First Standards published by New ETSI Technical Committee for ITS

Sources: ETSI, ITS International

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has published its first standards in the new Technical Committee for ITS, which was established in December 2007. The primary function of the technical committee is to develop the standards and protocols necessary for the deployment of co-operative infrastructure in Europe. Co-operative systems are new technologies based on Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications that aim to improve road safety and reduce congestion.

The set of standards, ETSI TS 102 486 “Road Transport and Traffic Telematics (RTTT) - Test Specifications for Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) Transmission Equipment”, was published on 6th October 2008. The standard is made up of the following parts:

o        Part 1.1 - Data Link Layer - Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement (PICS) Proforma Specification

o        Part 1.2 - Data Link Layer - Test Suite Structure and Test Purposes (TSS&TP)

o        Part 1.3 - Data Link Layer - Abstract Test Suite (ATS) and Partial PIXIT Proforma (Protocol Implementation eXtra Information for Testing)

o        Part 2.1 - Application Layer - Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement (PICS) Proforma Specification

o        Part 2.2 - Application Layer - Test Suite Structure and Test Purposes (TSS&TP)

o        Part 2.3 - Application Layer - Abstract Test Suite (ATS) and Partial PIXIT Proforma.

In addition to these standards, there are currently 37 projects listed at the “drafting stage”.

In an interview in the July / August edition of ITS International, Soren Hess, the Committee Chairman says:

“The various European co-operative projects have been developing concepts for some time now and have realised some basic systems and requirements. We now need to work out how all these things work as they become more sophisticated and used more widely”.

Substantial standardisation work has already begun in this area, for example the Communications Architecture for Land Mobiles (CALM) Project in Working Group 16 of ISO TC 204. Hess says that the ETSI Technical Committee for ITS is working in association with CALM, however where the two differ is that CALM “is heavily dependent on the infrastructure side of the vehicle / infrastructure environment… our focus is more oriented to both V2V and V2I”.

The ETSI TC ITS, as it is known, contains five working groups:

o        Application Requirements

o        Architectures

o        Networks and Transport

o        Media

o        Security.

Further information can be found on the ETSI Website.

ITS Radar International will monitor developments

Keywords: Architecture, Communications, Cooperative vehicle systems, Standard