Mass intelligence

For the first time ever countries across Europe are working together to form the world’s most communicative transport system

Imagine being able to talk to cars, traffic lights and road signs. Knowing where the traffic jams are, having clear roads for emergency services and never missing a parking space. Well this might just be a possibility. Engineers all over Europe are working together to produce cooperative vehicle-infrastructure systems (CVIS). But not just for one country – for the 25 European Union (EU) states and beyond.

Traffic flow for the period 2000-2020 is envisaged to increase
by 35 per cent for passenger traffic and 45 per cent for
the transport of heavy goods

The main reason for this monumental effort is the ever increasing traffic on roads. According to the EU white paper the traffic flow for the period 2000-2020 is envisaged to increase by 35 per cent for passenger traffic and 45 per cent for the transport of heavy goods. “This is unsustainable without intelligent traffic management and control,” it says.

European engineers have been developing increasingly comprehensive intelligent transport systems (ITS) since the 1980s, in a series of EC-funded programmes. Early in 2004 a joint public-private Swedish initiative was launched for Intelligent Vehicle Safety Systems (IVSS), coordinated by the Swedish Road Administration.

The idea was to create a large-scale intelligent transport system (ITS) where vehicles could cooperate directly with other nearby vehicles, and with the immediate roadside infrastructure, thus sharing information on the latest safety and traffic information to reduce accidents, increase efficiency and improve the environment. Finding a common European solution would also be a great time and money saving result for vehicle manufacturers who would not have to develop multiple systems to suit each region.

The IVSS group wanted their initiative to gain international scope, in order to bring the results to market. Several IVSS members were also partners of ERTICO, the European multi-sector organisation for ITS, who, along with the automotive industry R&D association EUCAR, were also seeking to develop this new generation ITS system.

Over the next year ERTICO, starting from its IVSS partners, put together a consortium in order to develop and trial the CVIS system. Members include companies such as vehicle manufacturers Volvo, DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Fiat and Renault; mobile operators such as Vodafone and Telecom Italia, system suppliers such as Siemens, Bosch, PTV, Alcatel, Efkon, Q-Free, Kapsch, NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas. Public authorities and road operators are also present, including public road agencies of Sweden, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, France and Germany, and commercial road operators from France and Italy.

Emergency vehicles needing to get to an accident will
find the road clear for them

Much of the core technology to do this exists today, but is not designed for use with moving vehicles. However new standards are just emerging that will support high-speed broadband connections between vehicles and roadside infrastructure. CVIS engineers will explore the use of new mobile wireless fidelity (WiFi) technology – similar that used in a portable PC but adapted for mobility.

Mobile phones provide a one-to-one service well suited for voice, text message and multimedia calling, unlike the Internet which can connect any user who has a network connection to an unlimited range of information services. But while Wi-Fi hot spots allow laptops to connect remotely, this only works if the laptop is stationary. “As soon as you get in your car the only thing you have working normally is a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) phone,” says CVIS Project Manager of ERTICO Paul Kompfner. “We’re looking for a technology that’s really optimised for mobile Internet access.”

Researchers will also develop techniques for enhanced vehicle positioning and the creation of local dynamic maps, using global positioning satellite technology and the latest methods for location referencing.

“We envision something like a concurrent versioning system (CVS) router that can talk to vehicles and road signs in many ways. So not just one standard but a whole smorgasbord of standards when it comes to wireless technology. Not just GSM and 3G but also short range communications like mobile Wi-Fi,” says Niclas Nygren, research manager at Volvo Technology.

The advantages for a system such as this are endless. Today the only way to monitor vehicles on the road is using detection loops built into the road surface. These cable loops can count and classify the passage of vehicles, but with no further details. Wireless systems exist that can track individual vehicles for fleet management use, but these are not standardised and thus are not yet ready for a mass market.

But with CVIS, professional drivers will be linked to both their dispatching centre and the local traffic management centre, both sending data about the truck’s journey and receiving personalised routeing recommendations, helping them to reach their destination more quickly and reliably. Even before arriving, they can use the system to book and find a free parking or loading space. Logistics companies will be able to closely monitor their shipments in real time, while hazardous goods shipments can be given priority on pre-selected safe routes, and any accidents can be detected instantly and safely managed.

