Summary
The deployment of ITS-G5 (a.k.a. IEEE 802.11p and pWLAN) has already started and several vehicle manufacturers are in their commercialization phases, where VW has officially announced its launch of pWLAN in 2019. Renault and PSA will equip 1000 vehicles each with 802.11p technology within the pre-deployment project SCOOP@F already at the end of 2017. Further, PSA’s and Renault’s approach uses two frequency channels out of the three existing ones in the 5.875-5.905 GHz band. In the near term, a split of the frequency band at 5.9 GHz will ruin SCOOP@F. An introduction of LTE-V2X without performing compatibility studies within ECC is against the process of when a new technology wants access to an existing designation with already available services and technologies.
Day one applications using ITS-G5 are launched first but day two applications are just around the corner requiring more frequency channels (e.g., platooning). All vehicle manufacturers need to select an interoperable wireless technology for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communication, otherwise, the benefits of increasing traffic safety will diminish and the potential of saving lives disappears.It is a fact that ITS-G5 and LTE-V2X cannot talk to each other, i.e., they are not interoperable. The usage of two different technologies at 5.9 GHz aiming for the same purpose, where OEMs select differently, will not reduce the number of accidents and incidents on European roads. Thus, for any new or emerging technology, including the above-mentioned, interoperability is the key because there needs to be a concept to communicate and understand all other (existing) vehicles. ITS-G5 is already in place and automotive graded hardware exists.