ERTICO eMagazine - April 2012
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Transcript of ERTICO eMagazine - April 2012
Welcome to the new ERTICO - ITS Europe
In this issue:
April 2012
From Development toDeployment:How EU co-funded research leads to profitable products
ITS interoperability testing events:a new way to make business
Interview with:
Ramiro Quintero, FICOSA
contents
Welcome to our new eMagazine!
ERTICO - ITS Europe is thrilled
to introduce the first issue of its
new eMagazine. This publication
represents a significant departure
from the i-Mobility Newsletter of old.
We have designed it to appeal to our
readership with exclusive content on
specific ITS topics. The eMagazine
contains original feature articles,
exclusive interviews and the latest
event reports. As always, ERTICO
aims to bring you the highest quality
news and information from a fresh
perspective.
This first issue features an in depth
look at interoperability testing,
an essential part in the process
of equipment development and
production; we will investigate
interoperability testing events and
discover what happens during these
unique events. In addition, we
examine the role of EU co-funding in
product research and development,
tracing the origins of ERTICO Partner
PEEK Traffic’s new cooperative ITS
platform through FREILOT back to
CVIS. Last but not least, you will
find the interview with new ERTICO
Partner FICOSA a Spanish industrial
group and a global leader in
research, development, production
and marketing of systems and parts
for the automotive industry.
We are grateful to everyone who was
involved in the editorial process,
our articles and interviews wouldn’t
have been possible without their
precious collaboration. We hope that
our readers will find the magazine
stimulating as we do and as always,
we wish you happy reading!
The Editorial Team
Welcome!
From development to deployment: How EU co-funded research leads to profitable products
ITS interoperability testing events: a new way to make business
Next interoperability events
Interview with: Ramiro Quintero, FICOSA
2
3
6
9
10
33
Indeed, according to Willem
Hartman, Managing Director of
Peek Netherlands they will allow
‘intelligent communication between
vehicles as well as between vehicles
and roadside systems’. The origins
of PEEK’s cooperative platform are
to be found deep within EU funded
research projects. The concept and
the core of the technologies being
used having been developed through
the CVIS (Cooperative Vehicle-
Infrastructure Systems) project,
started in 2006 and concluded in
2010.
However, while the very core of
the idea might be found in CVIS,
the involvement of EU co-funded
research was not limited to that one
project. The story of the development
of the first commercially available
cooperative ITS platform is firmly one
of the successes of EU involvement in
research and development.
Considered to be the ‘mother’ of
all cooperative ITS projects, CVIS
set out to explore the possibilities
that new technologies in Vehicle-To-
Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-To-
Vehicle (V2V) offered with regard
to tackling Europe’s urban transport
challenges. In so doing, it hoped to
‘completely re-engineer how drivers,
vehicles, goods and transport
interact’. The project defined and
developed a variety of technologies
that work together to achieve this goal.
The true strength of the CVIS project
lay, not in what it specifically
developed, but in what it provided
for future developments. The
foundation of the CVIS project was
the development of a cooperative
system architecture, something that
brought roadside infrastructure,
vehicles and applications together in
a unified and open system. Key to this
was the development of hardware
for both vehicles and roadside
infrastructure. CVIS developed a
standard that would allow all parts
of the system to communicate with
each other seamlessly, whether over
an infrared connection, a 3g mobile
data connection or 802.11p wireless
(akin to the wifi found in most homes
and offices).
The hardware, however, is simply the
foundation of what makes cooperative
From development to deployment:
How EU co-funded research leads to profitable products
by Nicolas White
Photograph © European Union, 2012
“There is a first sanity check if the EU is involved. They won’t get involved if they don’t see it as being feasible” says
Remi Tops, the new business manager at PEEK. We were talking about PEEK’s recently launched cooperative Intelligent
Transport System (ITS) platform, the first commercially available product of its kind. Unveiled in December 2011, PEEK
says that it will increase road safety, reduce CO2 emissions and crucially for commercial fleet operators, could cut fuel
consumption by 20%.
Cooperative systems, it is hoped, will revolutionise traffic management and the way we navigate city streets
systems so valuable in dealing with
the problems of overstretched road
networks and gridlocked traffic.
The open architecture developed
and tested by the CVIS project
allows for third party developers
to build software applications and
platforms on top of it, enhancing its
functionality and adapting it to new
and specific situations.
Applications that formed part of the
CVIS project include such things as
intersection priority management,
giving, for example, emergency
vehicles or public transport priority
at intersections; a safety application
that can update road users on crucial
pieces of information related to their
journey such as traffic conditions,
speed limits and the weather ahead
as well as applications that offer
strategic routing for vehicles, which
draw information from central traffic
management centres and draws it to
create optimised routes for drivers
so that they are able to reach their
destination in the most efficient way
possible, reducing travel times and
easing urban congestion.
