Automotive Working Group Charter

The mission of the Automotive Working Group is to develop Open Web Platform specifications for application developers, enabling Web connectivity through in-vehicle infotainment systems and vehicle data access protocols.

Join the Automotive Working Group

Start date	1 May 2018
End date	31 March 2021
Charter extension	See Change History.
Chairs	Paul Boyes, Invited Expert Peter Winzell, Volvo Patrick Luennemann, Volkswagen
Team Contacts	Ted Guild (0.2 FTE)
Meeting Schedule	Teleconferences: 1-hour calls will be held weekly in addition to topic-specific calls. Face-to-face: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year.

Scope

This group will develop service specifications for exposing vehicle data and other information around vehicle centric functions.

A common pattern will be described to unify the style the different service interfaces are using.

The specification(s) produced by this Working Group will include security and privacy considerations.

Members of the Working Group should review other working groups' deliverables that are identified as being relevant to the Working Group's mission.

Services may include but are not limited to

Vehicle Data

vehicle brand, model, year, fuel type, transmission type, steering wheel position, tire pressure, oil level, wiper position, lights, doors, windows and seat settings as well as navigation, trip computer data, climate control data, speed, RPMs, acceleration, gears, …

media

media control, track lists, …

navigation

route manipulation, points of interests, …

Out of Scope

This Working Group will not define or mandate implementation details including vehicle, network or sensor protocols for sharing data between the vehicle data network and sensors. The vehicle data bus network and protocols are OEM specific and vary from vehicle to vehicle.

However, to facilitate interoperability among vehicle OEMs and encourage adoption of the specifications, the group may informatively reference existing suites of protocols, either directly in the deliverable(s) or in a non-normative companion Note.

Success Criteria

In order to advance to Proposed Recommendation, each specification is expected to have at least two independent implementations for every feature defined in the specification.

Each specification should contain a section detailing any known security or privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.

Testing plans for each specification, starting from the earliest drafts.

Deliverables

More detailed milestones and updated publication schedules are available on the group publication status page.

To promote interoperability, all changes made to specifications should have tests.

Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Expected completion indicates when the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state.

Normative Specifications

The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:

Vehicle Information Service Specification (VISS)

The Vehicle Signal Server Specification defines the semantics of exposing vehicle information through the WebSocket protocol. This specification is dependent upon the Vehicle Signal Specification, as defined by GENIVI.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation

Expected completion: [Q2 2018]

Restful Service Interface (RSI)

This specification expands on VISS to expose services through interfaces in a restful style. The group will create a common pattern which will be used for services in the vehicle universe. The pattern could be used for vehicle signals, media, navigation and other services for in vehicle functions.

Draft state: Member Submission

Expected completion: [Q2 2019]

typical vehicle services

The behaviour and interface of a number of services within the scope of a vehicle will be described using the pattern requested above. Ideas for service to be described are: vehicle signals, media, navigation and other services for in vehicle functions.

Draft state (for some): Member Submission

Expected completion: [Q2 2020] and earlier

Adopted Working Draft:

Vehicle Information Service Specification
Latest publication: 13 February 2018

Reference Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/CR-vehicle-information-service-20180213//
associated Call for Exclusion on 6 March 2018 ended on 19 March 2017
Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2014/automotive/charter-2016

Other Deliverables

Other non-normative documents may be created such as:

Use case and requirement documents;
Test suite and implementation report for the specification;
Primer or Best Practice documents to support web developers when designing applications.

Coordination

For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, performance, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD and at least 3 months before CR, and should be issued when major changes occur in a specification.

Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:

W3C Groups

Automotive and Web Platform Business Group: This group developed the initial version of the Vehicle Information & Vehicle Data APIs and will likely continue to explore new use cases and other automotive and web related topics.
Device and Sensors Working Group: The Device and Sensors Working Group defines the Network Service Discovery API that addresses some of the use cases that are in scope of the Automotive Working Group.
Privacy Interest Group: The Automotive API Working Group intends to secure reviews on its deliverables from the Privacy Interest Group to ensure they offer the right level of protection to users.
Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group: To ensure the Vehicle Information and Data APIs support accessibility requirements, particularly with regard to interoperability with assistive technologies, input to use cases and inclusion in the deliverable of guidance for implementing the group’s deliverables in ways that support accessibility requirements. The APAWG will also coordinate review from the Mobile Accessibility Task Force.
Web Platform Working Group: This group defines relevant or potentially relevant specifications including Manifest for Web applications, HTML5 Web Messaging, Service Worker and The Web Socket API.
Web Application Security Working Group: The Web Application Security Working Group is developing security and policy mechanisms to improve the security of Web Applications and enable secure cross-site communication.
Web Security Interest Group: The Automotive API Working Group intends to secure reviews on its deliverables from the Web Security Interest Group to ensure they offer the right level of security.

External Organizations

GENIVI Alliance: The GENIVI Alliance is an automotive initiative that uses Linux and open source technology to define an automotive infotainment system that would adopt the APIs developed in this Working Group.
Automotive Grade Linux (AGL): Automotive Grade Linux is a collaborative open source project developing a common, Linux-based software stack for the connected car and part of The Linux Foundation.
AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture): AUTOSAR is an open and standardized automotive software architecture, jointly developed by automobile manufacturers, suppliers and tool developers.
Open Connectivity Foundation/IOTIVITY: The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) is an industry group whose stated mission is to develop standards and certification for devices involved in the Internet of Things (IoT) based around Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)
OMAUTO: The OMAUTO mission is to establish a venue for discussion between telecom and automotive at a technical and industry level to establish any network, any automobile communication
SAE: SAE International is a global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries.

Participation

To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication.

The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.

Communication

Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed on a public repository, and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Automotive Working Group home page.

Most Automotive Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.

This group primarily conducts its technical work on the public mailing list public-automotive@w3.org (archive) and on GitHub issues. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.

The group may use a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 3.3). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress, but consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote, and record a decision along with any objections.

To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email and/or web-based survey), with a response period from one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised on the mailing list by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.

All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available, or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs or the Director.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 3.4, Votes), and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (Version of 5 February 2004 updated 1 August 2017). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Document license for all its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 5.2 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Charter History

Note:Display this table and update it when appropriate. Requirements for charter extension history are documented in the Charter Guidebook (section 4).

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.3):

Charter Period	Start Date	End Date	Changes
Initial Charter	3 February 2015	31 December 2016	none
Rechartered	8 December2016	31 December 2017	The Auto WG switched from a WebIDL based specification to a service specification.
Charter Extension	1 January 2017	31 March 2018	none
Charter Extension	7 March 2018	30 April 2018	none
Rechartered	1 May 2018	30 June 2020	Inclusion of Restful Service Interface (RSI) as an extension of Vehicle Information Service Specification (VISS) and the discontinuation of Vehicle Information API Specification (VIAS).
Charter Extension	1 July 2020	31 December 2020	none
Charter Extension	31 December 2020	31 March 2021	none