4. Autonomous and communicating: why?

The communicating vehicle is not a new concept. We tend to forget it, but the first large-scale deployments of infrastructure-vehicle communication date back to the early 1990s, with RDS-TMC (see the Internet sites section of the To find out more). It's a one-way means of communication, from traffic control centers to vehicles, with limited throughput, but it's perfectly suited to what it was designed for: delivering incident and traffic information. Since RDS-TMC is integrated into car radios and geonavigators, it can now be estimated that almost all vehicles are equipped with it.

The autonomous vehicle will also be a communicating vehicle, on the one hand, to extend its perception of the environment and, on the other, to take into account information, recommendations or instructions from operators (road network operators, emergency and rescue services, etc.)....