ITS Powerplay on Display
The Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) industry is a curious playground for infrastructure and service providers creating the systems to efficiently move human beings in, around, through and between cities. These companies have untoward influence over transportation infrastructure decision making with the main objective being it seems, to preserve their monopolistic market stance built around proprietary standards for wireless communications.
This proposition reminds me of the “Seinfeld” episode when weasel-ly mailman Newman, denied confidential information by Jerry, diabolically reminds Jerry that “when you control the mail, you control… inforMATION.” This ITS industry is a little like that – always lurking in the background with the reins of transportation infrastructure deployment firmly in its grasp.
The ITS industry is poised on the brink of its biggest gambit yet – unfolding in Brussels this week – as the European Parliament prepares to vote on the so-called Delegated Act which will have the impact of mandating dedicated short range communication technology – known as ITS-G5 in Europe – for prioritized wireless safety communications between cars and between cars and infrastructure. Passage of the act will more or less force wireless carriers seeking to connect with this system to employ additional compatible hardware or find a means to interoperate with an otherwise incompatible system.
ITS leaders appear to have lost this battle in the U.S. and China and are hoping to work their magic on European legislators as a last-ditch effort to preserve their market dominance. In the process they no-doubt hope to obscure the reality that ITS leadership thus far has locked Federal and municipal governments into expensive, proprietary systems.
In spite of the word “intelligent” in its acronym, ITS partisans tend to avoid contact or engagement with adjacent industries represented by wireless carriers, car companies and high-tech firms. ITS suppliers have sliced and diced toll payment systems and other such critical infrastructure in such a way as to lock in proprietary systems and solutions making technology upgrades or even supplier switch-outs prohibitively expensive or complicated.
The insular nature of the ITS industry globally is reflected by its conference events where wireless carriers, car companies and high tech firms are rarely exhibiting or even attending. This closed off approach has had the effect of jacking up the cost of infrastructure enhancements and retarding the advancement of systems intended to improve operational efficiency and reduce collisions, congestion and emissions.
The U.S. and China have begun to turn away from this ITS-based approach to enhancing transportation networks and infrastructure. China has shifted its emphasis entirely to 5G and C-V2X technology, turning its back on DSRC technology and its ITS roots. The U.S., too, has turned to the cellular industry for emergency services (FirstNet) and for related vehicle notification applications (i.e. Haas Alert design win for emergency vehicle notifications based on cellular technology – awarded by the Department of Homeland Security.)
ITS executives have long played off car makers and transportation officials by emphasizing the cost of cellular connectivity vs. the “free” wireless communication technologies used in traditional ITS applications. The onset of 5G and C-V2X technology with its PC5 interface capable of enabling network-less communications has radically altered the conversation.
ITS advocates continue to claim that C-V2X and 5G will require network connections for direct communications – but this is simply not true. V2X communications using LTE-based C-V2X, or soon-to-arrive 5G, technologies will enable direct car to car or car to infrastructure communications without a network connection.
Leading suppliers of DSRC gear – including on-board and roadside units – got the message a long time ago. Most of these companies – including Cohda Wireless, Savari Networks, Autotalks, and others – have created C-V2X enabled versions of their DSRC gear. They can read the writing on the wall: “DSRC is dead.”
Still EU legislators forge onward with a vote expected this week. This vote could go either way with a final determination not expected until next week. An affirmative vote on the Delegated Act will lock European transportation operators and car companies into an outdated and potentially expensive solution already surpassed in performance by wireless cellular technology – which comes with a range of additional advantages such as greater range.
To be clear, in a world dominated by the onset of IoT connected things technology and the onrush of 5G, pushing a competing technology that is inferior, expensive and incompatible is foolhardy to say the least. Adoption of the Delegated Act will only reduce Europe’s competitiveness in the global automotive and transportation industry and de-couple European auto makers from the engine of growth comprising 5G adoption in cars.