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

  • Transport in the round
    October 13, 2015
    The ITF’s Mary Crass tells Colin Sowman why future transport demands will require governments to overcome the silo effect of individual single-modal authorities. The only global multimodal transport policy organisation,” is how Mary Crass describes the International Transport Forum (ITF), which is housed at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As head of policy and summit preparation at the ITF she says: “All other organisations are either regional or have a modal focus, we cove
  • Reducing detection costs benefits intersection management
    February 3, 2012
    The continuing, favourable performance-versus-cost situation concerning detection and monitoring technologies is driving the proliferation of intelligence across road networks. The effective and safe management of intersections is a focus for network operators and systems manufacturers alike. The most complicated of road environments, and statistically among the least safe, intersections enjoy particular emphasis in longer-term work on cooperative infrastructure solutions. However there are current developm
  • Monitoring and transparency preserve enforcement's reputation
    July 30, 2012
    What can be done to preserve automated enforcement's reputation in the face of media and public criticism? Here, system manufacturers and suppliers talk about what they think are the most appropriate business models. Recent events in Italy only served to once again to push automated enforcement into the media spotlight. At the heart of the matter were the numerous alleged instances of local authorities and their contract suppliers of enforcement services colluding to illegally shorten amber signal phase tim
  • New vehicle technologies ‘could help reduce fatalities on European motorways’
    March 5, 2015
    New safety technologies could play a major role in reducing the numbers killed on European motorways, according to the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), in a new report published today. The new analysis of developments in motorway safety shows that, despite recent progress, around 1,900 were killed on motorways in the EU in 2013. The report cites figures from several countries showing that up to 60 per cent of those killed in motorway collisions were not wearing a seatbelt. It calls on the EU to req