Dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) is a bi-directional communication link between the on board equipment and the road side equipment. Bi-directional means that messages can be transmitted downlink, which is from the roadside, or uplink, which is from the on board equipment. In 1992, CEN TC278 started the development of standards for DSRC and for a number of applications that could make use of DSRC, among them electronic fee collection (EFC). In 1995, the main part of the technical work was finalized and during 1997 the standards were formally approved. The standards were approved as pre-standards. This enabled industry and users to develop products and systems, while at the same time allowing two to three years to gain experience from real implementations using the standards. The CEN DSRC standards immediately gained broad acceptance in Europe and in many non-European countries all over the world. DSRC according to the CEN standards is used in 25 countries all over the world. The number of installations is thousands and the number of on board units is greater than two million. Using the experience gained, the standards have now been slightly revised. The main bulk of the revision has focused on removing non-used options or features and on improving the clearness and readability of the documents. Very few technical amendments have been necessary. The documents are now in the formal acceptance process and will hopefully soon be adopted as EN12253, EN12795, EN12834 and EN13372.
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