This is according to the results and recommendations presented by the company at the final event of the European R&D project AUTOCITS, which tested autonomous driving on roads in Lisbon, Madrid, and Paris. The objective: to contribute to adapting regulations, traffic control centers, and infrastructure to facilitate the circulation of autonomous vehicles in urban areas through the development of C-ITS services.
The event, held at the headquarters of the Directorate General of Traffic (DGT), was opened by the DGT's Deputy Director General, Jorge Ordás, and included the participation of other DGT officials, as the DGT is part of the consortium; representatives from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport; and the European Commission; as well as some of the project partners: the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), the Pedro Nunes Institute (IPN), the National Institute for Research and Development in the Digital World (INRIA), and Indra itself. The National Road Safety Authority (ANSR) and the University of Coimbra (UC) complete the project consortium, which has received funding from the European Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program.
The C-ITS services developed at AUTOCITS enable secure communication and data exchange between vehicles, users, and infrastructure, using the European ITS-G5 communications standard. This provides valuable information to managers, users, and connected and autonomous vehicles, expanding their "vision" and facilitating decision-making through real-time notifications about roadworks, traffic congestion, and adverse weather conditions, among other examples.
At the event, attendees were able to view live images on the video wall at the DGT headquarters in Madrid, from the traffic cameras of the A-6 BUS-HOV lane, showing one of the autonomous vehicles used in the project passing through. This vehicle reduced its speed and changed lanes, taking into account notifications sent from the control center, as well as information from its own onboard systems (ADAS).
Project Achievements:
The AUTOCITS project has contributed to the development and validation of cooperative intelligent architecture, communications, and services, deployed them in three metropolitan pilot projects, and validated the guidelines that the C-ROADS platform provides to all European projects in this field. Furthermore, not only have these standards been adopted, but AUTOCITS has also collaborated with this platform, providing information on the tests it has conducted and their results.
The 14 autonomous and connected vehicles used in the three pilot programs have covered more than 6,000 km during testing, communicating with control centers and traffic infrastructure via 22 road units from four different providers. Their interoperability has also been verified through transnational testing, in which the systems and services developed in one city's pilot program were tested in the other participating capital cities to ensure their proper functioning.
In this way, the pilot projects in Lisbon, Madrid and Paris will facilitate the large-scale deployment of these smart services throughout Europe and promote the development of the Atlantic Corridor of which they are a part, one of the routes considered a priority for the development of European transport infrastructure.
Collaboration for harmonised regulation and development
In addition to designing, testing and contributing to the standardization of C-ITS services and facilitating their extension, the AUTOCITS project has studied the regulation of autonomous driving at the European and international level to promote its harmonisation and has laid the foundations for the development of future legislation on autonomous driving in Portugal, where the project has carried out the first tests of autonomous cars in the country.
European push towards clean, connected, and automated mobility.
The development of the AUTOCITS project has run parallel to the European Commission's progress in autonomous and connected driving. The latest step has been the adoption this month of new rules that accelerate the deployment of C-ITS services, enabling progress towards the EU's "triple zero" target for emissions, congestion, and accidents.
According to the European Commission, starting this year, vehicles, traffic signals and motorways will be equipped with this technology that enables digital connectivity and cooperation between vehicles and transport infrastructure, which will "improve road safety, traffic efficiency and driving comfort by helping the driver make the right decisions and adapt to the traffic situation."
Indra is also playing a prominent role in the C-ROADS project. It is a partner in the Spanish national consortium, led by the Directorate General of Traffic, and acts as a technology provider, developer, and implementer of C-ITS services in the Madrid and Cantabrian pilot projects. It has a fundamental role in the development and implementation of various services, as well as the control center software and roadside equipment that enables the transmission of information to vehicles.
Indra is also working to enhance the cybersecurity of autonomous and connected vehicles in the SECREDAS and SCOTT projects. In both projects, it is developing new security technologies for communications, information sharing, cloud computing, and distributed intelligent processing, which will increase the privacy and security of automated systems and data from all types of connected vehicles.
