Finalised recommendations of RTTI, Communications WGs endorsed by eSafety Forum

Creation date: 03 October 2007

Reports and findings from both WGs presented at 8th eSafety Forum Plenary in Versailles on 18 September.
 
The finalised reports and recommendations of the RTTI and Communications eSafety Forum Working Groups have been endorsed by the eSafety Forum at its 8th plenary meeting held in Versailles, France on 18 September. Both WGs’ findings will be provided to the EC, possibly serving as the basis for future legislation and recommendations.

Communications WG
The Communications WG includes all stakeholders in traffic and road issues involved in the sectors concerned by Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V)or Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication technologies. It is also supported by the COMeSafety project and worked in close cooperation with the Car-to-Car Communication Consortium.

The WG aims to cover all such technologies and modes relevant to eSafety in order to develop recommendations for the EC and the Member States to enable the creation of harmonised systems for V2V and V2I communication. Such systems would enable stakeholders to develop business models based on common standards in a common market.

Focusing on aspects such as spectrum issues, standardization and international cooperation, the WG aims to build consensus in the V2V/V2I community in Europe on the necessary standards and requirements for frequency spectrum. A harmonised solution can help to ensure success of an European eSafety system, since a minimum penetration in the vehicle market must be reached to increase overall road safety.

There are many services and technologies worldwide competing for a scarce resource: radio spectrum for wireless transmission of data, audio or TV services. Several initiatives are underway to define the needs and estimate the positive effects of wireless communication for eSafety applications. In 2007, a compatibility study and an impact assessment regarding safety-relevant ITS applications was released by CEPT and ECC working groups. This will lead to a CEPT mandate report to the EC and an ECC directive, both proposing a 30MHz band (to be extended to 50MHz if needed) in the 5.9GHz range for safety-relevant ITS applications.

In relation to standards, several EC research projects investigated V2X technology and co-developed the CALM standards (refer to ISO TC204 WG16). Although some stakeholders — mainly those only interested in V2V communication — highlight that this package is too complex and expensive to implement in simple V2V systems, agreement has been reached on a viable subset of the CALM standards.

The WG, now with the approval of the eSafety Forum, will present its final report to to the EC at the end of 2007 for consideration. Its recommendations, together with the CEPT mandate report and the ECC directive 101, is expected to become an EC Directive regarding spectrum, as well as be considered as recommendations regarding commercial aspects and standardisation within the Member States.

RTTI Working Group
The RTTI Working Group, which has now officially concluded, provided further analysis and recommendations for accelerating the take-up of the measures for accessing the public sector data, enabling the establishment of public-private partnerships, and the provision of reliable, high-quality RTTI (real-time traffic and travel information services) in Europe. The first report and recommendations were presented in October 2005. Since then, further development in the field of RTTI has taken place, but open issues remain with respect to implementation, recommended measures and further roll-out.

The WG analysed the open issues, and presented its draft recommendations in January 2007. A public consultation process resulted in the incorporation of more than 80 contributions from 22 sources into the WG’s final report in March 2007. The WG presented and disseminated these results at the eSafety Conference in Berlin, in June 2007, and its results are being used for the conclusions of the German Presidency on RTTI.

The WG’s findings have re-confirmed RTTI as being highly relevant to road safety, especially as a constituent element of improved road safety systems, including e.g. C2C, C2X, eCall. When it is based on digital distribution channels with adequate capacities, using European standards, it offers a variety of implementations of public and commercial services and combinations thereof (PPP). However, improvements in quality and coverage are necessary.

The WG’s other achievements included:

• Revised overview on the aspects of RTTI implementations from the user and stakeholder perspectives.
• Updated lists of RTTI-related standards and implementations of TMC in Europe and abroad
• Clarifications and examples of business models
• Road maps of evolving standards and services
• Proposals of further actions for improvements

The WG has provided its findings for use by the eSafety Forum, EC, Member States, and stakeholders.

To access the final reports:

Communications WG:  Communications WG Recommendations.pdf (428 KB)

RTTI WG: INFO PACK - RTTI WG Final Report.pdf (342 KB)

For more information, please contact eSafety Support