City settings and mobility challenges

Bordeaux is located in the South West of France; it comprises five authority areas and is home to almost one million people. It is an important European hub and is managed by 2 innovative urban and inter-urban road management systems. It also has an important international port.

The ring road of Bordeaux is managed by the road operator DIR Atlantique while the urban area is managed by Bordeaux Métropole and the city of Bordeaux. An important project named Alienor 2 is on-going and has an ambitious goal of providing interoperability between the urban and inter-urban systems, data and mobility functionalities.

Bordeaux is greatly congested since the city is in the middle of an important corridor for reaching Spain and Portugal. Furthermore, many inhabitants which work in Bordeaux live outside of the city. Finally, the Bordeaux region has many touristic attractions including wine areas and beaches. This congestion issue is the main mobility concern of Bordeaux. Many actions have been finalized or are on-going like for example transforming the 2-lane ring-road to 3 lanes in the 2 directions. Also, by deploying several tramway lines, car sharing, bicycle sharing and many more in order to push people to prefer public transport instead of the car. Bordeaux Métropole and DIR Atlantique are also actively deploying C-ITS use cases through projects like C-The Difference, C-MobILE, Scoop and C-Roads.

C-ITS services

The services Motorway and Urban Parking Availability, Road Works Warning, Road Hazard Warning, Emergency Vehicle Warning, Signal Violation Warning, Green Priority, GLOSA, Flexible Infrastructure, In-Vehicle Signage, Mode & Trip Time Advice, and Probe Vehicle Data are deployed in Bordeaux as large scale deployment through the android App “CTD – Connected Mobility”. The App displays the information provided by these services with pop-ups appearing above the favourite user navigation app like Waze or TomTom. All the services are available by cellular long distance communication and some of them are completed by ITS-G5 short range communication. Furthermore, the services Warning System for Pedestrians, Cooperative Traffic Light for Pedestrians, Emergency Brake Light, Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control, Slow or Stationary Vehicle Warning, Motorcycle Approaching Indication, and Blind Spot Detection have been developed as proof of concept and essentially based on ITS-G5 communication technology. As for the locations of implementation, the cellular services are available in the entire city of Bordeaux including the ring road.

C-ITS infrastructure

The C-ITS services in Bordeaux rely on multiple data sources from different road operators. DIRA provides VMS information for the ring-road and TIPI provides road events. Bordeaux Métropole provides multiple data essentially through open data. Atlandes TMC provides rest area and VMS information for the A63 from Bordeaux to Spain.

Regarding back-end systems, a GeoMessaging Platform developed by NeoGLS is responsible for the generation of the C-ITS messages and its broadcasting taking into account the end-user’s location. ITS-G5 Roadside Units and On-Board Units developed by NeoGLS are deployed in the north of Bordeaux and on emergency vehicles.

C-ITS App

The large-scale use cases are available in Bordeaux through a unique Android app named « CTD – Connected Mobility ». The app can be downloaded free of charge from the Play Store or by following this link : https://bit.ly/ctd-connected-mobility. An iOS version is currently under development and will be published in December 2021. The main functionalities are the following:

• Designed for car drivers
• Use in parallel with a GPS navigation app
• Providing information and warnings while driving
• Alerts displayed over other apps
• Selection of enabled services
• 3 languages available (FR, EN, ES)

End-users engagement

The Android App in Bordeaux is available to anyone free of charge on the Google Play Store. The download is anonymous but by analyzing the comments it is clear that the users are essentially light vehicle drivers in Bordeaux and truck drivers on the ring-road and on the highway. The Automobile Club South West through FIA and the Aquitaine cluster Digital Aquitaine support the dissemination of the App.

Local partnerships

• NeoGLS: Deployment leader and provider of the C-ITS material and software necessary for the deployment of the C-ITS use cases in Bordeaux.
• Gertrude: Responsible for the management of the traffic lights in Bordeaux. Supporting the GLOSA and Green Priority services, as these require an interaction with the traffic lights managing system.