Development and demonstration of C-ITS on NSW roads

This project will undertake research aimed at understanding the impact, considerations and benefits of implementing Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS). The findings will be through comprehensive demonstrations of technologies in various scenarios on NSW roads. This will help shape Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) policy both for the research community and Transport for NSW (TfNSW) in line with the NSW Government’s Future Transport Strategy 2056 and TfNSW’s Towards Zero vision for a safer road network.

The research and demonstration of CAVs will also include the usage of information received from Connected Vehicles (CV) and intelligent infrastructures such as Intelligent Roadside Units (IRSU) and intelligent traffic lights.

Participants

• Transport for NSW
• The Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney

Project background

The project supports a strong collaboration between TfNSW and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) at the University of Sydney, to develop and demonstrate an advanced Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System (C-ITS) on NSW roads. It will leverage the developments and findings from the following current and previous collaborations/projects:

(i) Safely introducing CAVs into integrated transport networks (iMOVE project 1-012) which has:

• proposed safe operating principles in different types of environments with varying complexities focusing on urban and pedestrian environments,
• developed practical navigation strategies and demonstrated autonomous capabilities of an electric vehicle (EV) in the aforementioned environments, and;
• demonstrated the use of intelligent infrastructure to enhance safety of CAVs in limited scenarios without the use of existing TfNSW infrastructure.

(ii) DSRC and cooperative perception (project 1-006) which has developed and tested:

• multiple road user (pedestrians and vehicles) detection and tracking in urban traffic environments using camera-LIDAR sensor fusion, and
• a cross-platform data fusion scheme to assimilate perceived/detected/tracked information from multiple sources over DSRC in a consistent manner.

(iii)Data analytic tools for developing and testing of AVs on urban roads (project 1-044) which is focusing on providing comprehensive Australian driving data and software analysis tools to enable digital twins and allow testing and validation of algorithms by the industry and researchers safely offline, prior to on-road testing.

This project aims to utilise the expertise developed in the projects (i) and (ii) to perform comprehensive experimentation and demonstration of CAVs on NSW roads after seeking relevant approvals for the purpose detailed.

It utilises information from connected agents such as other CVs, deployed IRSU, and TfNSW smart traffic lights/controllers (a traffic light which sends out Signal Phasing and Timing (SPaT) and MAP messages via DSRC) subject to approval from Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS), whilst developing algorithms to ensure safety and passenger comfort in different scenarios and contexts involved in urban settings benefiting from the tools and digital twins developed by project (iii).

The experience of the trial will enable the university to provide technical advice to TfNSW and the research community on CAV policy, and release developed tools and collected data publicly to foster collaboration and further research in this field.

The motivation for the project lies in Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication technology, which has garnered increasing popularity among researchers in the field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and with automobile manufacturers, as it enables a vehicle to share essential information with other road users in a V2X network.

This can be a game-changer for both human operated and autonomous vehicles, which would be referred to as CVs and CAVs, respectively. The connected agents within the C-ITS network will be able to exploit the significant benefits that come from sharing information across the network.

Outcomes of the Survey will be analysed to offer insight into preparing a pathway forward for sustainable transport services in Australia and enable emissions reductions to meet more ambitious decarbonisation targets.

Although the survey is a once-off activity in this research, the opportunity to continue to use the Survey to gather longitudinal data to monitor the success or otherwise of initiatives to increase the sustainability footprint will be of value to all industry partners.

Project objectives

This work will produce reports/papers/presentations with analysis of results, data, algorithms, guidelines and recommendations addressing the following objectives:

1. Understand the impact, considerations, and benefits of implementing C-ITS in urban traffic environments.
2. Support the development of technical advice for CAV policy.
3. Release developed tools and collected data to the public for the AV community.

UPDATE: August 2024

See one of the vehicles in action on the streets of Chippendale, and hear from Dr Stewart Worrall of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics in this news story from Channel 7.