Vehicular Communications: Standardization and Open Issues

Vehicular communications provide effective means to improve road safety and traffic efficiency, as well as high definition onboard infotainment services, capable of scaling well from current connected cars to future autonomous driving. Dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) and Long Term Evolution vehicle-to-everything (LTE-V2X) are recognized as being the two most promising technologies to support such communications. For more than a decade, DSRC has been actively promoted by ETSI, IEEE, and other standards organizations. More recently, LTE-V2X is being proposed as an alternative technology based on cellular standards by 3GPP. This article analyzes the ready-to-deploy DSRC and the promising LTE-V2X, compares them according to a set of significant technical and non-technical aspects, and outlines the limitations of both technologies.