The UK test site in London’s Camden Town is concentrating
on improving freight services

Drivers who could communicate directly with the roadside infrastructure would be able to cut their journey time and reduce emissions. For example, if they know when an approaching traffic light is about to change they can modify their speed accordingly. “Today you have no idea when a light is about to change,” says Kompfner. “You don’t know if you’re going too fast, or whether you could continue without slowing down or stopping. There’s nothing worse for the urban environment than stop-go traffic – especially trucks.”

And if each driver could communicate to a central system their destination, coordinates and speed then this information, combined with vehicle-based monitoring data transmitted to the roadside, could lead to vehicles forming a temporary “cluster”. A central, automated traffic management centre would be able to optimise the traffic signals individually or by sector, knowing where every single vehicle in the network wanted to go. It could set the best speed for each vehicle, taking into account traffic lights, accidents, weather conditions, bottlenecks and so on.

“To make that work, vehicle clusters approaching from other directions would need to be slowed down or speeded up, to benefit from their next green phase. In this way by adopting a more cooperative behaviour, each driver could get a benefit – a kind of personalised traffic management service,” says Kompfner.

As soon as there’s any kind of incident, be it a breakdown or an accident, that message is instantly transmitted to the vehicles nearby and further away so they can avoid the whole area. Kompfner says: “You can even provide a ‘blue wave’ where emergency vehicles needing to get to an accident can find the road clear for them, with all the traffic lights changing to green just before they arrive.”

The CVIS consortium is looking to develop prototype equipment to trial in six test beds around Europe. These will be located in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium, Sweden and the UK. “We are spending about half of our resources on core technology development and the other half on a number of example applications in urban transport and motorway traffic and fleet management,” says Kompfner.

The UK test site is concentrating on improving freight services. It will demonstrate the automatic detection of truck location, provision of dynamic parking/loading space booking facilities and links to in-vehicle routing systems. This will take place in one of London’s busiest roads in Camden Town.

“Often trucks have to drive around the block to wait for a space, which has real repercussions on the environment” says Judith Adams, spokesman for CVIS partner Transport for London.

Knowing when a space is free will save companies both time and money. “Last year a firm paid GBP 20,000 just on parking fines to their London network because the trucks weren’t able to get to their parking space.”

The French test bed, located in Lyon, is looking at freight and fleet applications in both urban and motorway environments that will increase transport efficiency and traffic safety. These include a system to notify truck drivers if a rest area parking space is free and a “ghost driver management” to warn them when a driver is travelling the wrong way up a motorway.

In Germany, The Hessian Road and Traffic Authorities (HSVV) are trialling the CVIS system on one of the major crossroad junctions in Frankfurt. At the Torino site in Italy engineers are looking at the network management and area routing applications on 20 to 30 vehicles. Bus lanes will also be monitored. In the Netherlands, parking applications will be put to the test and in Sweden the focus is on the shipment of dangerous goods.

The project is scheduled to end by early 2010. It will take some time after this for CVIS to be implemented widely and about 10 years after that for it to have a significant affect on European roads. But those involved are optimistic that it will have a major impact.

“I think we could save 30 per cent of logistics costs simply by providing 100 per cent tracking and tracing capabilities,” says Kompfner. “With this interaction with infrastructure you’ll be able to get much better planning and management of just-in-time logistics services. You won’t get three or four vehicles being delayed and arriving at the same time.”

With CVIS and its other initiatives the EU is looking to reduce serious crashes by 45 per cent and cut congestion by around per cent. “Member States and local authorities are realising that for the future, cost-efficient traffic demand control is necessary and for that ITS is essential,” it says.

Even if and when these targets are achieved CVIS will still be constantly evolving – whether it’s with more efficient monitoring and traffic management systems or with premium applications for drivers and their passengers. “In order for CVIS to work throughout the life cycle of a vehicle you must be able to upgrade it with new software,” Nygren says. “There needs to be some clever way of downloading software modules and then replacing them when the vehicle enters a new service area.”

Says Kompfner: “There’s going to be a major shift coming up in the way people think and travel because suddenly there’ll be so much real-time information available about what’s really going on. They will have many more choices and interesting services. We’re just touching the surface of what is possible. Just compare the world wide web today with what was available 10 years ago. CVIS has a similar potential to revolutionise how we travel and transport goods.”