Dedicated short-range communications are one-way or two-way short-range to medium-range wireless communication channels specifically designed for automotive use and a corresponding set of protocols and standards.
In October 1999, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated 75 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band to be used by intelligent transportation systems (ITS). In August 2008, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) allocated 30 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band for ITS.
By 2003, it was used in Europe and Japan in electronic toll collection. DSRC systems in Europe, Japan and U.S. are not compatible and include some very significant variations (5.8 GHz, 5.9 GHz or even infrared, different baud rates, and different protocols).
Singapore's Electronic Road Pricing scheme uses DSRC technology for road use measurement.
Other possible applications were:
Other short-range wireless protocols are IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth and CALM.
The European standardization organisation European Committee for Standardization (CEN), sometimes in co-operation with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed some DSRC standards:
Each standard addresses different layers in the OSI model communication stack.