QMIC is Leading Regional Effort in Connected Cars to Improve Road Safety

Doha, November 6, 2012: as regional and global authorities continue their efforts to deploy Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and applications for many valid economic and road safety reasons, a new generation of ITS technologies and services is attracting the attention of the global ITS industry, car manufacturers, regulators, and the R&D community. This new generation is based on the emerging concept where cars can talk to road sensors, to traffic lights and to other cars and vice versa. Welcome to the world of connected cars or the world of Car to X communications and services which is enabled by wireless vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications.

To prepare for the introduction of Connected Car (Cooperative ITS) services and applications in Qatar and the region and to contribute to the global R&D effort in this important area, the Qatar Mobility Innovations Center (QMIC) has launched its own Connected Cars (Cooperative ITS) initiative early in 2012. As part of this initiative, QMIC is developing the first regional industry-compliant connected car platform in conjunction with a set of applications and services that are relevant for local users and needed in regional markets.

Dr. Adnan Abu-Dayya, the Executive Director (CEO) of QMIC commented, “we have made it a priority for us to become the regional leader in developing and delivering second generation ITS innovations in region through our Masarak suite of services and applications. Equally an important, if not more important, part of our strategy is to lead in the introduction of more futuristic next generation ITS systems represented by Connected Cars as it can have significant impact on road safety and it enables us to claim global leadership in this hot and emerging R&D area especially as Qatar is preparing to host major events like the FIFA Worldcup in 2022”.

The “Connected Cars” concept has been identified as the most promising future solution to enhance road traffic conditions and achieve the goal of safer, cleaner, and more efficient and sustainable traffic management solutions. This is mainly due to the new generation of applications and services that will be enabled by this new technology and the associated global impact of these applications especially in relation to the potential of significant reduction of road accidents.

Connected Cars applications can be classified in three main categories:

1. Critical Road Safety Applications: This category includes applications that deal with the safety of road users. For example, vehicles on the road could cooperate to avoid accidents by automatically alerting drivers about hazardous condition that may lead to accidents.
2. Traffic Efficiency Applications: This category includes applications that aim at improving the traffic by using the V2V/V2I communication. As a result, a driver may be informed in real time about the traffic conditions around him/her which allows him/her to adjust their driving behavior or routes accordingly
3. Infotainment and Value-Added Applications: This category includes all applications that aim at improving the comfort of the road users by providing a continuous connectivity to Internet and/or private networks. For example, a car can download media and other data when parked for fueling, passengers travelling together in different cars can enjoy over network video games.

To ensure proper operation and cost effective deployment, global standard organizations and consortia have been and are still active in creating efficient standards and specifications which are required to guarantee the interoperability between different elements of cooperative ITS systems. QMIC is the only regional entity to actively participate in such global standardization effort. For example, QMIC has participated in the first and second Cooperative Mobility Services (CMS) Interoperability Testing (Plugtests™) in Europe, earlier this year and late in 2011. QMIC prototype platform has been successfully tested against prototypes of other big companies in the field, which was carried out to check the interoperability between the different implementations and conformance with ETSI standards. QMIC is also regularly attending technical standard meetings and actively contributing to the ETSI cooperative IT standard that will be finalized in the next few months.

Dr. Fethi Filali, the technology leader of QMIC’s ITS and Connected Cars, said, “As pilot deployments of connected cars started in some global markets, QMIC plans to work with local and global stakeholders to start significant pilots in the local market in the next few years. Such pilots will be extremely important in preparation for future deployments and to resolve usability, technology, business, and regulatory issues. As such, we are significantly increasing our R&D effort in this area and we plan to start limited field testing in the next few months in support of our R&D activities in terms of platform and applications development”.

In addition, last month, QMIC participated in the 19th ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) World Congress held in Vienna, Austria between Oct. 22nd and Oct. 26th. Connected Cars (CopITS) was a large part of what QMIC was presenting in the exhibition to over 300 international exhibitors and 10,000 senior ITS professional visitors, worldwide.

Dr. Abu-Dayya concluded “Our recent participation in the Vienna exhibition and our demonstrations that included our connected car activities delivered a clear message that Qatar does not only represent a big market for the deployment of ITS, but it also intends to create a local industry for the development and delivery of innovative ITS Solutions and Services”.

About QMIC

QMIC is an applied research and development center founded by Qatar University in Collaboration with and at the Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) to leverage the use of emerging mobility and wireless technologies in creating solutions and smart applications for use in a number of markets including Transportation, Utilities, Healthcare, and Environment.

QMIC was founded with the objective of filling the existing gap in the region for institutions focusing on applied research and solutions delivery.

QMIC has strategic objectives in the areas of local capacity building, innovations leadership, and in becoming a virtual R&D center for local and regional partners.

For further information please contact
[email protected], +974 44592702.