Two leading European organizations are holding a major testing event at an Italian port that will use ‘connected’ technologies to show the convergence between the Internet of Things (IoT) and intelligent transport systems (ITS).
The association that produces globally applicable standards for information and communications technologies (ICT), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), in cooperation with ERTICO – ITS Europe, has announced the 5th ETSI ITS Plugtest, a two-week testing event for cooperative transport systems focusing on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. Testing will take place from November 7 to 17 around the port of Livorno in Italy. In addition, the Sea Port Innovation Conference Day will be held on November 16 and 17, where attendees will be able to take a demo tour on the test track.
ETSI has worked for several months with its partners ERTICO, CNIT, Livorno Port Authority, Regione Toscana (Tuscan Regional Government), AVR (Livorno/Florence highway), Autostrade Tech (motorway network) and Telecom Italia to put in place the testbed. This event contributes to ITS deployment, tests interoperability of ITS equipment from all key vendors, and demonstrates the convergence between ITS and IoT.
The event will trial the ITS ecosystem under real-life conditions, from infrastructure to applications in vehicles, thus demonstrating conformance to ETSI ITS Release 1 standard and interoperability of ITS G5 radio equipment. Companies from Asia, Europe and North America will have the opportunity to connect their equipment to the test infrastructure. This is a unique chance for system providers to maximize the effectiveness of their ITS solutions in urban environments. In Livorno, the cruise terminal will be the testbed headquarters, and a test-drive path will be used for quick setup of testing equipment in the field.
The infrastructure will include a 10-minute test drive on the Livorno-Florence highway, an IoT testbed enabling a set of specialized test cases on large-scale distributed sensing and actuation. The latter can be seen as a vertical realization of M2M communications in the context of intelligent transport. The test site includes variable message signs (VMS), traffic lights, IoT sensors and cameras, as well as connectivity with the highway control center. Different topics will be addressed, including road hazard signaling, traffic sign violation, intersection collision risk warning and loading zone management.
“In collaborative ITS communications, interoperability is key, and this is a great opportunity for solution providers to test their products,” explained Marco Annoni, ETSI ITS vice chair. “The fact that companies from different ITS sectors are increasingly involved and ready to test under real-life conditions shows the high level of maturity of ITS standards and implementations.”
ERTICO’s CEO, Hermann Meyer, said, “We are very excited to partner with ETSI for this first real-life event. Over the past few years, we have organized testing events and created an Interoperability Interest Group, to enlarge the scope of these activities and cooperate with third parties in the development of an ITS standardization roadmap.”
