In many respects today's vehicles are already connected devices. However, in the very near future they will also interact directly with each other and with the road infrastructure. This interaction is the domain of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), which will allow road users and traffic managers to share information and use it to coordinate their actions. This cooperative element – enabled by digital connectivity between vehicles and between vehicles and transport infrastructure – is expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort of driving, by helping the driver to take the right decisions and adapt to the traffic situation.
Communication between vehicles, infrastructure and other road users is also crucial to increase the safety of future automated vehicles and their full integration in the overall transport system. Cooperation, connectivity, and automation are not only complementary technologies; they reinforce each other and will over time merge completely.
Therefore, the European Commission has on 30th of November 2016 adopted a European Strategy on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), a milestone initiative towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility. The objective of the C-ITS Strategy is to facilitate the convergence of investments and regulatory frameworks across the EU, in order to see deployment of mature C-ITS services in 2019 and beyond. This includes the adoption of the appropriate legal framework at EU level by 2018 to ensure legal certainty for public and private investors, the availability of EU funding for projects, the continuation of the C-ITS Platform process as well as international cooperation with other main regions of the world on all aspects related to cooperative, connected and automated vehicles. It also involves continuous coordination, in a learning-by-doing approach, with the C-ROADS platform, which gathers real-life deployment activities in Member States.
On 13 March 2019, the Commission adopted a delegated regulation on specifications for the provision of C-ITS, supported by an impact assessment. The delegated regulation did not enter into force following an objection by the Council of the European Union.
- COM (2016) 766 - A European strategy on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems, a milestone towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility
- Press release: "Commission presents a Strategy towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility"
- Memo: "An EU strategy on cooperative, connected and automated mobility"
- Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee
- Opinion of the European Parliament
- Supplementing Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the deployment and operational use of cooperative intelligent transport systems
- Impact assessment accompanying the document Commission Delegated Regulation supplementing Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the deployment and operational use of cooperative intelligent transport systems
C-Roads
In 2016, Member States and the Commission launched the C-Roads Platform to link C-ITS deployment activities, jointly develop and share technical specifications and to verify interoperability through cross-site testing. Initially created for C-ITS deployment initiatives co-funded by the EU, C-Roads is open to all deployment activities for interoperability testing.
C-ITS Platform
Phase I (2014-2016)
The European Commission decided early 2014 to take a more prominent role in the deployment of connected driving, by setting up a C-ITS Deployment Platform. The Platform is conceived as a cooperative framework including national authorities, C-ITS stakeholders and the Commission, in view to develop a shared vision on the interoperable deployment of C-ITS in the EU. Hence, it is expected to provide policy recommendations for the development of a roadmap and a deployment strategy for C-ITS in the EU and identify potential solutions to some critical cross-cutting issues.
In the frame of supporting the deployment of C-ITS on European roads, there are a number of C-ITS real-life pilot projects funded under TEN-T and CEF which will create new ITS services for all European road users. These projects will test vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle interactions by using both short-range and cellular communications.
By endorsing the Final Report of the first phase of the C-ITS Platform on 21 January 2016, the C-ITS Platform achieved its first milestone towards connected and automated vehicles in the EU. The Commission in consequence prepared the European strategy on Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems, based on the recommendations of the platform.
Read the C-ITS Platform final report of January 2016
Annexes to the C-ITS Platform final report of January 2016
Phase II (2016-2017)
The second phase of the platform further develops a shared vision on the interoperable deployment of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) towards cooperative, connected and automated mobility (CCAM) in the European Union.
This includes making tangible progress towards the definition of implementation conditions for topics already discussed during the first phase. The Working Groups on Security, Data Protection, Compliance Assessment and Hybrid Communication have all worked on issues that are essential to the interoperability of C-ITS deployment and hence relevant for the preparation of Delegated Act(s) on C-ITS.
It also recognizes and further investigates the mutual benefits that future C-ITS services will bring in terms of automation. All members of the C-ITS platform believe that the ultimate goal is the full convergence of all developments under Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM), making use of the digitisation of transport.
The Final report of the second phase of the C-ITS Platform was endorsed on 20 September 2017.
Read the C-ITS Platform Phase II final report of September 2017
Annexes to the C-ITS Platform Phase II final report of September 2017
C-ITS Security - EU C-ITS security credential management system (EU CCMS)
The C-ITS Strategy of the Commission announced that the Commission will work together with all relevant stakeholders in the C-ITS domain to steer the development of a common security and certificate policy and other accompanying documents needed for the deployment and operation of C-ITS in Europe:
Current Releases:
c-its_certificate_policy-v1.1.pdf (Release 1.1, June 2018)
c-its_security_policy_release_1.pdf (Release 1, December 2017)
Old Releases & Track Change Documentations:
c-its_certificate_policy_release_1.pdf (Release 1, June 2017)
c-its_certificate_policy-v1.1-track_changes.pdf
As stipulated in the Commission Communication COM(2018) 283 “On the road to automated mobility: An EU strategy for mobility of the future” the Commission decided to implement "a pilot on common EU-wide cybersecurity infrastructures and processes needed for secure and trustful communication between vehicles and infrastructure for road safety and traffic management related messages according to the published guidance on the certificate and security policy".
