Real Experience with IPv6 Communications in Highways José Santa 1, 2* , Pedro J. Fernández 2 , Fernando Pereñíguez 2, 3 , and Antonio F. Skarmeta 2 1 University Centre of Defence at the Spanish Air Force Academy 30720 San Javier, Murcia, Spain jose.santa@cud.upct.es 2 University of Murcia, 30100 Murcia, Murcia, Spain {josesanta, pedroj, pereniguez, skarmeta}@um.es 3 Catholic University of Murcia, 30107 Murcia, Murcia, Spain fpereniguez@ucam.edu Abstract Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) are intended to improve safety and efﬁciency of roads worldwide. In the last ten years multitude of research works have served to reach ITS spec- iﬁcations within standardization organizations such as ISO, ETSI or IEEE. Platforms implementing such recent standards have bursted into the international ITS scene under the Field Operation Tests (FOT) nomenclature, however, many initiatives in this line have bet on pure ITS communication pro- tocols, instead of thinking of the importance of interconnecting vehicles and the road infrastructure with the future Internet based on the Internet of Things (IoT) concept. IPv6 is essential in this frame- work, and not only because of interoperability, but also due to the advantages provided by Internet protocols in vehicular networks, such as global reachability, network mobility, auto-conﬁguration, easiness of deployment or the use of extensively tested protocols, among others. For this reason, we present an IPv6-based communication platform considering both the ITS standardization and the Internet viewpoints. The key contribution of the work remains in the deployment of the network design in real highways under the umbrella of the FOTsis project, and its evaluation by using totally operational software and hardware units. The results show that the IPv6-based vehicular network performs correctly and is able to work with different communication technologies (3G and 802.11p), abstracting applications from network management duties. Keywords: IPv6, Intelligent Transportation Systems, cooperative ITS, performance evaluation 1 Introduction Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) are ITS where participating entities (e.g. cars, charging stations, trafﬁc lights, etc.) continuously communicate and exchange information among them with the objective of improving safety, sustainability, efﬁciency and comfort beyond the scope of stan- dalone ITS. In other words, C-ITS magniﬁes the beneﬁts offered by autonomous ITS, brings major social and economic beneﬁts, and lead to greater transport efﬁciency and increased safety. C-ITS sup- ports decreasing road fatalities, improving the capacity of roads, diminishing the carbon footprint of road transport, and enhancing the user experience during travels. Although there are many vehicular services envisioned for the short, medium and long term, these are usually categorized in the next groups [1, 2]: • Safety. These services are intended to reduce accidents and safeguard vehicle occupants and pedes- trians lives. Some examples are collision avoidance, accident notiﬁcation or emergency vehicle approaching. Journal of Wireless Mobile Networks, Ubiquitous Computing, and Dependable Applications, volume: 6, number: 3, pp. 36-53 * Corresponding author: Department of Engineering and Applied Technologies, University Centre of Defence at the Spanish Air Force Academy, 30720 San Javier, Murcia, Spain, Tel: +34-968-189943 36