS operators, automotive industry, telecom operators, and content and service providers).
4. It builds on the large investment of the public sector on the priority services of the ITS Directive 2010/40/EU (real-time traffic information and safety-related information) in improving the service provision and presentation parts of the value chain by delivering the services in a personalised way in real-time to the road users, in their vehicles on in-vehicle displays and on smart devices, and also offering an open content access point for the data.
5. It will demonstrate the real improvements of C-ITS and probe data in the quality of key safety services (road weather warning and hazardous location warning) over the currently deployed services.
6. NordicWay is fully based on European standards, and is geared towards achieving full interoperability in the four participating countries with cross-border testing, and later extension to other regions in Europe.
NordicWay pilot acts as the last mile between C-ITS research and development and wide-scale deployment. Therefore it is geared towards solving all the barriers towards deployment, analysing the performance of the system, assessing the scalability, cost-benefit and user acceptance and changes in driver behaviour, plus developing a business model and a detailed scenario for the roll-out.
The general objectives of NordicWay are:
a. Improve road network performance (efficiency, environmental impact, safety and security) through deployment of cooperative services. This will make better use of existing infrastructures and bring reduction of congestion and fatalities.
b. Improving the quality and coverage of key safety services (road weather warning and hazardous location warning) by using C-ITS. This is achieved through acquiring and using probe data from the vehicles, and also by additional and complementary data from other sources such as vehicle fleets and navigation devices and smartphones. Probe data also extends the coverage to parts of the road network where no data is currently available.
c. The demonstration of C-ITS benefits to users, by providing them with accurate traffic and travel information and improved services through cellular communications and collection of probe data, making the journey safer and more environmentally friendly, making the travel times shorter and more predictable.
d. Establishment of the C-ITS market for commercial value-added services and moving towards new concepts such as MaaS (Mobility as a Service) and automation.
e. Assessment of the benefits and user acceptance of C-ITS services.
The project results are disseminated and the next phase of the project for full deployment is planned.