The Government's groundbreaking Connected Vehicles Framework, which sets out service levels expected from the market, has developed to the point where ‘soon we'll be able to talk about funding and pilots and how we move from policy into delivery', a top Department for Transport (DfT) official has said.

Head of road infrastructure technology, Darren Capes, gave an update on the programme at the Transport Technology Forum (TTF) conference.

The CVS Framework promises to establish the foundational toolkit for connected services in highways and transport, allowing the services to be ordered into groups and providing a mechanism for considering policy.

The CVS team has now largely mapped out the use case groups, sub-groups and service level descriptions for each element.

The use case groups are:

  • A Safety and Emergency
  • B Traffic Management
  • C Advanced Vehicle Capabilities
  • D In-Vehicle Experience and Convenience
  • E Vehicle Management and Maintenance
  • F Support for Authorities
  • G Fleet and Logistics

The sub-groups for safety, for instance, are:

  • A1 Safety information for vehicle occupants:
  • A2 Safety information for road-transport operations:
  • A3 Emergency services:
  • A4 Automated Emergency Call Systems (eCall/AECS):
  • A5 VRU protection:
  • A6 Support for Authorities
  • A7 Natural disaster and crisis management:
  • A8 In-vehicle notifications and warnings:

Taking service A1, safety information for vehicle occupants, the description states: ‘Vehicle Connectivity makes it possible to provide real-time notifications and warnings to built-in systems and vehicle occupants about possible hazards. These notifications and warnings are based on received information, integrated with direct sensing by the vehicle.'

Mr Capes told the TTF audience that the main government intention ‘is to try and build an open framework that allows services to develop in as open a way as we possibly can'.

While he suggested a certain amount of protectionism around new technology was only to be expected at first, he argued that ‘the market is developing at the moment in a slightly dystopian way, where we buy services and data, which locks you into services, and services don't necessarily integrate'.

‘There are service providers out there who maybe don't want to tell you that much about where their data is coming from and how it's derived. There are ways in which you can get locked into providing consumer services for particular years.'

He continued: ‘Going forward, we want to maximise the benefits of the services that data can provide for all road users. We want services to be delivered equitably across the whole network. So we want services that are delivered in a more utopian way, where the standards and the data is as freely available, maybe not free to purchase, because there's still cost and reward in here, but freely available, open, and able to be shared and used to build the services that work for people.'

The CVS framework has three main workstreams: stream one is infrastructure to vehicle, stream two is vehicle to infrastructure and stream three is two-way connectivity

The third stream ‘is maybe more embryonic,' Mr Capes said, whereas streams one and two were about doing things with data that is available now.

He went on to say that the Manual for Smart Streets, a guidance document hitherto ‘underused' would be updated on the back of the CVS work. ‘One of the pieces of work that we will be taking forward in parallel to the CVS work, is rethinking the Manual for Smart Streets and turning it into a single point of guidance for how we deliver digital services.

It will ‘start to become the central resource to support local authorities and supply chains to deliver technology, he said, likening it to the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges but ‘for the digital realm'.

‘It will guide you through the process of evaluation, procurement, operation, and even decommissioning. The whole lifecycle of how you deliver technology, this will help provide the support to do that.'