POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. Today, DSRC technology is very use in the ITS world. It is recognized as an efficient standard for car-to-infrastructure and car-to-car communications and it has, for sure, a role to play on future ITS systems. But, from the SafeTRIP prospective, it has to be seen more as a complementary technology than a competitive one. In effect, one of the advantages of the DSRC is that it is nowadays widely use on motorways for road tolling. But, if we look into new European directives, we can foreseen that, in a near future, vehicles will have to pay a toll on EVERY road. Thus, it would imply to install a lot of gantry all other Europe, because of the short communication zone around each gantry, and this cost would not be negligible for toll collection operators. Indeed, we can look at DSRC as a complementary mean of communication for the Greenbox. Because of the low prices of the devices, we can easily integrate a DSRC interface in the Greenbox in order to enable efficient car-to-car communications or to provide car-to-infrastructure capabilities in any zone covered by a DSRC network (motorways, cities,…). Note that task 4.3 is dedicated to study the integration of the Greenbox with car-to-x communications technology and will address the DSRC topic. Passive tags modulated and reflected the received power from the transmitting equipment (called backscatter transmission)
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. The position of SafeTRIP regarding IR technology is the same than for DSRC technology (see DSRC description). IR technology presents interesting capabilities regarding ITS systems but cannot be seen as a competitor for S-band communications because of is short range of action. IR is not designed to be a global communication media and SafeTRIP approach is to consider IR as a complementary communication media. For example, IR technology could be used in SafeTRIP project for enforcement purposes or car-to-car communication media. The major weakness of IR technology is that, in general, DSRC has been preferred in tolling systems and in ITS in general for short range communications. Thus, In SafeTRIP, we will focus on DSRC more than on IR technology.
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. Wireless networks, especially if no broadband transmission is needed, can cover areas more than 100 m radius. Therefore Wi-Fi (or Wave) systems are capable of supporting vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) or vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication on areas where the satellite coverage is low, or not available. As a short range application, Wi-Fi networks can be used at any dedicated points in the transportation network, e.g. at toll gates, highlighted junctions etc. High bandwidth data transmission as the main advantage, and the limited range, as shortcoming has to be considered in SafeTRIP applications. State-of-the-art InVANET communication (see MANET, VANET section) involves Wi-Fi technology.
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. VANET technology is capable of both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, therefore is to be considered as competing technology to SafeTRIP. For example, collision warning, road sign alarms and in-place traffic view will give the driver essential tools to choose the best route along the way.
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. Cellular communication networks have high coverage around the transportation network all over Europe. 3G mobile communication technology enables high speed data rate transmission. Since this type of communication technology is widely used, equipment is affordable. On the contrary broadband transmission is available mostly in urban areas only.
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. ORBCOMM has been clearly identified as a strong competitor for SafeTRIP. It addresses the topic of mobile messaging systems using satellite connectivity and is already on the market. However, SafeTRIP, as an advanced research project, can take advantages of several capabilities of W2A. First of all, the frequency band used by ORBCOMM limits the overall system data rates. It is difficult to assess the effective ORBCOMM system’s bitrates but we can objectively think that the system is not able to cover all vehicles in Europe. Concerning the price of the service, SafeTRIP shall be able to propose better pricing options for several reasons: • ORBCOMM is not able to use broadcast capabilities of the satellite technology and SafeTRIP has put a lot of emphasis on the broadcast ability. Indeed, SafeTRIP plans to use DVB-SH based solution in order to optimize transmission costs • Due to the choice of low earth orbit, if ORBCOMM wants to increase its spacial capacity, the operator will have to send several satellite to ensure a 24/7 coverage. On the contrary, SafeTRIP system needs only one additional GEO satellite to double is spatial capacity • ORBCOMM satellites are fully dedicated to the ORBCOMM system. It means that the whole satellite OPEX has to be funded by the system. In contrast, SafeTRIP will take advantage of a shared satellite capacity coming from an external satellite operator. This will allow SafeTRIP to ramp up its OPEX according to its need in capacity. The previous remarks show the pertinence of SafeTRIP project compared to ORBCOMM. Finally, note that Orbcomm has been growing rapidly but is still trading in the red. It has cut losses from $12.4m to $9.1m in 2005 when revenue grew by 43% to $15.5m. However, the net loss rose from $6.3m to $10.2m in the six months to June 30 on revenue that rose 97% to $12.6m. One reason it needs to raise money is the need to launch a new generation of satellites.
