Background
The ITU Collaboration on ITS Communication standards (
CITS), which serves as an international platform for the coordination of globally acceptable and harmonised standards on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), established, in September 2023, the Expert Group on Communications Technology for Automated Driving (
EG-ComAD). At its second meeting, on 17 May 2024, the EGComAD established the first of its working groups:
WG1 on “Vehicular communications for merging automatically into congested lanes”.-
WG1 is collecting automotive requirements to enable merging automatically into crowded lanes reliably by vehicles with DCAS or ADS active;
- This effort is aimed for a possible next generation of vehicular communications that addresses automotive safety, possibly by 2032.
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Topics in Focus
The initial implementation of automated merging is expected to be for light vehicles with automated driving systems (ADS) or driver control assistance systems (DCAS) active, that reliably require a place to merge into a new lane.
WG1 has the task of determining the size of the vehicles to be supported and the related space needed. Larger vehicles will be handled later, if at all. A non-exhaustive list of items for WG1 is:
- Define the requirements for vehicles to merge automatically, safely, and with the required reliability.
- Build a consolidated functional safety perspective for automated merging across major vehicle manufacturers.
- Collect large, complex examples of the merging environment in all major jurisdictions as well as appropriate other jurisdictions.
- Determine the penetration of equipped vehicles necessary in each jurisdiction to achieve the determined reliable automated merging by vehicles with ADS or DCAS active.
- Identify the level of failure that authorities in different jurisdictions might be able to accept.
Work on requirements for automated merging identified by other groups will be included.
