Physical and Digital Infrastructure (PDI), connectivity and cooperation enabling and supporting CCAM (CCAM Partnership)

Physical and Digital Infrastructure (PDI), connectivity as well as cooperative information and action represent important resources which enable and support the integration of vehicles in the entire transport system. Road authorities and operators can provide essential PDI information to vehicles, road users and other modes of transport. As a complement, connectivity and cooperation are important capabilities of the full range of V2X actors (vehicles, infrastructures, vulnerable road users etc.). This is a necessary condition to proceed towards CCAM services in a developing CCAM ecosystem (involving benefits for e.g. road and mobility users, manufacturers across sectors, traffic management actors).

Actions are expected to address the activities either under area A) Physical and Digital Infrastructure (PDI) supporting CCAM or under area B) Connectivity and cooperation as enablers for CCAM and advanced traffic management while taking into account the complementing nature of both areas.

Area A: Physical and Digital Infrastructure (PDI) supporting CCAM

The Physical and Digital Infrastructure (PDI) is pivotal to improve CCAM services. The physical elements of infrastructure include markings, road signs, layout, etc., while the digital components encompass digitised spatial network including relevant traffic rules and regulations, input from road-side sensors, HD maps integrating static and dynamic data, etc. PDI support will particularly help in more challenging geographical or weather conditions, and can mitigate failure situations or gaps in the Operational Design Domain (ODD).

Research results so far have shown that the definition of ODD and infrastructure support level requirements serve as common basis of physical and digital infrastructure attributes in different Operational Environments (e.g. highly complex urban, interurban and motorway, peri-urban, dense traffic). Proposals are expected to develop a service architecture built upon this basis, which improves the functionality of highly automated vehicles by supporting their “sense, plan and act” ability. This service architecture will provide PDI support, which offers a finer gradation of dynamic traffic management regulations and can further increase the functional safety and the traffic efficiency – or more general, the performance – of CCAM services. Secure and trustworthy interaction between vehicles, infrastructure, and third-party services needs to be ensured, as well as addressing the aspect of maintenance/evolution for both types of infrastructure.

Proposed actions should build upon recent work of the CCAM Platform on classifying PDI elements[[To gain a deeper understanding how infrastructure can support CCAM, CCAM Platform WG 3 (Physical and Digital Road Infrastructure) is working on a matrix linking physical and digital infrastructure attributes to basic driving tasks of sense – plan – act. Moreover, the WG 3 scoping paper provides recommendations for follow-up actions addressed to the CCAM partnership, a.o. to identify pre-deployment opportunities. More information on Working Group 3 of the CCAM Platform:

https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/index.cfm?do=groupDetail.groupDetail&groupID=3657]] and develop a comprehensive classification scheme that also allows for describing the PDI support (and the regular update) on road network sections (what, where, when).

R&I actions should advance the technological readiness of PDI support (e.g. Proof-of-Concept) to level 6/7 on the way towards (pre-) deployment as an important contribution to large-scale demonstration actions.

Recurring technology and process innovation however bears the risk that investment, especially in sectors with long cycles, are devalued well before their (end of) lifetime. It is crucial to balance premature action versus deferral of decision making and proposed actions should therefore analyse the risks, benefits and required investments in PDI support and provide guidance towards minimum adaptations of PDI that provide a substantial and sustainable added value to CCAM.

Proposals should take into account that EU-wide/global harmonisation is key in this R&I action, enabling broad uptake of services in the common single market and paving the way towards coordinated deployment of necessary infrastructure support for CCAM. Potential needs for standardisation or input for future regulatory action should be developed.

Area B: Connectivity and cooperation as enablers for CCAM and advanced traffic management

CCAM systems and services as well as advanced traffic management use connectivity and cooperation for e.g. exchanging information on status and intentions, realising collective perception, planning cooperative manoeuvres on roads, negotiating slots (time, space) for executing manoeuvres. The first generation of C-ITS services (Day 1 services), limited to provide status information, represents a prominent example of grown technological readiness that have recently made their way into deployment in vehicles and the road infrastructure. The next wave of services, also taking advantage of emerging technologies, should enable connected cooperative automated mobility. Proposals have to build upon or further progress already deployed services, first concepts and message designs for next generation C-ITS services, as developed in C-ROADS, as well as insight from ongoing 5G Corridors for Connected and Automated Mobility. Proposed actions should address and sufficiently test all the following aspects in real traffic conditions:

• Data provision through communication channels from external sources (e.g. road status, traffic and weather conditions from vehicle external sources) increasing the functionality of CCAM services and traffic management as well as road safety, traffic efficiency and environmental protection.
• Ensuring interoperability and continuity of services, backwards compatibility of proposed solutions, supporting a mixed use or range of technologies (hybrid communication) while ensuring privacy and security for all, in all communication channels.

Because of the enabling nature of connectivity and cooperation as well as cross-sector links, proposed research has to contribute to an integrated collaborative perspective of CCAM. Proposals should include in research and testing all relevant actors across sectors to co-design CCAM services. Proposals should also embrace the necessity to come up with concepts for a sustainable organisation of the necessary co-investment, co-management and joint implementation of CCAM.

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, international cooperation is advised for all projects of this topic, in particular with projects or partners from the US, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Australia.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility’ (CCAM).