Vehicle messaging

Abstract

A vehicle messaging transmission method, a vehicle messaging transmitter, a vehicle messaging reception method, a vehicle messaging receiver, an infrastructure node method, and infrastructure node and computer program products are disclosed. The vehicle messaging transmission method, comprises: detecting a vehicle event; and transmitting both a vehicle-to-vehicle message over a vehicle-to-vehicle radio link, the vehicle-to-vehicle message identifying the vehicle event and a vehicle-to-infrastructure message over a vehicle-to-infrastructure radio link, the vehicle-to-infrastructure message identifying the vehicle event. In this way, rather than periodically transmitting location messages, instead messages are only transmitted when a particular event occurs. This helps to reduce the volume of messages since the messages are only transmitted when an event occurs. Also transmitting a vehicle-to-vehicle message enables messages to be transmitted quickly, with reduced latency. Furthermore, because the messages are only sent when an event occurs, privacy and security concerns are reduced. As will be explained in more detail below, transmitting a vehicle-to-vehicle message enables other vehicles which receive the message to receive that message quickly and to respond rapidly to the event, while the vehicle-to-infrastructure message can be used to authenticate the validity of the vehicle-to-vehicle message and provide additional assurance to the receiving vehicle that the message is genuine.