CVIS’ legacy can clearly be seen in
PEEK’s new cooperative
ITS platform. Indeed,
a number of
research projects
have led to the
development of
the platform,
which consists
of: a roadside
router, a roadside
host, a vehicle router,
a vehicle host, android
software and a management and
control web application that can
be configured and managed from a
remote location. Each element of
the platform is required for the new
cooperative system and each element
must be able to communicate with
the other parts. Therefore, PEEK’s
new platform is compatible with the
new 802.11p draft standard.
The value of the development and
testing carried out through the CVIS
project, which was co-funded under
the European Commission’s 6th
Framework Programme was clear,
at least from a technical point of
view. Open standards for application
development proved so successful
that developers from outside the
project consortium got involved
in the CVIS Application Contest,
developing, submitting and even
deploying their applications on the
CVIS platform.
What CVIS did that is so hard to
do outside the realm of publicly
financed research projects was
incentivise the development of open
and accessible platforms. All too
often, companies develop innovative
solutions that, while they look good
on paper, and often deliver great
results, are less than perfectly
interoperable with other services.
Termed ‘walled gardens’ they often
represent a significant barrier to
future developments as
customers do not
want to pay to
replace them in
order to add
functionality or
integrate a new
service. CVIS’
openness gave
public authorities,
freight operators,
public transport companies
and consumers a flexible and largely
future proofed service.
Cooperative systems were developed
as a response to the needs of public
and city authorities.
Policy goals for cities tend to run
in the vein of both managing the
problem of increased congestion
while also promoting green economic
growth, healthy and safe urban living
and happy citizens. Indeed, the city
of Copenhagen, for example, has a
stated goal of being the first carbon
neutral capital city in the world. At
a recent ERTICO forum on ITS for
Urban Mobility, Steffen Rasmussen,
Head of Traffic Design Department
for the City of Copenhagen explained
how this goal, alongside others
such as promoting walking, making
the city a centre for world climate
policy, making Copenhagen the best
city for cycling and promoting more
and better use of the city’s public
spaces could be tackled thanks to the
deployment of ITS solutions such as
cooperative systems.
CVIS led to the development of
technologies that could help cities
achieve their urban mobility goals.
However, there is a large disconnect
between the development of
technologies and their eventual
deployment as successful products.
Enter FREILOT, an EU co-funded
project that was focussed on
real world testing of some of the
technologies developed in the CVIS
project. Crucially, this testing put
the technologies in the hands of
those that would eventually use such
services on a commercial basis: freight
operators and public authorities. In
addition to this testing, the FREILOT
project was designed in order to find
City authorities are faced with political and economic challenges related to the increase in road use and congestion
5how exactly the business models for
the commercial deployment of such
technologies would work.
As Remi Tops of PEEK explained,
FREILOT was needed ‘to find out what
the value perception of a product was
for customers’. In essence, FREILOT
served as a trial run for technologies
such as road intersection priority,
freight delivery space booking and
driver assistance systems to promote
better fuel economy. Throughout the
project stakeholders did not have to
pay to use the FREILOT services, as
they were financed by the suppliers
alongside co-funding from the
European Union. This allowed further
real world testing at no financial cost
to those benefiting from the services
demonstrating both how successful
the technologies could be in their
stated purpose and illustrating the
value they can add to both cities and
freight operators. In addition it gave
suppliers, as Remi Tops explained, a
much better idea of the needs of the
hardware platform. These insights
combined, led to the building of
‘a better idea of the costs and
requirements’ of the services.
For example, in the city of Helmond,
a FREILOT pilot site, emergency
vehicles were equipped with
intersection priority systems. The
outcome of this real world testing
was, as the project demonstrated,
safer intersection crossings as well
as a demonstration of just how
efficient such priority systems could
be. In a recent interview, Gert Blom,
Strategic Advisor on Mobility to the
City of Helmond, stated that ‘besides
the original predicted benefits of
the project, we now see many more
benefits of the FREILOT services
such as noise reduction, improved
traffic flows and increased road
safety’. Further, the success of the
intersection priority system has led
to the city of Helmond considering
closing its second fire station as fire
engines from one station now have
the ability to travel to all parts of the
city much faster. Thanks solely to the
intersection priority system having
been deployed.
FREILOT was, according to Remi
Tops, ‘instrumental’ in the
development of business models for
cooperative mobility solutions such
as PEEK’s cooperative ITS platform.
