Deployment and operational use of cooperative intelligent transport systems

A Council Working Party meet today at 3pm with the Council legal service to assess the legal validity of the draft delegated act on Intelligence transport system.

In the coming weeks the Council will decide on the Commission’s delegated act - as the deadline for objections is mid-July.

Aims of the delegated act and public consultation period

The act is based on the ITS Directive,which accelerates the deployment of these innovative transport technologies across Europe

From January 11^th to February 8^th, the European Commission (DG Mobility and Transport) has conducted a public consultation based on an Impact Assessment and a draft delegated regulation. This consultation aimed at evaluating the maturity of connected car communication standards. C-ITS typically involves vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and/or infrastructure-to-infrastructure (I2I) communication, and communication between vehicles and pedestrians or cyclists (‘vehicle-to-everything’, V2X).

WI-FI-based systems are favoured by the European Commission

The Commission favors letting the industry move ahead with Wi-Fi-based systems, but the telecom stakeholders and some automakers say that this solution will slow-down plans to deploy 5G cellular systems.

On Tuesday, ETNO (the Operator’ association), GSMA and 5G-Automotive association issued a final call to block the text and send it back for review. The grouping of stakeholders argues that the European Commission's proposals fails at maintaining a technology neutral approach. All now hangs on how the diplomats interpret the results of a Council legal review.

The objective of this interpretation is to define if in some areas the Commission might have overstepped its competency.

Weak opposition at the Council

The opponents to the text are led by Spain and Finland, but they won’t weight enough to block the delegated act in Council. Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia and a few others have not settled their position. Germany and Italy could make or break the deal, but it looks unlikely either will come down against the Commission.

The text has already been adopted by the European Parliament, this afternoon Working party is likely the last opportunity for opponents to block the text.

The Commission warned that if the delegated act was blocked, it could add two or three years to the time to adopt connected car technology.