Working Groups

C-Roads Working Groups contain the main aspects of work to contribute to the overall C-Roads Platform objectives regarding European C-ITS harmonisation and interoperability. Members of Working Groups (WG), Task Forces (TF), or Collaboration Groups (CG) are nominated by core members and associated members of the C-Roads Platform and therefore they are participating in these groups on behalf of the nominating C-Roads state.

Working Group 1 deals with all levels of C-ITS deployment, including test-environments, pilot operation as well as regular full operation. The focus on the work is setting up guiding principles that support Road Network Operators (RNOs) towards reaching the level of regular full operation. In that respect WG 1 specifically works on organisational and legal aspects with regard to the operation of the infrastructure-based C-ITS systems.

The focus of this Working Group is technical standardisation and interfacing issues to be able to provide a common standard repository in the shape of a web service, incorporating interface description to data and services. WG 2 hereby harmonises C-ITS services, the use of standards by specifying profiles not only within the C-Roads stakeholder group but as well with external stakeholders that are already undertaking C-ITS deployments. WG 2 forms the technical basis for C-ITS operations and provides change requests to standardisation, etc. This includes dedicated monitoring of standards, identification of relevant aspects and alignment with respective pilot and operations requirements. Inputs from existing projects and implementations (on national as well as international level) and platforms are taken into account in the specification work.

Under the umbrella of WG 2, there are the following 5 Task Forces: 

• Task Force 1: Security Aspects 

• Task Force 2: Use Case Harmonisation for Motorways and Urban environments 

• Task Force 3: Infrastructure Communication profile, bidirectional I2V 

• Task Force 4: Hybrid C-ITS & IP-Based Communication 

• Task Force 5: Cross-Testing and Validation 

The aim of the Working Group is to provide guidance and support to C-ITS and ITS evaluation activities, collect the results of the evaluation studies of deployment projects, and provide a synthesis on them and provide conclusions on the European level. The key areas of benefits of C-ITS and ITS are the improvements in road safety, transport efficiency and environment in the European transport system. 

ITS technologies are mostly in the full deployment phase while C-ITS services are still in the market developing phase, and these differences influence the evaluation activities and results. 

To provide high-quality C-ITS services, specific quality requirements on the underlying digital infrastructure need to be met. Fulfilling these requirements will support not only C-ITS services but improve also relevant ITS services. E.g., many ITS services are linked to specific road sections between intersections, but C-ITS services often need lane level accuracy to provide proper service quality. In this respect, the existing data qualities need to be enriched to become an acceptable source for C-ITS service provision. 

The I2V C-ITS messaging will itself be part of the solution providing accurately positioned data from the vehicles to be used by the service. Therefore, quality improvement does not necessitate extensive and expensive monitoring system investments by Road Network Operators (RNOs). Improving the data quality for C-ITS services, and a further development/optimisation of existing ITS services will go hand-in-hand. 

The main objective of the Operations and C-ITS Deployment Strategy Working Group (WG OS) is the setup of structures for permanent operation of the infrastructure based European C-ITS system and networks (including security and trust), including C-ITS service maintenance, in a multi-stakeholder environment. 

The WG OS elaborates a current overview of the infrastructure operator driven operative C-ITS system actively sharing secure and trusted traffic messages in Europe. In addition, it monitors the evolution of the operative C-ITS system along the TEN-T and in urban domains with vulnerable road users (VRUs) as well as in the vehicle fleets with active C-ITS units, being part of the common C-ITS traffic information network in Europe. 

The WG OS discusses, defines and proposes the needed operation and maintenance structures for ensuring sustainable C-ITS service maintenance in a multi-stakeholder environment within one common EU trust domain. The work comprises organisational, technical and stakeholder management aspects.

In the C-ITS Collaboration Groups, experts from C-Roads and external stakeholders meet, work together on strategies and define common priorities. In addition, the Collaboration Groups discuss technical specifications for their relevance as well as identify additional new use cases not covered so far. External stakeholders are invited to provide valuable feedback to the proposed results of C-Roads Working Groups. Collaboration Groups focus especially on services in implementation and the definition of respective C-ITS Deployment Roadmaps based on the C-ITS Deployment Strategy which supports also regular operation of services on public roads incl. road/railway level crossings and in cities.

The Urban C-ITS Collaboration Group brings urban experts from a variety of fields together reflecting needs and expectations on C-ITS for urban environments. The Group enhances the awareness for and proactively addresses C-ITS Service interoperability challenges within the C-ITS Platform.

The Rail C-ITS Collaboration Group focuses on embedding C-ITS technologies into the public transport system. The Rail C-ITS Collaboration Group builds on learnings and knowledge gained in urban environments as well as on learnings from level-crossing-railway use-cases to discuss possibilities and advantages of embedding C-ITS services into the overall rail system.

Finally, the Blue-Light C-ITS Collaboration Group brings together experts from emergency service operators. This includes fire brigade priority systems (e.g. in Brno), road operators’ traffic managing vehicles (e.g. in Austria), or ambulance vehicles (e.g. in Salzburg). For the moment, several isolated C-ITS initiatives are popping up in the blue light context. Here C-Roads aims to bring all stakeholders together to exchange learnings and needs with the goal to harmonise C-ITS service deployments in the blue-light service domain.