Field test methods for a co-operative integrated traffic management system

Abstract

The European Project COOPERS (Co-operative Networks for Intelligent Road Safety) aims at developing co-operative systems based innovative telematics solutions to increase road safety. In the COOPERS approach, co-operative traffic management is implemented by using intelligent services interfacing vehicles, drivers, road infrastructure and operators. These services which involve various types of embedded systems and wireless communication channels are finally demonstrated in six European countries and evaluated with respect to their influence on driver behaviour and road safety. This scientific investigation requires good system reliability as well as accurate and deterministic system behaviour. The required system properties, including quantitative tolerance limits for temporal and spatial behaviour of the system, were specified as generic requirements in an early phase of the project. Before the final demonstrations, these requirements were verified, including statistical evaluations regarding the degree of fulfilment of single quantitative requirements. This paper presents the test bench and the test methods for validating this complex distributed real-time system. It explains how time synchronisation between the subsystems was handled and how the potential safety-criticality of the system was treated. It gives an insight into the values and parameters measured, and finally it presents some of the first results from the technical validation of COOPERS. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.