The initial steps of the deployment of the EU CCMS will focus on the development of a working prototype of the EU CCMS at European level. In this step, DG MOVE and DG JRC are working on the design and implementation of the so called "common European elements" defined in the certificate policy, which include the Trust List manager, C-ITS Point of Contact and EU root CA. In the context of the establishment of the C-ITS Point of Contact, the CPOC protocol has been defined in a first version:
C-ITS Point of Contact: C-ITS Point of Contact (CPOC) Protocol (Release 1, January 2019)
Cooperation on cross-border testing of CCAM
Developments of Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility are happening ever faster and hold the promise of further increased safety and more inclusive mobility solutions. To be successful however we need to carefully assess the integration in both existing traffic and on existing infrastructure. To this end the Commission has initiated a discussion within the ITS Committee. The goal is to establish a European roadmap with short and long-term targets for testing and deployment of CCAM. At the same time the following questions need to be tackled:
- What do we want to test, which use case are most promising or beneficial from a public / societal point of view?
- Which are the building blocks of CCAM that deserve our focus? Which functionalities need to be developed and which are the most relevant technical and non-technical enablers?
- How do we ensure all relevant data and knowledge is shared between tests and projects to accelerate development? How do we measure and compare the impact of the solutions developed in different test sites?
- Which elements need cross-border cooperation or EU-wide solutions?
The final conclusions from the discussion held in the ITS Committee is now available. This work includes the contributions from a wide range of industry and other stakeholders.
Annex: Discussion within the European ITS Committee on Cross-border testing
Preparation of on-road testing and pre-deployment activities of CCAM
The Commission’s Communication on a Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy (SSMS) puts forward a fundamental transformation of the European transport system to achieve the objective of a sustainable, smart and resilient mobility. The strategy is clear: in order to make transport truly more sustainable we need to deliver effective multi-modality, using the most efficient mode for each leg of the journey. In addition, each mode needs to become more efficient; for road this means that shared solutions increasingly provide a viable alternative for private vehicle ownership. Digitalisation is an indispensable driver to making the entire system seamless and more efficient, as well as further increasing the levels of safety, security, reliability, and comfort. The Strategy identifies the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) as a key action in achieving a connected and automated multimodal mobility. The latter combines new developments such as Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM). CCAM transforms a driver into a user of a shared fleet of vehicles, fully integrated in a multi-modal transport system, made seamless by Multimodal Digital Mobility (MDM) services such as MaaS.
On 17 May 2018, the European Commission adopted a Communication "On the road to automated mobility: An EU strategy for mobility of the future", whereby the Commission announced its intention to establish a single EU-wide platform grouping all relevant public and private stakeholders to coordinate open road testing of Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) and make the link with pre-deployment activities.
Furthermore, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), in agreement with other Commission departments, namely the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT), Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) and Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD), set up an informal group of experts in June 2019, the Single Platform for open road testing and pre-deployment of cooperative, connected, automated and autonomous mobility ("the group"). The platform's task was to provide advice and support to the Commission in the field of testing and pre-deployment activities for Cooperative, Connected, Automated and Autonomous Mobility (CCAM). The CCAM platform gathered a total of almost 400 public and private experts to coordinate open road testing of connected and automated mobility and to link with pre-deployment activities. The work of the platform was structured around thematic working groups (WG):
- WG 1 , under the Co-chair of DG MOVE and DG RTD, focussed on the development of an EU Agenda for testing;
- WG2, under the co-chair of DG RTD and DG MOVE, on the coordination and cooperation of research and innovation activities;
- WG3, under the chair of DG MOVE, on the definition of the CCAM relevant attributes of the physical and digital road infrastructure;
- WG4, under the co-chair of DG MOVE and DG GROW, on road safety;
- WG5, under the co-chair of DG GROW and DG CNECT on the access to and exchange of data and cybersecurity;
- And WG 6, under the chair of DG CNECT, on the connectivity and digital infrastructure.
The platform held its final meeting on 24 September to endorse the following final report, which presents the conclusions and recommendations of the platform for on-road testing and deployment of CCAM. The most visible outcome of the platform was the creation of a new EU Partnership under Horizon Europe on CCAM.