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. Stolen vehicle recovery is a service that can be addressed by the SafeTRIP system. But the main idea of SafeTRIP is to avoid the installation of multiple boxes onboard of cars. Unfortunately, this idea of centralization between different boxes is not applicable to the stolen vehicle recovery problem since the box needs to be hidden in the car to protect it against the thieves. In practice, SafeTRIP will try to discuss with LoJack manufacturers to explore the possibility for “collaboration” between the Greenbox and their devices. If we are able to define an interface between the LoJack device and the Greenbox, SafeTRIP platform could offer several services to LoJack. For example, they could take advantage of the possibility to send updates to their OBUs via broadcast or extend their system coverage using satellite. For these reasons, SafeTRIP approach with regards to LoJack shall be that of seeking cooperation more than competition.
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. Coyote Systems is a service provider. Its focus is on providing a paid service to the end user rather than on the technology and device supporting the service. Thus, even if they provide services that we could provide using the SafeTRIP platform, Coyote cannot be perceived only as a competitor. In fact, one of the objectives of SafeTRIP is to provide a platform opened to third party developers such as Coyote. In the past, Coyote Systems has shown their interest to implement their services on other platform (apple iphone for example) and if SafeTRIP is able to impose the Greenbox onboard of private vehicles, we can easily imagine synergies between both actors. Another point that strengthens SafeTRIP’s position compared to current coyote PND is the satellite coverage. Currently, Coyote system proposes a pan European service at a fixed price. In practice, they are subsidising the extra charges (roaming) of mobile operators when an end user use the service abroad. This allows them to maintain the fixed price and not to pass on additional costs to the end user. Since the usage of coyote abroad is currently limited, their business model is working but SafeTRIP has a great role to play if we were able to propose a pan European satellite coverage at low cost! In conclusion, SafeTRIP role will be to collaborate with Coyote more than to compete with them. In case of collaboration, each party would benefit in terms of revenue: SafeTRIP can take advantage of Coyote assets (existing services, client database), while Coyote can offer a fixed price pan European connectivity at no extra internal cost
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. The SafeTRIP position regarding Trafficmaster will be the same than the position regarding Coyote system (SubSection 2.6). Trafficmaster will be seen as a service provider and, by consequence, as a potential customer., Trafficmaster’s added value is based on the content provisioning (traffic information) and on the data processing (tracking system, messaging) more than the connectivity provision. Trafficmaster uses O2’s GPRS infrastructure to connect their devices and can switch to S-Band satellite connectivity if SafeTRIP is able to demonstrate its competitiveness. In addition, it is interesting to see that Trafficmaster proposes solutions for mobile phone because it illustrates their willingness to address the largest market independently of the hardware used. In conclusion, SafeTRIP will try to address Xxxxxxxxxxxxx’s needs in a bid to seek collaboration rather than see them as competition.
POSITION REGARDING SAFETRIP PROJECT. Currently, the service provider sends the coded messages to the appropriate FM radio broadcaster for transmission as an RDS (Radio Data System) signal within normal FM radio transmissions. The TMC data are received by the vehicle radio and antenna, and decoded by a TMC decoder. This reconstructs the original message, using a database of event and location codes, which is presented to the driver as a visual or spoken message. In that context, we shall ensure that SafeTRIP platform supports traffic message channel to allow service providers to switch easily from terrestrial FM radio to S-band satellite.
