Skip to main content

ITS Australia: cooperative ITS closer to reality

ITS Australia welcomes recent Australian policy and international standards announcements that pave the way to making connected vehicles a reality and expanding opportunities for Australian innovation. Another important international step toward wireless connectivity for vehicles was the 12 February announcement of technical standards by the European Telecoms Standards Institute (ETSI) and the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN). These standards ensure that vehicles made by different European ma
March 7, 2014 Read time: 3 mins
858 ITS Australia welcomes recent Australian policy and international standards announcements that pave the way to making connected vehicles a reality and expanding opportunities for Australian innovation.

Another important international step toward wireless connectivity for vehicles was the 12 February announcement of technical standards by the European Telecoms Standards Institute (ETSI) and the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN). These standards ensure that vehicles made by different European manufacturers can communicate with each other.

ITS Australia Chief Executive Officer Susan Harris said this 1690 European Commission announcement and the recent United States Government Department of Transport decision to enable vehicle to vehicle communication technology are timely following the release last December of the Australian National Transport Commission (NTC) Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems Final Policy Paper.

The NTC Final Policy Paper analyses the risks, barriers and potential regulatory reforms required for an Australia wide harmonised platform for Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) technologies that will ensure the best safety and efficiency outcomes, and respect the privacy of individuals.

Harris said it was significant that the NTC did not find any legislative roadblocks to the deployment of the technology in Australia. “The Final Policy Paper also identifies a number of areas that require further review.  For example, Recommendations 6 and 7 say that research, based on identified gaps in international research that are relevant to Australia should be conducted,” she continued.  

She went on to say that wireless vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication will help deliver safer and more efficient traffic flows. “It will deliver great community benefits – for drivers, pedestrians, our environment and our economies,” she said.

“The proposed Australian Intelligent Transport Cooperative Research Centre will be ideally placed to leverage off the international work and target research into any gaps identified in applying C-ITS to Australian conditions.

“The recent announcements from Europe and the USA emphasise that C-ITS development is rapidly gaining momentum. Australia must keep pace with international developments to capture the safety, environmental and economic benefits it will deliver.

“The Australian ITS industry has a strong presence in this technology and we must also ensure that our competitive advantage is maintained.

“We need an Intelligent Transport CRC to provide the vital link between industry, research bodies and systems users to ensure that we continue to foster Australian innovation and international opportunities in this growing market,” said Harris.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Sell-out attendance at ITS Australia’s 2017 summit
    October 3, 2017
    A new record of over 400 international and Australian ITA leaders attended 5th annual Australian Intelligent Transport Systems Summit with more than 50 Australian international speakers at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre (27 – 28 September). ITS Australia hosted three exclusive functions- the Thought Leadership Series – with government ministers and leading influencers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. In addition, this year’s theme ‘Transforming Transport focused on Connected and Automat
  • FOTsis targets ‘socially inclusive’ cooperative ITS
    December 5, 2013
    The FOTsis project addresses the imbalances between the vehicular and infrastructure sides of cooperative ITS infrastructures and looks to ensure road operators can help to enrich future technology applications. By Jason Barnes. Several developments have conspired to push the vehicular side of cooperative infrastructures/cooperative ITS to the fore in recent years. The automotive industry’s rather shorter product development and lifecycles combined with economic slowdown in many regions gave rise to the not
  • Frequency changes threaten vehicle safety applications
    January 24, 2012
    The use of frequency spectrum at 5.9GHz for vehicle safety applications is at risk because of two draft bills currently before Congress. Here, we look at why and what’s being done to address the issue. In the US, the right of cooperative infrastructure to use frequency at 5.9GHz is under threat as a result of the proposal of two bills in Congress. The chronology of spectrum allocation for Dedicated Short- Range Communications (DSRC)-based Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) safety a
  • Economic stimulus and investment in ITS solutions
    February 2, 2012
    Scott Belcher, President and CEO of ITS America looks at the year ahead