Start C-ITS in Cities now – Why Waiting is Not an Option

Like human drivers an autonomous vehicle uses the information about its environment as basis for its driving decisions. Sensing the environment is a challenging task for autonomous vehicles. To improve the environmental perception a lot of effort was spent in the development of sensor-based perception and interpretation algorithms in the last decades. Mostly a lot of implicit information is combined to create an estimation of the current situation. For example, the detection of an emergency vehicle is based on a combination of multiple camera and microphone signals to estimate if an action of the autonomous vehicle is necessary. With cooperative communication the information source could directly provide all necessary information to all receivers in many situations. Furthermore, there is information which will never be detectable with on-board sensors, like the currently remaining signal time and future state and timing information of a signalized intersection or objects which are concealed for the onboard sensors due to obstacles. This paper will outline why OEMs and tier 1- supllier should spend effort now to develop harmonized cooperative standards and profiles together with infrastructure providers and operators. This is especially considering the current C-ITS deployment motivation within cities and the future benefits for cities and OEMs which result from this effort. Therefore, a shift in perspective towards realizing cooperative communication within cities is done in this paper. Furthermore, the consequence of the ongoing radio access layer discussion will be addressed.