Germany – Digital senders – Grüne Ampel-Projekt: On Board Units zur Ampelbevorrechtigung

The Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein GmbH (VHH) is a partner in the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund and operates 180 lines with around 2,500 employees and over 800 buses at 13 depots in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. The vhh.mobility is procuring new and modern C-ITS On-Board Units (OBU) for use in the vehicles to modernise traffic light control. The OBUs serve as the interface between the vhh.mobility vehicles and the traffic lights in Hamburg and the surrounding municipalities. The communication requirements are based on the ITS-CUBE project of the City of Hamburg and are to be implemented and operational by the end of 2027. As part of the ITS-CUBE funding project, the Landesbetrieb Straßen, Brücken und Gewässer (LSBG) commissions the Hamburg Verkehrsanlagen GmbH (HHVA), the Hamburger Hochbahn AG (HHA) and the vhh.mobility (VHH) to jointly develop a future-proof system architecture for public transport and emergency vehicle prioritisation. In this process, the LSBG takes the lead. This is a joint development and responsibility of LSBG, HHVA, HHA, VHH. Based on the current public transport prioritisation, taking into account compatibility, feasibility and availability, a concept for renewal for Hamburg is being developed. At the same time, taking into account the LSBG's framework conditions and the requirements of the transport companies, a target system architecture for Hamburg is being developed. The aim of the project is to create a highly innovative TSP system (Traffic signal priority request) that makes use of the strong technological progress of recent years. In this process, the TSP system is used for the prioritisation of buses at traffic lights (LSA) to improve the reliability and efficiency of public transport (ÖPNV). The trigger for the project is the frequency band change in analogue radio scheduled for 2028, which will no longer be available to the VHH from that date onwards. The subsequent solution to be implemented will be based on the future prioritisation of the C-ROADS standard SREM / SSEM. To achieve this, the approximately 700 VHH buses are to be successively equipped with On-Board Units (OBU). These are able to send messages via ETSI ITS-G5. The ETSI message type SREM will be used to temporarily transport the R09 telegram as part of the LSA communication. The aim is to make a complete transition to ETSI ITS-G5 technology without transmitting the R09 message type. This is preceded by a PoC, which was announced with the pre-information at the end of March 2025.