The development of such business
models is precisely what led PEEK to
being the first company to launch a
commercially available cooperative
mobility solution.
The company does not shy away from
explaining just how instrumental
EU co-funded projects are in the
development cycle. Tops explained
that such projects ‘help inform the
world about what we [PEEK] do and
they’re a great channel in product
introduction’. He continued by
explaining that companies are more
willing to invest if they see the EU
supporting developments, not simply
due to ‘shared risk’ but ‘because
they only invest in things which they
see have a future’.
Of course, as Tops highlighted, ‘the
real proof is when customers want
to buy without external funding’. In
this case, it seems the story of EU
co-funding has a decidedly happy
ending. PEEK have launched the first
commercially available cooperative
ITS system on the market and it looks
as though the City of Copenhagen,
which recently concluded a tender for
traffic management in the city, might
purchase it as an option (although
this is still being considered). Such
a development would at once help
Copenhagen achieve another first; to
be the first CO2 neutral capital city
in the world.
EU funded projects help companies
focus their research and develop
business models to accompany new
developments as well as provide a
meeting place for developers and
potential customers. In the case
of FREILOT, it showed that the
technology was ready, that customers
wanted it and they were willing to
pay. Something PEEK has certainly
found. After all - they already have
enormous interest from around the
world.
companies are more willing to invest if they see the EU supporting developments
ITS interoperability testing events: a new way to make businessby Carla Coppola
With one interoperability event successfully conducted in 2011, and two already planned for 2012, the ITS sector is
picking up on a deployment enabler that has so far been under utilised: interoperability testing. This is happening
because suppliers need to ensure that their products communicate correctly with each other, and interoperability
testing events represent an essential step towards launching products on the market and towards commercial success.
Over the past few years,
interoperability events have
become a well-known practice
within several high-tech sectors,
such as telecommunication, as they
provide an exceptional opportunity
to test a product and pledge its
interoperability before placing it on
the market. Even if interoperability
events do not certify products
and services, they allow engineers
to spot problems in the product
development process early enough
to limit financial consequences. Such
events ideally take place early on in
the progress of the implementation
of a standard, and have proven to
create great excitement among
participant operators, equipment
manufacturers, standardisation
bodies and interest groups.
Indeed, interoperability events have
a great deal of benefits for companies
and standardisation organisations;
they offer instant feedback on
possible errors in a product and on
ambiguity of a standard (often due to
different interpretations of the same
standard) allowing early corrections
which, if implemented without
testing, would cost extra time and
money. The advantages of ensuring
interoperability are undeniable and
therefore the collaboration between
participants prevails over the risk
of sharing products and services
among competing companies. The
added value of the approach is
demonstrated in the increasing
numbers of participants at these
events; each participant company can
test its own product and technology
against competitors and find errors
that would have been impossible to
find otherwise.
ITS Interoperability testing events are
a recent success story. In November
last year ERTICO - ITS Europe and
ETSI (European Telecommunications
Standards Institute) joined forces to
launch the first ever ITS (Intelligent
Transport Systems) interoperability
event. The week was very important
for ERTICO and it was closely followed
via a live blog by Sébastien Mure
(Project Support Manager at ERTICO)
which allowed the ITS community to
participate virtually in the event.
This first 5-day interoperability event
focused on cooperative mobility
services and gathered over 50 people
from 14 organisations (technology
Image: courtesy of Sébastien Mure @ERTICO - ITS Europe
providers, research institutes, car
manufacturers and international
organisations) who brought
their ITS units and tested their
interoperability. The early results of
the event were shared and discussed
at a workshop hosted by ERTICO
Partner TNO Mobility in Helmond
(the Netherlands) and supported by
the European projects DRIVE C2X and
eCoMove whose implementations
were tested and successfully proved
to be interoperable.
The high attendance and impressive
results obtained (90% of the
750 executed tests confirmed
interoperability), prove the maturity
of the implementation of cooperative
ITS devices and highlight the great
interest of the ITS community in
testing, as well as the necessity for
companies and institutions to certify
the interoperability of products and
services and their compliance with
standards.
Additionally, this first experience
paved the way to future ITS
interoperability testing events.
The next milestone is the eCall
Interoperability event, the first of
its kind,
hosted by
E R T I C O
P a r t n e r
innovITS ADVANCE in the UK
(21-25 May) and supported by the
eCall deployment project HeERO, led
by ERTICO.
HeERO is the pilot project co-funded
by the European Commission under
the ICT Policy Support Programme
that addresses the pan-European in-
vehicle emergency call service (eCall)
based on the common European
emergency number 112.
