Skip to main content

ITS World Congress first for Q-Free solution

Q-Free’s Universal ITS (U-ITS) Station will be help to achieve two significant firsts at the ITS World Congress Melbourne. The outdoor demonstration area will host the first Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) showcase of its type in the southern hemisphere. It will also be the first implementation anywhere in the world on live intersections of C-ITS technology and applications using open, agreed standards.
September 13, 2016 Read time: 2 mins

108 Q-Free’s Universal ITS (U-ITS) Station will be help to achieve two significant firsts at the ITS World Congress Melbourne. The outdoor demonstration area will host the first Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) showcase of its type in the southern hemisphere. It will also be the first implementation anywhere in the world on live intersections of C-ITS technology and applications using open, agreed standards. 

The U-ITS Station is a compact, comprehensive C-ITS solution providing full hybrid, ETSI/ISOstandard communications. Available in roadside and in-vehicle versions that use many of the same components, its conformity with internationally agreed C-ITS standards enables ready interfacing with other manufacturers’ technologies. This is significant — previous ITS World Congress outdoor demonstrations have featured proprietary standards or effectively represented a single supplier’s product set. 

During the ITS World Congress, U-ITS Station-equipped coaches travelling to and from the outdoor demonstration area will pass through a series of intersections. The roadside U-ITS Stations will broadcast standard messages including intersection map and traffic signal status (SPaT/MAP) roadside awareness messages (CAM) and roadside service announcements. A central ITS station will provide open web access, enabling smartphone, tablet or PC users to follow the demonstration live.

“The Universal ITS Station is the most technically advanced ITS product we have ever created,” says Knut Evensen, Q-Free’s Chief Technologist. “This is the third generation unit and it is now a very highly capable and — crucially — robust solution for the C-ITS environment. Interoperability testing with other manufacturers went entirely according to plan. Everything worked just fine, first time.

 “What we now have is an effective, accessible, totally standards-compliant solution that is fully capable of supporting C-ITS pilots around the world.

We’ve already achieved our first sales in this respect,”  Evensen said.

Q-Free also will be exhibiting within the main exhibition where the U-ITS Station, as well as the company’s other solutions that support smarter mobility in both urban and inter-urban environments, will feature.  

Related Content

  • December 23, 2015
    ITS sector must use less confusing industry terms says Q-Free
    For ITS to gain the recognition it deserves, Q-Free’s Knut Evensen argues that the sector must have a coherent message and avoid confusing the wider community with a bewildering array of terms and acronyms. Any industry or group of people will develop its own lexicon over time. The process is near-inevitable, as individuals’ knowledge bases increase and evolve, and terms for common wisdom are created and become truncated, or even slang. A danger, though, as a relatively small group looks to admit large numb
  • November 25, 2020
    Virtual ITS European Congress 2020: report
    ITS industry ‘needs to make a move towards each other’, Congress delegates hear
  • May 29, 2025
    Transponder contract for Q-Free with Via Verde Portugal
    Firm will deliver 2.4 million devices to enable cross-border interoperability
  • August 25, 2015
    Registration open for ITS World Congress demonstrations
    The 22nd ITS World Congress in Bordeaux will be host to 35 live, technical and interactive ITS demonstrations, each of which will take place in the immediate vicinity of the Congress Exhibition Hall during the World Congress. The demonstrations characterise the seven topics of the congress, including: Space technologies and services for ITS; Cooperative ITS deployment challenges; Multimodal transport for people and goods; Urban trends driving ITS changes; Solutions for sustainable mobility; Automated roa