ITS-based cooperative services development framework for improving safety of vulnerable road users

Innovative advanced systems have been proposed for improving the safety and efficiency in the mobility of road users in Europe. Particularly for road transport, new ITS-based Cooperative Services for preventing accidents in critical points and situations are emerging where road users, vehicles and a sensorised integrative infrastructure are the main actors. With this motivation, and taking into account the road infrastructure´s capability to incorporate new Cooperative Systems technology, this study aims to provide a first set of guidelines for speeding up the convergence process among a broad set of multi-heterogeneous sensor data fusion, high level situation understanding and assessment, and communications capabilities, all of them necessary for the development of advanced ITS safety-related services previously mentioned. Analysis is focused on vulnerable road users (VRUs) and on how this kind of services will contribute to provide more intelligent and safer urban traffic environments. A typical scenario involving VRU is studied as a preliminary analysis of the impact that these systems have on the safety of a specific group of road users. Some of the underlying principles of the proposed architecture will be validated in a field operational test FP7 European project.