According to Andy Rooke,
HeERO project coordinator, “the
implementation of the eCall service
at European level should take into
account two major conditions:
interoperability and cross border
continuity and harmonisation”.
Interoperability means that any
vehicle from any European country
can travel across Europe and use
the eCall service in case of incidents
and count on assistance. In order to
make this possible, interoperability
needs to be accomplished not only
from a technical point of view, but it
needs to cover all of the operational
aspects. On the other hand, the eCall
service can work only if developed in
a harmonised way in all European
countries. The HeERO project will use
the European standards as defined by
ETSI and CEN - European Committee
for Standardisation, and with this
project the European Commission is
aiming to facilitate the deployment
of a pan-European service by 2015.
The first eCall interoperability
event planned in May is part of
this harmonisation process. The
organisers estimate that between 7
and 10 different companies will be
represented with a total of 30 to 40
participants. The focus of this event
will be on testing the end-to-end
eCall chain (from In-Vehicle System
– IVS - to Public Safety Answering
Point – PSAP), following a defined
series of test scenarios. For each
test session, couples composed of
one IVS test device and one PSAP
test device will be formed. The duos
will then test the transmission of the
eCall under different scenarios, and
verify that all information is properly
transmitted and that the protocols
are respected. The test descriptions
and specifications have been written
by a group of selected experts, in
Recent research conducted
by TNS Political & Social at
the request of the European
Commission (Directorate-
General Information Society
and Media - http://ec.europa.
eu/information_society/
activities/112/docs/
report_2012.pdf) showed
that only 26% of citizens in
the 27 EU Member States
can correctly identify 112 as
the cross-border emergency
number and, just 47% of all EU
citizens said they would call
112 in case of an emergency
in their own country.
Nevertheless, according to
the study, the knowledge of
112 as a national emergency
number does not necessarily
correspond to awareness
of 112 as the European
emergency number. In fact,
only 38% of interviewees who
stated that they would call
112 in case of emergency in
their own country also knew
that this number could be used
in other EU countries.
This data shows that the
knowledge of 112 as the
European emergency number
“is not only influenced by the
national situation in terms of
available emergency numbers,
but also by the frequency and
amount of public information
disseminated about the
European emergency number
112”.
7
Did you know?
from previous page...
www.etsi.org/WebSite/OurServices/
plugtests/aboutus.aspx
http://ecomove-project.eu/news-
events/news/etsi-plugtests-watch-
the-video
Useful links
Thanks to François Fischer,
Sébastien Mure and Andy Rooke
for their collaboration in preparing
this article.
collaboration with the participants in
the tests. The tests will be performed
via a mobile network provided and
controlled by innovITS ADVANCE.
Additionally, a workshop titled
“From interoperability testing to
certification” will be held during
the testing operations where the
first results will be shown. The
workshop is
open to a wide audience and attendees
will have the opportunity to learn
more about interoperability testing
and eCall, and to visit the testing
area and meet the participants.
In terms of benefits for the
standardisation process, the event
is expected to provide feedback to
ETSI on the maturity of the standard,
to spot potential errors as well as
providing some feedback on the
testing procedures.
For suppliers and manufacturers,
a feedback on the interoperability
of their technologies against other
suppliers will be given and, according
to the final results, they can consider
what can be done to improve them.
In the same way, François Fischer,
Project Manager at ERTICO, who is
leading the organisation of the eCall
interoperability event, acknowledged
that these events are also pivotal
for projects that have the unique
opportunity of testing their
products and technologies before
they are actually implemented;
Click here to view the video of the first Interoperability event on CMS
http://vimeo.com/channels/etsi
the positive results obtained with the first interoperability event on cooperative mobility services convinced us that projects can greatly benefit from such events
A second interoperability testing
event on cooperative mobility services
is already planned to take place in
June 2012 in Versailles (France).
First Interoperability event: 5 days;
50 participants;
14 companies;
750 interoperability tests;
90% of the tests confirmed interoperability
Next interoperability events
21-25 May 2012 1st eCall Interoperability testing event
Nuneaton (UK)
11-15 June 2012 2nd Interoperability testing event on Cooperative Mobility Services
Versailles (FR)
September 2012 TPEG Interoperability testing event
Brussels (BE)
9
Can you describe FICOSA activities
in the ITS field?
Why have you joined ERTICO
- ITS Europe? What are your
expectations for this Partnership?
proprietary integrated antennas,
specialised manufacturing and
mass production capabilities, in-
house testing and state-of-the-
art measurement equipment,
and a strong IPR portfolio that
ensures a competitive advantage.
