The C-ITS (Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems) Platform officially endorsed its Final Report on Thursday 21 January. FIGIEFA has been very actively participating in this process since its beginning in November 2014, and has worked in favour of a framework fit for the all stakeholders, including the independent sector.
The C-ITS Platform was set up to bring all interested stakeholders together (Vehicle Manufacturers, Member States, road authorities, AFCAR members, other interested stakeholders e.g. CLEPA, Insurance Europe, Lease Europe) to agree on a shared vision for C-ITS deployment in Europe. With the adoption of the eCall legislation, the Platform was given the task of exploring the different requirements for an “interoperable, standardised, secure and open-access platform”, meant to ensure third party access to in-vehicle data in the digital age.
FIGIEFA, alongside with colleagues and experts from other aftermarket associations, participated actively in the process, most notably in the working group devoted to ‘access to in-vehicle data and resources’ (WG6), where the independent sector strongly argued for a truly open telematics platform, in contrast to the vehicle manufacturers’ Extended Vehicle Concept.
The C-ITS Platform was – unsurprisingly – unable to agree on a model for data access, but progress was made in terms of elaborating and fine-tuning the Open Telematics Platform concept, as well as agreeing to guiding principles. Moreover, interim solutions such as Shared Server and an OBD+ physical interface have also been conceptually addressed in the Report.
Taking into account the C-ITS Platform Final Report and with the eCall Mandate to examine the technical requirements for an “interoperable, standardised, secure and open-access platform” by 9 June 2017, the Commission launched, already on 23 December 2015, a tender for a study to investigate this question, to be launched in approximately March 2016 and to conclude by the end of the year.
The C-ITS Platform itself will move into a second phase, the form and content of which is still to be determined, whilst the Final Report will also feed into the GEAR 2030 process, which was launched in January this year.