Ireland's National Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) Pilot

Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) is piloting Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) services. The pilot in brief: 

  • Delivering road safety, traffic efficiency & environmental benefits 
  • Covering the TEN-T comprehensive roads network 
  • ‘Evaluation and Assessment’ of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) & vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) services (e.g. Hazard Location Notifications, Road Works Warnings & In-Vehicle Signage) 
  • Hybrid communication approach of WiFi (ITS-G5) & standard cellular 
  • C-Roads membership supporting EU wide harmonisation of services 
  • €10.2M co-financed by EU Connecting Europe Facility (CEF)
     
Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) is expected to significantly improve road safety, traffic efficiency and ‘customer experience’ or driver comfort, by helping the driver to make the right decisions and adapt to different traffic situations. C-ITS does this by allowing road users and road operators to share information and use it to coordinate their actions. This cooperative element is enabled by digital connectivity between vehicles and between vehicles and transport infrastructure. 
 
The deployment of C-ITS is an evolutionary process that will start with less complex event notifications, that benefit different stakeholders. These encompass messages about traffic jams, hazardous locations, road works and slow or stationary vehicles, as well as weather information and speed advisory related to traffic light frequencies directly to the driver to deliver a range of benefits. C-ITS services can be transmitted directly into the vehicles in a way that allows users to be informed but not distracted.

C-Roads Platform

The C-Roads Platform is a joint initiative of European Member States and road operators which are installing C-ITS for pilots and later operation. Pilot installations will be harmonised, delivering interoperability to ensure Irish vehicles will receive CITS messages when in Europe and C-ITS equipped European vehicles will receive messages in Ireland. Key elements are the joint development of technical specifications which provide the basis for all pilot deployments, as well as common cross-site testing to achieve interoperability of the deployed C-ITS services. 

Click here to view the Core members of this platform

C-Roads Ireland - ID of Grant Agreement
Grant Agreement under Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – Transport Sector Agreement number: INEA/CEF/TRAN/M2018/1784778
Action No: 2018-IE-TM-0080-S
Action name: C-Roads Ireland
Budget: €10,161,141.5
Maximum CEF contribution: €5,080,570.5
Duration: 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2023 
 
Agency: Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA)
Beneficiary: Department of Transport (former DTTaS)
Implementing Body: TII – Transport Infrastructure Ireland

Since 2019, Ireland has been taking an active role in the implementation of the European Union Cooperative-Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) strategy, improving its membership within C-Roads Platform to “Core” member along with other Member States. 

This €10 Million project, awarded to Ireland in 2019 with 50% funding by the European Union, is allowing Ireland to implement a national C-ITS Pilot.

C-ITS Ireland Pilot

Ireland’s national C-ITS pilot includes the design, procurement, installation, testing, running and evaluation of C-ITS services on the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and within certain sections of Dublin’s road network. The pilot objectives in general, relate to increasing the road operator’s understanding of C-ITS deployment, from procurement through to operation (in a pilot environment) and the need to evaluate the impact of C-ITS in relation to technical performance, socio-economic benefits (including safety benefits) and user acceptance. The outcome from the pilot will enable decisions to be made on how C-ITS can be scaled to maximise benefits.

C-ITS Pilot Operations

The Irish C-ITS pilot involves the installation of an On-Board Unit (OBU) in volunteers’ vehicles. The OBU will then display pre-defined signs, along with short text messages, on a tablet screen to inform drivers of the state of the road ahead with the aim of improving safety on the road network. 

A dedicated smartphone app has also been developed, which can display the same pre-defined signs and text messages on a smartphone screen, for drivers that don’t have an OBU installed in their vehicle. 

C-ITS Pilot Services

The Irish C-ITS Pilot will provide pilot participants, along relevant pilot corridors, with real time notifications using a combination of signs and free-text. 


The piloted services include: 

  • In Vehicle Signage including Regulatory speed limit information, Advisory speed limit information and advanced notice of Lane Merge Left 
  • Hazardous Location Notification including Traffic Jam Ahead and Stationary Vehicle as well as weather specific warnings for Snow, Hail, Rain and High Winds
  • Road Work Warning for Mobile Road Works, Lane closure and Road closure 
  • Dublin Tunnel Closure (NB/SB), delays at Dublin Port and Dublin City HGV Cordon status
Roadworks
Extreme Weather Alert

C-ITS Pilot Location

The pilot will cover 355 KM of the Irish Motorway network including the M50 around Dublin, the N7/M7 to Limerick in the West, the M8 to Cork in the South, and the M1 to the border North of Dundalk. 

  • M7, N7, M8, N1 – C-ITS services supported via cellular communications (dark blue on map) 
  • M50 and M1 – C-ITS services supported by a combination of cellular and ITSG5 Road Side Units (RSU), providing direct digital communication between roadside infrastructure and vehicles (I2V) (light blue on map)

RSUs are road-side devices that transmit messages on the road network status to and from C-ITS equipped vehicles via short range radio signals, in a similar way to home wi-fi routers, but they are specifically designed to communicate with devices moving at high (motorway) speeds.

Image of the four sections of the C-ITS pilot route.

Schedule

DateSchedule
2019-23 Planning, procurement and development of systems/solutions
2023-24 Pilot deployment, operations and trials
2024 Pilot evaluation and assessments, including planning for wider deployment
European Union
C-Roads
Department of Transport

Disclaimer: The content of this article does not reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed in the article therein lies entirely with the authors.