Currently, FICOSA’s engineering
group is a team of 20+ years
experience in several areas, such
as RF, software development,
3G/4G communications, GNSS
communications, etc.
Interview with:
Ramiro Quintero, FICOSA
FICOSA is, nowadays, one of
the worldwide leaders in the
development of in-vehicle
systems integrated in vehicles. A
firm commitment to innovative
solutions to our clients has led
FICOSA’s technology to be chosen
already by several customers,
and several projects awarded
for worldwide deployments of
several million units in 2013.
Our automotive customers are
already benefiting from the
advanced integration capabilities
in telematic modules to meet their
demands, as several car platforms
have been integrating FICOSA’s
telematic modules inside since
several months ago.
With today’s automotive
worldwide market and customer
changing needs, wireless access is
expected to lead to dramatically
multiband applications that take
advantage of ubiquitous mobility
and location. Several years ago,
FICOSA was qualified to understand
those trends in the ITS field by
working in close cooperation with
its customers. In that sense, it was
clear that the number of available
communication services within a
vehicle was constantly increasing.
As the users appreciate the utility
of new services, it was not only
the manufacturers of portable
devices, but also car makers
themselves, who wanted to have
these services integrated in the
FICOSA has several expectations in
joining ERTICO. In a world where
increasingly intelligent smart
vehicles and ITS are hitting the
roads, FICOSA cannot stress highly
enough getting in contact with the
right partners. In that sense, one
of the major expectations from
FICOSA is to participate with other
European partners in projects
where we can provide with the
right experience in the fields of
in-vehicle systems (telematic
units), and proper integration
of those systems in the vehicle
by means of our technology.
FICOSA is a Tier-1 supplier with
60+ years experience in dealing
with automotive makers. In
order to be successful, it is key
to establish strong links with the
ITS community, and ERTICO is a
vehicles. The proper functioning of
those services, such as GSM, UMTS,
DCS, GPS, Glonass, etc relied on good
antenna reception.
The antenna is one of the most
definitive elements of a wireless
device. Without it, wireless systems
would not be wireless. Some years
ago, FICOSA decided to address the
aforementioned new market trends
through a portfolio of innovative
antenna solutions in all the different
services used in automobile. It
started with the search of antenna
technologies that could provide more
than conventional solutions. Through
research, FICOSA led notable
advances in the design of two kinds
of traditionally difficult antennas:
the multiband and miniature. FICOSA
committed to support wireless
data communications by providing
specialised and unique antennas.
That commitment to provide with
state-of-the-art antennas benefited
FICOSA’s customers, since FICOSA’s
IPR portfolio ensures a competitive
advantage to our partners and clients.
Needless to say that the benefits of
FICOSA’s expertise do not end there,
however. FICOSA electronics know-
how in the communications and
automotive sectors also led to the
development of innovative telematic
units. Now FICOSA is a full-service
Tier-1 supplier in the telematic
arena that offers full development
of hardware / software solutions,
Are there any projects, activities
or sectors that you are particularly
interested in?
FICOSA is well recognised because
of its excellence in technology.
There are several areas where
FICOSA is leading the innovation
field and, therefore, where we
would like to keep the lead through
partnership. Looking towards
the future, FICOSA’s aim is to be
a natural partner for companies
that are starting to realize that
wireless integration is a crucial
issue. In that sense, FICOSA wants
to strengthen its leading position
by participating in projects that
require innovative solutions in the
telematics area, such as 3G/4G
telephony and GNSS satellite
communications, DSRC, M2M
solutions for car manufacturers
and aftermarket solutions, etc.
Website: www.ficosa.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ficosaofficialpage
Youtube:www.youtube.com/user/FicosaInternational
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/ficosaworld
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ficosa-international
Useful links
11
platform that really encourages that
cooperation among the partners. FICOSA Description
FICOSA is an industrial group based in Spain and a global
leader in research, development, production and marketing of
automotive systems and parts. Founded in 1949, the company,
with headquarters in Barcelona (Spain), holds a team close
to 8,000 employees and manufacturing plants, technological
centres and offices located throughout 19 countries in Europe,
North America, South America and Asia.
The Group invests 4% of its income in R&D, and operates one
of the top technology development centres in Spain addressed
to the automotive, electronics, energy and communications
industries. FICOSA has positioned itself for the future as a world
leader in electronic systems with a global and more diversified
business agenda and an expanded added value product line.
For further information, please contact us:
Avenue Louise 326B-1050 Brussels Belgium +32 (0)2 400 07 00 +32 (0)2 400 07 [email protected]
www.ertico.com
tf