COOPERS - Co-operative Systems for Intelligent Road Safety

COOPERS stands for CO-OPerative SystEms for Intelligent Road Safety and is a European research and development (R&D) and innovation activity within the Call 4 (Co-operative Systems and in vehicle integrated safety systems) of the 6th Framework Programme by the European Commission - Information Society and Media.Hereby COOPERS, as an Intelligent transportation system application, focuses on the development of innovative telematics applications on the road infrastructure with the long term goal of a “Co-operative Traffic Management” between vehicle and infrastructure, to reduce the self opening gap of the development of telematics applications between car industry and infrastructure operators.The goal of the project is the enhancement of road safety by direct and up to date traffic information communication between infrastructure and motorised vehicles on a motorway section.COOPERS started in February 2006 with the duration of 48 months and a total Budget of more than 16.800.000 €.

Overview

COOPERS provides vehicles and drivers with real time local situation based, safety related status and infrastructure status information distributed via dedicated Infrastructure to Vehicle Communication link (I2V). See also Vehicle telematics.

Vision

Vehicles are connected via continuous wireless communication with the road infrastructure on motorways exchange data and information relevant for the specific road segment to increase overall road safety and enable Co-operative Traffic Management.

COOPERS solution

The COOPERS approach extends the concepts of in vehicle autonomous systems and vehicle to vehicle communication (V2V) with tactical and strategic traffic information provided in real time by the infrastructure operator. Infrastructure to vehicle communication (I2V) in this respect will significantly improve traffic control and safety via effective and reliable transmission of data fully adapted to the local situation of the vehicle (ensemble of vehicles). I2V will extend massively the responsibility of the infrastructure operator compared to today in terms of accuracy and reliability of information to advice drivers.The highest effect of I2V communication will be achieved in areas of dense traffic also known as areas where risk of accidents and traffic jams is extremely high. The real time communication link between infrastructure and vehicle can also be used vice versa for V2I communication utilising vehicles as floating sensors to verify infrastructure sensor data as primary source for traffic control measures.

3-step approach in COOPERS

The pragmatic 3-step approach within COOPERS allows the road operators to introduce new systems and technology components without major interrupts of the managed traffic and hence high acceptance by the road user community:

Step1: Improve road sensor infrastructure and traffic control applications for more precise, situation based traffic information and driver advice. In parallel the On-Board-Unit within the vehicle will be connected to the infrastructure via a wireless I2V communication link.

Step 2: Development of a communication concept and applications able to cope with the I2V requirements in terms of reliability, real time capability and robustness and considering different transmission technologies like DAB, GSM/GPRS/UMTS, Microwave and Infrared. Establish a link to use road data from tolling and other sensors for decisions within the Traffic Control Centre (TCC).

Step 3: Build up a permanent communication link between the TCCs of the different road operators with near to real time data transmission as well as a permanent I2V link between the infrastructure and the vehicles on specific motorways. Standardised exchange of vehicle data to TCC operators.

Core competences

• Safety related Traffic management and information services
• On Board Unit extension and integration
• Roadside Transmitter
• Bi-directional I2V link & Co-operative Traffic Management
• Roadside and vehicle based data acquisition
• Traffic Control Centre – TCC Applications
• ITS system architecture

COOPERS services

Within the first year the following services which will be demonstrated in COOPERS were defined:

• Accident/incident warning
• Road/weather condition warning
• Roadwork information
• Lane utilization information
• In-vehicle variable speed limit information
• Traffic congestion warning
• Intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) with infrastructure link
• Road charging to influence demand
• International service handover
• Route navigation – Estimated journey time
• Route navigation – Recommended next link
• Route navigation – Map information check of current update for digital maps
For comparison see also Emergency warning system for vehicles.

Test sites

The COOPERS concept will be validated in 3 demonstration sites, which differ in their layout regarding Trans European Networks (TEN), approach to traffic information and their targeted objectives efficiency or safety. A geographical representation of the three demonstration sites can be seen in the figure.

Demonstrator 1 is focused on the North-South-Corridor from Bavaria (DE ~230km) passing through western Austria (AT ~110km) into Italy (IT ~230km). He is the efficiency gain on using road infrastructure while adapting to rapidly changing transport demands. This demonstrator will also be used to show the international handover of COOPERS-services.

The objective of Demonstrator 2 is to validate the effective co-operation of safety related road infrastructure systems and vehicles systems from a traffic management, a user and a system perspective. The ~80km corridor from Rotterdam (NL) to Antwerp (BE) has been chosen as a suitable demonstrator as this is one of the most intensively used road sections in Europe.

Demonstration Site 3 consists of the Berlin city highway A100, A111 and A113 with a total length of ~25km. The section concerning COOPERS demonstration is equipped with 34 variable message signs, ~450 radar detectors and ~125 induction loops.

Demonstrator 4 is located in the southwest and the northeast part of France and focuses on real time information services and eCall integration. The objective of the Demonstration Site 4 is to improve the quality of the data.

Consortium

The COOPERS consortium comprises 34 partners of 14 different EU countries (AT, CH, CZ, DE, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SE, UK), AustriaTech is the project Co-ordinator.

References

* http://www.coopers-ip.eu
* [http://www.austriatech.org/index.php?id=91&L=0 http://www.austriatech.org/Projekte/International/Straße/Coopers]
* [http://www.first.fhg.de/owx_1_3842_1_2_0_ada4734326d2ba.html http://www.first.fgh.de/coopers]
* [http://www.fav.de/Pro_COOPERS.html http://www.fav.de/Pro_COOPERS.html]
* [http://www.tm.tfh-wildau.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=29 http://www.tm.tfh-wildau.de/coopers]
* http://www.competence-research-centres.eu/highlights/single-view/article/141/4/

ee also

* Telematics
* Intelligent vehicle technologies
* Intelligent transportation system