SAFESPOT and WATCH-OVER User-Forum Workshop
"Cooperative Systems for Road Safety"

Please click here to read about the keynote speech from Mr. A. Coda (EUCAR)

Please click here to read about the keynote speech from Ms. I. Heiber (EC)

Please click here for the programme of the User Forum Workshop

The joint WATCH-OVER and SAFESPOT User Forum workshop took place on January 21st and 22nd at the premises of the University of Stuttgart, Germany. The workshop brought together stakeholders in the area of the cooperative safety (V2V and V2I) including the special role of vulnerable road users (VRU) and created an opportunity where the WATCH-OVER and SAFESPOT concepts and developments were discussed, reviewed and updated.

The workshops program included presentations by key experts both of the projects consortia and of external attendees, such as the European Commission and EUCAR as well as interactive working groups involving all interested participants.

After a short opening and the presentation of future scenarios of cooperative safety applications by Roberto Brignolo (CRF), an overview on the SAFESPOT European project was given by Achim Brakemeier (Daimler). The main objective of the SAFEPOT project is the enhancement of road safety through V2V and V2I communication and the idea of the safety margin assistant.

• Roberto Brignolo (CRF): SAFESPOT overview

Following Fabien Bonnefoi (Cofiroute) gave an overview on the SAFESPOT infrastructure based applications, which are developed within the sub-project 5 COSSIB of SAFESPOT and Laurent Jaques (Volvo) introduced the SAFESPOT vulnerable users applications. Guilio Vivo (CRF) presented the SAFESPOT vehicle based applications, which are developed in the sub-project 4 SCOVA of SAFESPOT.

• Fabien Bonnefoi (Cofiroute): SAFESPOT applications for infrastructure
• Laurent Jacques (Volvo): VRU accident avoidance
• Guilio Vivo (CRF): Vehicle based applications

Part A ended with Luisa Andreone (CRF), who gave a short introduction on the main goal and the applications of the WATCH-OVER European project.

• Luisa Andreone (CRF): The WATCH-OVER project

Starting with Part B Gerhard Noecker (Daimler) introduced the related project WILLWARN, which is a sub-project of the EC co-funded PReVENT Integrated Project.

• Gerhard Noecker (Daimler): WILLWARN

Paul Mathias (Siemens) then gave an overview on the approach of the CVIS Integrated Project, which is focused on vehicle-to-infrastructure communication and traffic efficiency. Following the TRACKSS project was introduced by Roberto Brignolo (CRF). The main goal of TRACKSS is the development of new systems for cooperative sensing and predicting flow, infrastructure and environmental conditions with a view to improve road transport operations safety and efficiency.

• Paul Mathias (Siemens): CVIS
• Roberto Brignolo (CRF): TRACKSS

Part C started with three introductory presentations:
Han Zwinenberg (TNO) gave an introductory presentation on the SAFESPOT sub-project BLADE, which deals with paving the road from experiment to real life and did also discuss the challenge of reduction and allocation of deployment risks, where he focussed on strategies for risk identification and later mitigation. Arjan von Leijsen (TNO) focused on the non-technical view of the SAFESPOT system and showed the benefits of the system from both the public and the private view. Kiliaan van Wees (Free University of Amsterdam) was then facing the challenge of sharing responsibilities and allocating risks and showed the need to explore roles and responsibilities of the private and public actors which are involved in the development of the SAFESPOT system.

• Han Zwijnenberg (TNO): BLADE
• Han Zwijnenberg (TNO): Reduction and Allocation of Deplayment Risks
• Arjan van Leijsen (TNO): Non-technical view of SAFESPOT
• Kiliaan van Wees (Free University of Amsterdam): Sharing responsibilities and allocating risks

As Part C was meant to serve as a consultation workshop for stakeholders, it was subsequent divided into three sessions:

Session 1: Technical and user issues for SAFESPOT deployment
Moderator: Phillippus Feenstra (TNO)
The main objective of this session was to discuss existing uncertainties and give recommendations on how to minimise the user and technology related risks.

Session 2: Full scale deployment of SAFESPOT
Moderator: Tom Alkim (Rijkswaterstraat)
The objective of this session was to identify possible barriers for full scale deployment scenarios, the focus was on the costs and benefits of the system, and also the relation to the different actors involved in full scale deployment.

Session 3: Responsibilities of actors in the chain
Moderator: Marion Robery (Thomas Miller)
The session focused on liability issues and how insurance might be used to reduce liability for the actors involved.

The overall results of the Part C can be summarised as following:

• Stakeholder interaction leads to better insight and better advice.
• There is a need for technical and organisational complexity reduction and better understanding.
• There is a need to explore a real cooperation between actors.
• The question whether Traffic Safety is a public or a private/market issue is posed.
• SAFESPOT community of interest, lead by a person or a board of directors could overcome after project dip and could speed up deployment process.
• It is needed to build up momentum.
• It is needed to explore other stakeholders for Business Case.
• It is needed to coordinate actions between stakeholders.

Day 1 of the User Forum workshop was closed by Angelos Amditis (ICCS). There is a framework of projects, both EC co-funded and national, which all work on the area of cooperative systems. They include a wide variety of technologies and quite a long list of research questions. The future research needs lye within the following areas:

• Cooperative HMI
• Cooperative FOT
• Cooperative Systems basic technologies (impact on safety, environment)

• Angelos Amditis (ICCS): Conclusions

After the keynote speech by Irmgard Heiber (EC), Day 2 of the Workshop started with the introduction of the Interactive Working Groups, which were aiming at encouraging the discussion on enabling and disabling factors for the deployment of cooperative systems.

Session 1: Ad hoc dynamic networks: towards a common architecture
Moderator: Achim Brakemeier (Daimler)
The issues discussed concerned the VANET architecture and its scope, the data fusion and the stability of the system, the scalability and the standardisation.

• Achim Brakemeier (Daimler): Session 1

Session 2: Technical platforms and local dynamic maps
Moderator: Christian Zott (Bosch)
The different kind of platforms, i.e. Software and Hardware platforms, were defined and discussed as todays developed platforms can be used in future ITS projects.

• Christian Zott (Bosch): Session 2

Session 3: Applications of cooperative systems
Moderator: Fabien Bonnefoi (Cofiroute)
Question such as:

• What is a cooperative application?
• Are cooperative systems really new applications or an improvement of existing solutions?
• How to deal with driver ergonomics matters related to onboard and road side equipment devices?
• How to ensure long term usage of cooperative system?

were raised and answered.

• Fabien Bonnefoi (Cofiroute): Session 3

Session 4: Communication technologies for vulnerable road user detection
Moderator: Luisa Andreone (CRF)
The communication technology for the VRU detection was the main issue of this session.

• Luisa Andreone (CRF): Session 4

With 120 participants from industry as well as from public institutions coming from all over Europe the Common WATCH-OVER and SAFESPOT User Forum Workshop was a great success and the outcomes will most certainly help to further develop and enhance cooperative systems for road safety.

We thank all speakers and participants for their interest and attendance.