  Various German and European research projects created several isolated
solutions for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) infrastructure. As a
matter of fact, a lot of those solutions are temporary. The backend
architecture provided by those systems is mostly focused on only supporting
test and evaluation of topics in the context of vehicular based application and
communication. There have been a couple of research projects, which have
evaluated the different communication paths between ITS roadside or central
stations and vehicle stations. The current approach of the research community
is to combine multiple ways of communication to provide the greatest benefit.
Two of the most promising technologies are cellular communication and
Car-to-Car communication. As there have already been research projects which
evaluate the possibilities of one of those communication paths, few research
projects have evaluated how those paths could complement each other. The
structure of the Car2X Systems Network will be based on the Internet, in which
different and independent participants are working equally together over
standardized interfaces and protocols. However, the Car2X Systems Network needs
some special solutions, as the concepts of the Internet are not entirely
applicable to the requirements of the ITS world. Especially the strict security
and privacy considerations of ITS environments are not or only insufficiently
addressed in current state-of-the-art internet services. Furthermore, network
requirements like Quality of Service needs also to be considered. Thus, the
Car2X Systems Network aims to provide open, standardized, secure and
interchangeable interfaces for each possible participant of the ITS
environment.
