In the week from 23. – 27. August 2021 our company successfully participated in the Plug-test of OBU units within the project BiDiMoVe. BiDiMoVe is a project funded by German Federal Ministry of Transport. The project is a joint initiative of companies Hamburg Verkehrsanlagen, Harmurg Hochbahn a Landesbetrieb Straßen, Brücken und Gewässer Hamburg (that is, the local public transport company and road operators). The porject aimed at testing public transport vehicle prioritization on signalized intersections using V2X communication technology (ITS-G5) with the SREM a SSEM messages.
We particiapted with our inovated OBU of type UCU 5.0V. During the test the OBU unit sent priority requests using SREM messages. In case the message had a valid content and was correctly signed using a trustworthy certificate, the BiDiMoVe central system accepted the request and sent the processing status using the SSEM message. Afterwards, priority was granted and the vehicle could pass on green light.
In order to be trusted, our OBU units had to be integrated in the PKI by ESCRYPT. In addition, our generation of SREM messeges and processing of SSEM had to be adjucted to match the requirements of the project. Connection to the board computer was also part of the test. Thus, our unit was connected to the board computer by Trapeze using the IBISplus protocol. After successful connection, our OBU unit was able to access the current vehicle and trip information, such as vehicle number, line, destination, delay, door status etc.
Only two companies out of about six registered participated in the test. We were the only one who tested connection to the board computer. The tests and subsequent discussion with the test organizers confirmed readiness of our units for practical prioritization deployments and thier extraordinary technical features. Our units are now ready for use not only in Czechia but also in Germany and other countries. We also believe that the tests will lead to improvement of the internation standards to better match requirements of the real traffic.