The Car 2 Car Communication Consortium (C2CCC) and the C-Roads Platform have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) enabling a close cooperation between the automotive industry, road authorities and road operators for preparing the deployment of initial cooperative ITS (C-ITS) services across Europe by 2019.
Short-range wireless communication from vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), based on the ITS-G5 standard (IEEE 802.11p), together with hybrid communication technologies, represents an essential cornerstone towards safe connected automated driving. Both partners strongly support the recommendation developed by the European Commission’s C-ITS Deployment Platform to use short range communication in the 5.9GHz frequency band. In accordance with the European C-ITS strategy adopted in November 2016, the hybrid communication approach builds on combining short-range ITS-G5 and wide area cellular and broadcast communication under a complementary principle.
Interoperability of C-ITS services is a pre-requisite for enabling a seamless driver experience while travelling cross-border on European roads. Vehicles need to understand and correctly process messages sent by each other, irrespective of brands, as well as by the road operators, to enable the best-possible support of drivers in each individual traffic situation. Initiatives to achieve this requirement are broadly facilitated by the European Commission (EC) and gain additional importance with the increasing automation of vehicles.
Since its foundation in 2002, the C2CCC focused its work on establishing European standards for short range communication between vehicles and traffic infrastructure, and the allocation of the 5.9GHz band for these purposes has mainly been driven by the Consortium. Its 88 members have initiated and supported numerous research projects, as well as largescale field operational tests on national and European levels. As a result, ITS-G5 has proven to be ready for enabling short-range communication. Now that the systems enter the deployment phase, the Consortium is working closely together with infrastructure deployment initiatives to ensure a seamless market introduction of V2I communications.
In 2016 the C-Roads Platform was established as the platform of EC Member State authorities and road operators for harmonizing roadside C-ITS deployments across Europe. As infrastructure deployment initiatives are growing in number, the C2CCC commits to close collaboration with the C-Roads Platform for jointly fostering the successful deployment of C-ITS in Europe starting in 2019. The MoU emphasizes the commitment of the C2CCC’s 18 vehicle manufacturers, 39 equipment suppliers and 31 research organizations, and the governments, authorities and operators in C-Roads, to deploy C-ITS technology across Europe.
