Preliminary test on the Modena Automotive Smart Area Backbone

The network infrastructure is a key factor for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Only reliable networking support can enable the low latency required by ITS for safety-related applications, where effectiveness, reliability, and timeliness play crucial roles. These characteristics are required to reach autonomous driving and, tailored for a living lab, are required to test it and design novel applications for connected vehicles and, generally speaking, enhance road safety. This paper introduces a test campaign performed to stress the Modena Automotive Smart Area (MASA) backbone to efficiently evaluate the performance of the network infrastructure before starting the deployment of ITS services, including the installation of smart cameras and Road-Side Units (RSUs). The suite of tests has been designed to accommodate the automotive requirements, with the goal of evaluating the network latency in uncongested and congested situations, including the presence of QoS requirements. The results show that the MASA network is suitable for safety-related applications, introducing less than 100ms of induced latency in severe congested events for all the tested spots. This result is achievable thanks to the backbone characteristics and the partnership with the municipality that shares the physical network with the university, avoiding IST black boxes.