Traffic management for Connected and Automated Driving (TM4CAD)
TML investigated the role of infrastructure at different levels of Infrastructure Support for Automated Driving (ISAD) to create Operational Design Domains (ODD) for automated vehicles. The team identified a set of ODD attributes, developed system architectures for information exchange, and offered recommendations to national road authorities based on insights from real-life cases and the integration of perspectives from system developers and road authorities.
The TM4CAD project focused on improving cooperation between automated vehicles and traffic management to ensure their safe introduction. This is especially important for higher levels of automation, which rely on information about the so-called Operational Design Domain (ODD). The ODD describes the conditions under which an automated system can operate safely, such as infrastructure characteristics, weather conditions, and traffic situations.
To ensure this safety, systems for automated vehicles need to know in real time whether ODD constraints are exceeded. While internal sensors such as cameras and radars collect a lot of information, additional data from external sources, such as weather sensors and traffic data platforms, is essential. This collaboration not only makes the technology safer, but also gives road users and managers an understanding of what the system can and cannot do.
To gain a full understanding of traffic management for automated vehicles, TML collaborated on the following tasks:
- Identify the full range of ODD characteristics, based on experience working on ODD problems in standardisation activities and in other related research projects.
- Integrate the very different perspectives of developers of automated systems and road authorities and operators by engaging with them.
- Formulate recommendations on how traffic management and automated vehicles can best cooperate with developers and car manufacturers.
