Brussels, 12/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - Two European standards organisations, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), confirmed on 12 February that the basic standards requested by the European Commission to make connected cars a reality have been fully completed. The norms adopted will ensure that vehicles made by different manufacturers can communicate with each other.
Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, welcomed this important step to help bring these new “smart” cars on to the roads by 2015 and said: “With this set of standards ready, connected cars are on the right track. Direct communication between vehicles and infrastructures will ensure safer and more efficient traffic flows, with great benefits for drivers & pedestrians, our environment and our economy”. She underlined the importance of harmonised and coherent management of radio spectrum by member states in helping to ensure that these kinds of initiatives worked effectively. She warned that “we also need more consistency in rules that underpin fast broadband networks. Our fragmented spectrum policy puts the brakes on our economy”.
Intelligent transport has been a priority of the EU research and innovation programmes. EU-funded research projects have played a major role in the development of the standards, with more than €180 million invested in some 40 different projects working on cooperative systems since 2002. These projects provided their results to ETSI and CEN/ISO, which in turn used them to develop the standards. The Commission said that the European car industry, which employs 13 million people, will thus be at the head of the race to develop the next generation of cars. (IL/transl.fl)