Field operational tests for cooperative systems: a tussle between research, standardization and deployment

After a decade of research and technology development, road cooperative systems based on vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside infrastructure communication are currently in a trial phase. Major field operational tests (FOTs) are carried out to verify the operation of cooperative systems in real environments and assess the impact of applications on road safety, traffic efficiency as well as driver behavior and user satisfaction. Standards to achieve interoperability are developed and a potential introduction of a cooperative system is prepared. An FOT is exposed to various requirements from research, standards and deployment that are -- at least partially -- adverse to each other. We study the dependencies for the case of the DRIVE~C2X project, a pan-European FOT for cooperative system. The paper puts the technologies used in the FoT, particularly focusing on communication, into the context of research activities for cooperative systems. We show that the FOT is based on technologies for a minimal cooperative system that is ready to be introduced and sustainably deployed. Further, we identify research concepts and technologies that did not find their way into the basic cooperative system yet and discuss potential directions for future enhancement of the minimal system.