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The objective of the TIARA project (Trusted Integrity and Authenticity for Road Applications) is to provide the National Road Authorities (NRAs) with an increased understanding of what is required to achieve a trustworthy and secure data infrastructure.

The availability of data has allowed road users and NRAs to benefit from new business models. To deliver these benefits, the data infrastructure must be trustworthy and trusted, i.e., secure, with assurances that it is managed to achieve privacy for all stakeholders.

As more C-ITS services develop in Europe, and road users access and share more C-ITS data through open border countries, NRAs will need to ensure greater interoperability through common approaches to connected systems. Data trust is therefore paramount.

CEDR is undertaking a series of projects to research how NRAs can maintain and share the digital road infrastructure data and improve the use of third-party data by NRAs.

An experienced team of European research organisation have gathered under the coordination of AESIN/Techworkshub. To address this complex topic, we recognise that the best approach will be through network engagement with many organisations and individuals with experience and technical expertise, preferably independent of any specific solution vendors.

Linking the three broad research areas identified to expertise of the consortium organisations provides a natural project delivery structure, which will benefit CEDR and all the stakeholders involved.

A key TIARA objective is to deliver the project in close liaison with CEDR and its members, as well as the two research projects funded in the CEDR 2022 Research call on Data, Topics A (DROIDS) and B (PRESORT). The liaison ensures that results are fully compliant with CEDR and Programme Executive Board (PEB) expectations. The liaison also guarantees that the DROIDS and PRESORT projects have the possibility to utilise TIARA results and vice versa.

Working Package

Project Management, Coordination, and Engagement: This WP will ensure efficient overall coordination and day-to-day management of the project, including the technical coordination, optimal project processes and deliverables, maximum cooperation between consortium partners and WPs, and on budget and on time delivery of all WPs.  This WP will also provide Quality Assurance that the study objectives meet the requirement of the PEB.  The administration will also include organisation of the kick-off meeting (KOM), final presentation, and progress reporting throughout duration of the project.

PKI Guidance Development:  The primary goal of this WP is to provide practical guidance for the implementation of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for C-Roads. The purpose is to assist the National Road Authorities in understanding how they can implement the proposed European C-ITS trust model3 for protecting C-ITS data. This work package addresses the research need “Roll-out of PKI systems” and the associated expected output, as raised in the DoRN:

• Review of the current stake of PKI roll-out in European NRAs (State of the art)
• Analysis of the issues and problems that NRAs will encounter when developing PKI infrastructure.
• Advice for building the organisations required to run a nationwide PKI infrastructure that is interoperable with Europe, and advice on outsourcing PKI services.
• Lessons from other industries (finance, healthcare, etc.) on operation of a PKI infrastructure.
• Lessons from other industries (license plate registry, etc.) on governing of identities.
• Guidance on the use of role-based and identity-based PKI.
• Analysis resources required to run C-Roads PKI infrastructure, including how the cost and computational requirements scale, and the administration required for certificate and key management.
• View of commercial and public organisations offering X.1609 PKI functionality.
• Advice for developing PKI systems that provide trust across multiple parties, for example extending the trust infrastructure to road workers or maintenance companies.
• Project partner SINTEF will perform all the work in this WP, with updates to partners Traficon and TML in order to align WP3 and WP4 with WP2.

Legal and Ethical Aspect: The WP objective is a review of the legal and ethical ramifications for NRAs when making use of C-ITS data, and of how these change the role of the NRA. This includes the following objectives raised in the DoRN:

• Guidance on the responsibility of the road authority to ensure that data is accurate, and the accountability when inaccurate data is sent.
• Guidance on best practice for the communication of data and its limitations with road users.
• Views on how to be open and transparent with roads users on the use of data.
• Review of how communications around the use of C-ITS systems and data can be ensured to be inclusive of road users across technical ability.
• Guidance on developing C-ITS services that are inclusive of road users across technical abilities.
• Lessons from other industries on the ethical use of data.

Privacy in C-ITS Applications: The main role of this WP revolves around ensuring that road users can trust that the road operators are using data in a lawful and sensible manner. As more data about road operators’ customers is being collected by the grace of C-ITS, it becomes essential that road authorities strive to be open and transparent about it. This is especially the case for the subsequent (re)use of such data sets. Hence, road authorities should understand the types of information, characteristics, behavioural patterns, etc. that can be inferred about the customers from the data that is collected on them. To this end, this WP will help NRAs to understand the privacy impacts of the processed road user location data, as well as providing recommendations to improve the location privacy-preservation. Consequently, WP4 will address an academic review and analysis of the privacy implications of C-ITS, mainly centred around the following questions/aspects raised in the DoRN:

• Overview of research into connected vehicle re-identification or deanonymisation and research into associated preventive measures.
• Analysis of the information about road users that could be leaked from C-ITS data and the potential impact on the data subject.
• Analysis of the current measures and recommendations for additional measures to make re-identification reasonably impossible.
• Analysis of pitfalls that would increase the risk of re-identification: what to avoid in future use cases? What data cannot be added?
• Recommendations for how the understanding of the privacy provided by the system can be maintained as new use cases and as the use of data becomes more widespread.

Consortium

AESIN | Sintef | Traficon | Transport & Mobility Leuven