STANDARDS DSRC Standards coalition proposed by ITSA

STANDARDS

DSRC standards coalition proposed by ITSA

ITS America is considering formation of a DSRC* Deployment Coalition. The DSRC Coalition would according to ITSA “work with and compliment (‘complement’?) actions taken by USDOT to accelerate demand for interoperable DSRC products and services.” USDOT, it says, has sufficient leverage to develop a standard within the heavy trucking (CVO) area, but no other applications of DSRC have a “a champion with both the authority and the capacity to guarantee a market” for standard-based DSRC.

ITSA says that industry faces the dilemma: “If we define it, will they buy it?” Pure market forces will not, at least in the near-term create demand for interoperable applications. “Without a coalition, chaos will reign in the midterm and an interoperable environment may never come about,” says ITSA. Toll applications it says are “unlikely to drive national interoperability.”

The trade association’s “working vision” is that by 2005 most vehicles in North America will be equipped with transponders for information-based applications such as in-vehicle signing and linkages to on-board computing and when used in conjunction with smartcards will allow electronic tolling and other financial transactions. The Coalition will work for a common operating concept and an umbrella identity and put “positive pressure” on standards making efforts. (Contact Rick Schuman ITSA 202 484 4543)

*Footnote: For the acronymnophobic DSRC is the same as VRC and though it has potential for many applications is mainly used for ETC. Translation: Dedicated Short Range Communications are in effect the same as Vehicle-to-Roadside communications of which Electronic Toll Collection, known here as ‘e-tolling’ is the major application in which radio frequency communications between a tolling point on the roadside and a vehicle carrying a toll transponder are used to identify a toll account and debit a toll balance.

ITSA files for 5.8GHz

ITS America lodged a petition May 19 with the FCC for ‘co-primary’ status covering 75MHz between 5850 and 5925MHz (often called 5.8GHz) for DSRC purposes “for use by intelligent transportation systems.” At the recent ITSA meeting members were urged to file their comments with the FCC. Electronic tolling and heavy truck clearance, the major uses of DSRC in the US are currently conducted in the US in the 902 to 928MHz band where a variety of unlicensed uses have near equal status. Transponders are also being widely read to measure traffic speeds as part of incident and congestion management and their use for parking payment and access control is growing. In 1995 the FCC recognized rights for Location and Monitoring Services (LMS) in the 902-928 MHz band, encompassing fleet management, locating systems and toll collection.

ITSA and the FHWA strongly favor the bid for the new frequency but industry and users are less enthusiastic. At the ITSA annual meeting the manufacturers of toll systems all opposed the filing saying it is unnecessary and indeed damaging because it creates the impression that existing US electronic toll systems will be made obsolete by movement to the 5.8GHz band. The manufacturers, Amtech, Hughes, Mark IV and MFS said that the existing 0.9Ghz band is technically superior and more economical and want to stay with 0.9GHz. Major sacrifices have to be made in cost and loss of signal integrity at the higher frequency, they said, contrary to the ITSA filing which says that 5.8Ghz is “ideally suited” for VRC. In Europe and Asia e-tolling is conducted at 0.9, 2.45 and 5.8GHz. Europe is moving slowly via the CEN standards process toward adoption of a limited-capability extremely-shortrange backscatter VRC system in a narrow 5795-5805 MHz channel, and Japan is planning to deploy highly capable active e-tolling in some 75MHz of the 5.8GHz band.

ITSA says that in the US “the full potential of DSRC (VRC) cannot be realized within the current spectrum allocations for ITS-related services” and that congestion and interference problems may require the extra spectrum. Other engineers say large chunks of mobile communications bandwidth in the 1-2GHz area will be exploited by ITS applications. US manufacturers at the ITSA annual meeting complained that the filing for 5.8GHz may give foreign countries the mistaken impression the US plans to abandon e-toll systems in the 0.9GHz band in an eventual ‘migration’ from existing systems. They deny they face congestion problems at 0.9GHz. The ITSA filing makes clear the association wants to maintain the 0.9GHz band but this subtlety gets lost in discussions overseas. In parts of Europe and Japan the preferred 0.9Ghz band has been kept exclusively for cellular telephones forcing e-tolling to the higher frequencies. (Contact Paul Najarian ITSA 202 484 4137 pnajarian@itsa.org)

Comment: Just as 100 years ago Thomas Edison and his colleagues in New Jersey tried to make DC the electrical standard and decried AC from the upstart Pittsburgh company of George Westinghouse, consumers ultimately benefited from the “chaos” of competition. Establishing a DSRC or VRC standard might well help one or more established companies but could work to the detriment of users if it locks in existing VRC technology. The European CEN standards-making is built around passive backscatter technology and effectively locks out active VRC communications of the kind favored in the US and in Japan. In North America the existing standards making exercise being pushed by the USDOT and ITSA is open to both active and passive but seems tailored toward established narrow band radio communications dedicated to ITS. A 10-fold increase in cellular communications is coming available with digital technology and many experts see this as the most cost-effective way to handle VRC needs (around 1.8GHz). A cellular GSM system proved the most accurate in extensive e-toll trials in Germany. That technology will certainly be cheap and ubiquitous. And there are promising new technologies such as ultra-wide band (UWB) ultra-low power radio that offer the possibility of dramatic improvements in VRC performance and cost. Anyone for a Continuing Chaos Coalition? (Contact tollroads@aol.com Report on UWB in future issue)