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

  • MEPs call for timetable to accelerate deployment of C-ITS
    February 22, 2018
    Transport MEPs have called on the European Commission (EC) to present a timetable with targets for what the EU needs to achieve between 2019 and 2020 to accelerate the deployment of connected intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) technologies. It follows a welcomed response to the EC’s plans to speed up the deployment of digital technologies in transport to improve road safety and reduce congestion and emissions.
  • Gearing up for IntelliDrive cooperative traffic management
    February 1, 2012
    Beginning in the first quarter of 2010 it became evident that the IntelliDrivesm programme direction had been reestablished, by the USDOT's ITS Joint Program Office (JPO), after being adrift for a few years. The programme was now moving toward a deployment future and with a much broader stakeholder involvement than it had exhibited previously. By today not only is it evident that the programme was reestablished with a renewed emphasis on deployment, it is also apparent that it is moving along at a faster pa
  • Will the European Electronic Tolling System serve its purpose?
    February 3, 2012
    ASECAP's Kallistratos Dionelis asks whether, despite the best intentions at the policy level, the European Electronic Tolling System can ever hope to serve the customer in the way it is intended to. Reality doesn't just happen. In many ways, reality is created. We first create or produce a reality and then we consume it; this takes time and has a cost that needs to be covered.
  • EU to support the deployment of common ITS
    January 29, 2015
    Twelve European road operators and authorities have teamed up with the European Commission in the EasyWay initiative to foster European harmonisation and interoperability of ITS through a range of projects on common standards and procedures. The EU’s Ten-T programme will contribute almost US$2.3 million to the initiative, which follows up the on-going European ITS Platform and will continue its activities towards ITS harmonisation across the continent. The EIP+ project will monitor the EasyWay deplo