Skip to main content

EU presents a strategy towards C-ITS

The European Commission has adopted a European Strategy on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), a milestone towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility. The Strategy will make it possible to deploy vehicles that can communicate with each other and the infrastructure on EU roads as of 2019. Digital connectivity is expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort of driving, while boosting the market of cooperative, connected and automated driving and th
December 1, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The European Commission has adopted a European Strategy on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), a milestone towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility. The Strategy will make it possible to deploy vehicles that can communicate with each other and the infrastructure on EU roads as of 2019.

Digital connectivity is expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort of driving, while boosting the market of cooperative, connected and automated driving and the related creation of jobs.

The strategy aims to avoid a fragmented internal market and provide definition and support of common priorities. It plans to use a mix of communication technologies and to address security and data protection issues .It foresees the adoption of the appropriate legal framework at EU level by 2018 to ensure legal certainty for public and private investors. It also addresses the availability of EU funding for research and development projects and international cooperation, such as at the G7 level, on all aspects related to cooperative, connected and automated vehicles.

It also involves continuous coordination, in a learning-by-doing approach, with the C-ROADS platform, which gathers real-life deployment projects in Member States. With the help of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), projects in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom have received funding.

According to Lars Reger, CTO Automotive, 566 NXP Semiconductors, the EU decision to include a dedicated automotive wireless communication protocol in its newly decided ITS master plan is the right choice at the right time.  He says, “It reflects NXP’s findings after 10 years of research and V2X field-testing: Only a dedicated automotive wireless communication (802.11p) protocol can cover safety critical use cases, such as platooning and emergency braking. These and other types of autonomous decisions require extremely fast communications (low latencies) that cellular networks cannot achieve currently.

“Cellular networks still need further research, standardisation, field-testing and full network coverage. This EU decision sets the cornerstone for very important choices related to the European “Strategy on vehicles of the future” to be defined in 2017.”

Related Content

  • June 17, 2020
    5G transport research projects get EU backing
    Trials aimed at paving way for large-scale deployment of 5G corridors
  • July 1, 2015
    Here to lead vehicle hazard warning pilot in Finland
    Mapping and navigation specialist Here has been selected by Finnish traffic agencies Finnish Transport Agency (FTA) and Trafi, the Finnish Transport Safety Agency to lead a pilot project to enable vehicles to communicate safety hazards to others on the road. Here will also work with traffic information management service company Infotripla in implementing the project, which will be the first to implement a road hazard warning messaging system as described in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
  • April 25, 2012
    European safety drive
    The European Commission is keen to boost road safety and analysis of road accident statistics. A key component of this move will be improving transparency over the safety of road infrastructure, in accordance with their obligations under European law. So far 11 European member states have been warned by the European Commission to be more open about the safety on infrastructure networks.
  • September 25, 2015
    Hydrogen Mobility Europe project launched
    A coalition of European partners has launched the Hydrogen Mobility Europe project (H2ME), co-funded with US$36 million from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU). The project will support the deployment of 200 fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), 125 fuel cell range-extended electric (FC RE-EVs) commercial vans and 29 new hydrogen refuelling stations (HRS) in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK by 2019. H2ME is based around an